Brett Roberts v. DAYMON WORLDWIDE, INC. and OMNI GLOBAL SOURCING SOLUTIONS, INC.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
BRETT ROBERTS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DAYMON WORLDWIDE, INC. and
OMNI GLOBAL SOURCING
SOLUTIONS, INC.,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 16-16474
D.C. No. 3:15-cv-00774-WHO
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
William Horsley Orrick, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted September 7, 2018
San Francisco, California
Before: BERZON and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and CARDONE,** District
Judge.
FILED
SEP 27 2018
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable Kathleen Cardone, United States District Judge for the
Western District of Texas, sitting by designation.

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Brett Roberts appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment for
Daymon Worldwide Inc. and Omni Global Sourcing Solutions, Inc. (“the
Companies”) on his claim that he was not fired for “Cause” under the terms of his
Employment Agreement. We affirm.
1. Roberts contends that the Companies have not carried their burden to
prove the destroyed Certificates of Origin [COOs] were under five years old and,
as a result, that he caused a violation of law.
The Companies presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could infer
that the shredded COOs had been created within five years and thus were subject to
federal records retention requirements. See 19 C.F.R. § 10.1009(c)(1)1; 15 C.F.R.
§ 30.10(a); 15 C.F.R. § 762.6. Former employee Jim Duffy testified that at least
some of the destroyed COOs were “probably” created after the acquisition and
were thus still within the regulatory retention period. Roberts testified that he
recalled Duffy telling him shortly after the shredding that some of the destroyed
COOs were created post-acquisition, and Roberts did not suggest that Duffy was
wrong in this regard. Roberts also testified that he believed copies of the destroyed
COOs could be recovered from clients who, he explained, “would have to” retain
1 Daymon exports goods to Korea. Records related to such transactions are
subject to the retention requirements of 19 C.F.R. § 10.1009(c), which specifically
applies to exports from the United States to Korea.
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the records due to the retention requirements, suggesting he believed the COOs had
been created within five years of destruction. Additionally, Defendants submitted
a letter to customers listing invalid COOs that Duffy had signed, all of which were
less than five years old; although no direct evidence identifies any of those records
as those that were shredded, a jury could infer that, as the shredded records were
invalid COOs, they were likely among those about which the customers were
notified.2
This evidence, taken together, is sufficient for a jury to find that the
shredded documents were less than five years old. Roberts introduced no
countervailing evidence at all indicating that the shredded COOs were more than
2 Roberts contends that some of this evidence was not properly before the
district court, as the Companies did not specifically cite all of this evidence in their
briefing at the trial level. The Companies, in turn, point out that relevant records
were attached to the summary judgment briefing, but not cited. As a general
matter, “only those items referred to in the parties’ . . . summary judgment
memoranda below may be considered. . . . In a complex case such as this, the judge
was not required to examine thousands of additional pages of record even if they
were physically presented to him.” Harkins Amusement Enters., Inc. v. Gen.
Cinema Corp., 850 F.2d 477, 482 (9th Cir. 1988); see also Downs v. L.A. Unified
Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1003, 1007 n.1 (9th Cir. 2000). However, as Roberts did not
raise the five-year argument in the context of this issue before the district court, he
cannot now object that the Companies failed to present sufficient citations earlier
in the litigation to counter an argument they had no reason to address. And, in any
event, Roberts himself relied on Duffy’s statements regarding the age of the COOs
in both his Complaint and in his response to the motion for summary judgement, so
he is not in a position to contest them.
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five years old. There is thus no genuine dispute of material fact on the question in
the summary judgment record. As a result, there is no basis for disturbing the
grant of summary judgment on the ground of insufficient proof of the age of the
shredded COOs.
2. Roberts also challenges the district court’s determination that the
violations of law were “material,” as required by the Employment Agreement for
termination to be for “cause.” The interpretation of “material” in a contract is a
question of law for the court. Parsons v. Bristol Dev. Co., 62 Cal. 2d 861, 965
(1965). As a matter of law, the violations in question were material, given the
significant sanctions available under the relevant regulations for each violation.
See, e.g., 19 C.F.R. § 163.6; 15 C.F.R. §§ 764.3, 766.25; 19 C.F.R. § 10.1030.
3. Roberts further contends that he was not fired for cause because he could
not personally be liable under the relevant regulations. This argument is
unavailing. Under the plain text of the employment agreement, Roberts need not
be personally liable for any “act of fraud, embezzlement, theft or any other material
violation of law.” Instead, the legal violation must “occur[] during or in the course
of [his] employment with company.” Nowhere does the agreement specify that
Roberts had to be personally liable, as opposed to causing the Companies to be
liable, for any “material violation of law that occurs.”
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AFFIRMED.
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