The relationship between Dynegy Marketing and Trade (“Dynegy”), a natural gas supplier, and Multiut Corporation, a natural gas distributor headed by Nachshon Draiman, has become as volatile as the commodity in which they once dealt. Dynegy and Multiut adhered to their written contract for a time, but their relationship unraveled in the face of a failed acquisition, several million dollars’ worth of unpaid invoices, and frequent disputes over pricing, which were later inflamed by allegations that Dynegy and other natural gas suppliers were manipulating the indices on which natural gas price quotes are based. When Multiut’s outstanding bills remained unpaid notwithstanding Draiman’s personal guaranty, Dynegy cut off, Multiut’s gas supply and brought suit, alleging breach of contract and guaranty as well as fraudulent transfer claims. Multiut and Draiman fired back with six counterclaims, which included a number of contract-related claims and a RobinsonPatman antitrust claim. After contentious discovery, Dynegy moved for summary judgment on its contract and guar
I. Background
Draiman solely owns and controls Multiut, an Illinois corporation that acts as a middleman between utility providers and end-users. Multiut obtains wholesale quantities of natural gas from national suppliers and allocates the gas to its smaller local customers. Dynegy, a Colorado partnership that markets energy products, is the main supplier from which Multiut obtained gas. Multiut first established a contractual relationship with Dynegy’s predecessor-in-interest, Natural Gas Clearinghouse, in 1988. In 1994, Multiut and Dynegy entered into a Natural Gas Sales Agreement (“the agreement”). (Technically, Multiut entered into the agreement with Natural Gas Clearinghouse, but the parties agree that Dynegy, as Natural Gas Clearinghouse’s successor, is bound by the agreement.) Pursuant to the agreement, Multiut would contact Dynegy periodically and make “nominations” of natural gas, measured in units called “therms.” Dynegy would quote Multiut a price, based on an applicable natural gas index, and if Multiut accepted the price Dynegy would pipe the gas to an agreed-upon delivery point and send monthly invoices to Multiut, which was obligated to pay for the gas delivered. Its obligation was backstopped both by an interest provision in the agreement and a separate personal guaranty Draiman executed in 1995. The parties were supposed to formally memorialize their transactions by completing forms called “Exhibit Bs,” but in practice the invoices were typically the only written records.
The parties’ arrangement worked well enough that Dynegy expressed an interest in acquiring Multiut in 1997. The parties signed a confidentiality agreement and conducted due diligence, but Dynegy ultimately bowed out of the deal. It instead created a joint venture, Nicor Energy, with one of Multiut’s competitors, Nicor, Inc. Dynegy began providing natural gas to Nicor Energy in 1998, which Multiut and Draiman pinpoint as the beginning of the demise of the Dynegy-Multiut relationship. Multiut claims that Dynegy gave Nicor Energy sweetheart pricing, in violation not only of the antitrust laws but also of an alleged oral contract promising Multiut “most-favored nations” or “best” pricing.
Notwithstanding its apparent dissatisfaction with Dynegy and Nicor Energy, Multiut continued buying gas almost exclusively from Dynegy and making “progress payments” toward its balance owed. Multiut hit a few financial bumps, however, and by December 2000 owed Dynegy at least $1,620,178 in payments and interest. Multiut’s bookkeepers met with representatives from Dynegy in March 2001 and agreed that Dynegy’s calculation of the arrearage was accurate despite Dynegy’s failure to include interest on Multiut’s invoices during most of 1999 and 2000. From roughly that point forward, Dynegy refused to offer Multiut monthly price quotes; to mitigate its risk, it would agree
Draiman again sought fixed pricing at a September 2001 meeting with Dynegy employees Ludwig and Pete Pavluk. According to Draiman, Pavluk and Ludwig told him they would “work on” locking-in a fixed price, or that they “would get it done.” They also asked him to develop a payment schedule to address Multiut’s growing arrearage. By letter dated September 17, 2001, Draiman proposed a tentative payment schedule and added for Dynegy’s review “a report of customers on Fixed Cost contracts.” Draiman noted that these customers were committed to paying Multiut an average of 47.5 cents per therm and expressed interest in acquiring gas from Dynegy at a fixed price of 30 cents per therm to “insure [Multiut] an additional annual profit of 2,000,000.” Dynegy responded by letter dated October 4, 2001, explaining that its relationship with Multiut had become “one of concern” and requested a “detailed formal payment plan by no later than Wednesday, October 10, 2001.” It did not mention Draiman’s fixed-price proposal. Draiman testified that he nonetheless relied on Ludwig and Pavluk’s assurances and did not seek out alternative sources of gas for Multiut.
