National Federation of the Blind of Texas Inc v. City of Arlington Texas, 3:21-cv-02028

Background

Plaintiffs National Federation of the Blind of Texas (NFB) and Arms of Hope (AOH) are nonprofits challenging Arlington, Texas Ordinance No. 18-044 (the "Donation Boxes Chapter") as violating their First Amendment rights by effectively banning charitable solicitations via donation bins.
NFB applied for permits to place donation bins in Arlington; Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief after permits were denied.
The Court ordered limited expedited discovery and the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs submitted a five-volume appendix in support of their summary-judgment response.
Arlington objected to certain exhibits in Plaintiffs’ appendix (Exhibits J, U, V, W, and Y) as irrelevant, unauthenticated, and pre-dating the 2018 ordinance, and moved to strike them after the Court required objections by proper motion.
Plaintiffs explained they would authenticate the challenged exhibits at trial through witness testimony and argued the pre-2018 records were relevant to Plaintiffs’ history and the ordinance’s development.
The Court denied Arlington’s motion to strike, finding Plaintiffs sufficiently explained how the exhibits could be presented in admissible form at trial and that relevance and other weight issues can be addressed when deciding summary judgment or at trial.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Exhibits J, U, V, W, Y can be considered on summary judgment because they are not presently in admissible form	Exhibits can be authenticated at trial via witness testimony; thus they are capable of being presented in admissible form	Exhibits lack proper authentication now and Plaintiffs’ statement about future witness testimony is too cursory to meet their burden	Court: Plaintiffs met the Rule 56(c)(2) burden by explaining the anticipated admissible form (trial testimony); exhibits remain in the record for summary-judgment consideration
Whether pre-2018 documents (U, V, W, J, Y) are irrelevant to the constitutionality of the 2018 ordinance	Pre-2018 documents are relevant to Plaintiffs’ history of placing bins and to the ordinance’s development/intent	Pre-2018 materials are irrelevant because they predate the challenged ordinance	Court: Relevance is a low bar; the court will consider relevance/weight in ruling on summary judgment and thus will not strike them now
Whether documents produced by AOH during discovery are "self-authenticating" or party admissions	Plaintiffs assert production in discovery and that records are public or can be authenticated at trial	Arlington contends production does not make them self-authenticating or admissions; also disputes public-record status for some exhibits	Court: Production alone doesn’t automatically self-authenticate, but Plaintiffs’ plan to authenticate at trial suffices for summary-judgment purposes; authenticity objections can be renewed at trial
Whether the Court should strike challenged exhibits now or defer to weigh admissibility and relevance later	Strike would improperly exclude potentially admissible evidence; court can assess weight/relevance on summary judgment	Strike to prevent consideration of allegedly inadmissible/irrelevant evidence on summary judgment	Court: Denied motion to strike; court will assess admissibility/relevance/weight in ruling on summary judgment or at trial

Key Cases Cited

D'Onofrio v. Vacation Publ'ns, Inc., 888 F.3d 197 (5th Cir.) (summary-judgment evidence must be capable of being presented in admissible form)
LSR Consulting, LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 835 F.3d 530 (5th Cir.) (same evidentiary standard for summary judgment)
Campos v. Steves & Sons, Inc., 10 F.4th 515 (5th Cir.) (excluding summary-judgment evidence where plaintiff failed to explain admissibility at trial)
BCC Merch. Sols., Inc. v. Jet Pay, LLC, 129 F. Supp. 3d 440 (N.D. Tex.) (court may consider relevance and competency of challenged exhibits when ruling on summary judgment)
Cannata v. Catholic Diocese of Austin, 700 F.3d 169 (5th Cir.) (district court may deny motion to strike summary-judgment evidence and assess evidentiary weight)
Hicks-Fields v. Harris Cnty., 860 F.3d 803 (5th Cir.) (district courts have broad discretion on relevance rulings at summary judgment)