Though it proposed a payment plan (on October 12), Multiut continued to fall further behind in its payments as wholesale natural gas prices climbed above the prices it was receiving from its own fixed-price customers. Dynegy kept the gas flowing (and arrearage growing) for another year but shut off the spigot in December 2002 after filing suit against Multiut and guarantor Draiman.
Multiut and Draiman responded by denying Dynegy’s allegations and raising affirmative defenses to its breach of contract and breach of guaranty claims. They also filed a bevy of counterclaims against Dynegy. Those relevant here alleged that Dynegy breached the 1997 confidentiality agreement by “inevitably disclosing” to Ni-cor Energy valuable information it had obtained from Multiut; breached an oral agreement to supply gas at fixed prices; breached an implied agreement not to charge interest; breached an oral agreement to offer “most favored nations” pricing; and violated the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 13(a), by offering lower gas prices to Multiut’s competitors.
In March 2003, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a lengthy report summarizing its year-long investigation of energy markets in the western United States.
See
Staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
Final Report on Price Manipulation in Western Markets
(2003),
available at
http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/ indus-act/wec.asp (“FERC report”). According to the FERC report, which was commissioned to “determine whether and, if so, the extent to which California and Western energy markets were manipulated during 2000 and 2001,”
id.
at ES-1, “[d]ysfunctions in the natural gas market appear to stem, at least in part, from
After the FERC report became public, Multiut sought in discovery information and documents regarding Dynegy’s calculation and reporting of price index information. Dynegy opposed its efforts. The magistrate judge overseeing discovery determined that Dynegy was not required to supplement its responses to these requests because “Multiut has not provided any basis for the assertion that Dynegy could independently influence the index price.”
Dynegy eventually moved for summary judgment on Multiut and Draimaris counterclaims and its own breach of contract and guaranty claims. (Dynegy’s fraudulent transfer and breach of fiduciary duty claims were not included in the summary judgment motion and are not part of this appeal.) As part of their response to Dynegy’s statement of undisputed facts, Multiut and Draiman submitted for the district court’s consideration, notwithstanding its discovery rulings, excerpts from the FERC report, documents from a related criminal proceeding against one of Dynegy’s former traders, and a lengthy declaration by Draiman. The declaration from Draiman contained Multiut and Draimaris first and only estimates of Multiut’s lost profits and some of its other alleged damages.
Pointing to the untimeliness of the Draiman declaration and Multiut’s failure to comply with Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(l)(A)(iii) & (e), which require parties to disclose and supplement “a computation of each category of damages,” Dynegy argued that the declaration should be excluded pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(e)(1). The district court agreed and excluded the declaration in its entirety. It also granted in full Dynegy’s motion for summary judgment. Draiman and Multiut moved for reconsideration. In their motion, they asserted that the “centerpiece” of their opposition to the breach of contract claim was “evidence that Dynegy had systematically overcharged Multiut for its natural gas purchases due to its complicity in a nationwide conspiracy to inflate gas index prices” and argued that the price manipulation evidence was relevant. They also challenged Dynegy’s computation of damages, which was based on an expert’s review and analysis of invoices and payment records largely produced by Multiut. Dynegy responded with a Rule 54(b) motion for entry of final judgment on the claims and counterclaims resolved by the summary judgment order.
After considering briefing on both motions, the district court denied Multiut’s motion and granted Dynegy’s. The district court found that reconsideration was not appropriate because Multiut had done little more than rehash its previously rejected arguments. The district court also rejected for want of evidence Multiut’s assertion that the price index manipulation in California and other western states “carried over” into the Chicago market, though it recognized that such a conclusion was “not illogical.” The district court granted Dynegy’s Rule 54(b) motion after finding that the fraudulent transfer claims were legally and factually distinct from the
Multiut and Draiman promptly appealed. We dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, however, because the district court’s judgment did not specify the amount of pre-judgment interest the defendants owed and was therefore not final.
See Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney,
The district court denied the defendants’ second motion for reconsideration. It cited finality concerns as well as hesitation to “construe [the remand order from the Seventh Circuit] as an open invitation to allow the parties to delve back into the substantive issues of the case.” The district court granted Dynegy’s Rule 60(a) motion to amend the judgment and sided with Dynegy as to the method by which the interest should be computed. The district court entered judgment for Dynegy, awarding it $8,929,449 in pre-judgment interest on top of its damages of $13,693,943.18, for a total of $22,623,392.18. Multiut and Draiman promptly appealed.
II. Discussion
Multiut and Draiman have presented nine issues for our consideration, disregarding our repeated counsel that “the equivalent of a laser light show of claims may be so distracting as to disturb our vision and confound our analysis.”
United States v. Lathrop,
A. Exclusion of Draiman Declaration
As part of their response to Dynegy’s summary judgment motion, Multiut and Draiman submitted a seventeen-page declaration by Draiman. They submitted the declaration many months after discovery closed, but relied on it to prove the damages they allegedly suffered at Dynegy’s hand. The district court declined to consider the declaration “because Multiut failed to make timely disclosures [of its computation of damages] during discovery.” It reasoned, “Multiut has not provided any explanation for its failure to make earlier disclosures, and to allow it to make late disclosures now, after a lengthy discovery process, would prejudice Dyne
Rule 26(a)(1)(A)(iii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires litigants to disclose to one another “a computation of each category of damages claimed by the disclosing party — who must also make available ... the documents or other evidentiary material ... on which each computation is based, including materials bearing on the nature and extent of injuries suffered.” Rule 26(e)(1) requires parties to supplement their initial disclosures as more information becomes available to them. If a party does not follow these rules, “the party is not allowed to use that information ... to supply evidence on a motion, at a hearing, or at a trial, unless the failure was substantially justified or was harmless.” Fed.R.CivJP. 37(c)(1). Whether a failure to comply with Rule 26(a) or (e) is substantially justified, harmless, or warrants sanctions is left to the broad discretion of the district court.
David v. Caterpillar, Inc.,
Multiut and Draiman do not challenge the district court’s conclusion that they violated Rule 26, nor do they contend that they were justified in doing so. They argue only that their violation should be excused because it was harmless: they assert that information relating to damages contained in the declaration was made available to Dynegy “in light of the exhaustive documentation produced by Multiut during discovery and the extensive deposition testimony of Draiman and [expert] James Alerding on the subject of damages.” This argument cannot carry the day logically (if the information contained in the declaration is already in the record, then there should be no problem with the district court’s decision to exclude the declaration) or legally.
Multiut and Draiman started off discovery on the right foot by providing Dynegy with rough estimates of the damages associated with their counterclaims in their original disclosures. At that time, they averred, “As a result of Dynegy’s breach of an agreement to supply gas at a fixed price, Multiut has sustained damages in an amount that Multiut believes exceeds $6 million. Multiut will supplement with a computation of these damages when they are ascertained through the course of continuing discovery.” They made a similar statement with respect to their breach of confidentiality agreement counterclaim, for which they estimated at least $1 million in damages. But even after Dynegy filed several motions to compel and repeatedly sought (and occasionally obtained) sanctions, Multiut and Draiman failed to disclose how they arrived at those numbers. Even if we fully credit the defendants’ contention that the numerical information in Draiman’s declaration was duplicative of that already disclosed in spreadsheet form, nothing in the record — not even Draiman’s declaration — shines light into the black box of their damages calculation process. A reasonable district court could and did conclude that exclusion of the declaration, which contained the only ballpark estimates of Multiut’s lost profits and alleged credits due, was an appropriate sanction for the defendants’ continued dilatory and opaque behavior. Without an idea of where the defendants’ numbers were com
B. Breach of Oral & Implied Contract Counterclaims
Multiut and Draiman assert that the relationship between Dynegy and Multiut ran deeper than the pages of their written agreement. According to Multiut and Draiman, Dynegy and Multiut were also bound by three unwritten contracts: two oral and one implied in fact. Pursuant to the first alleged oral contract, Dynegy agreed to offer Multiut “most-favored-nations” pricing. That is, it agreed to charge Multiut “(i) a price equal to or
lk
cent per therm higher than the index price, or (ii) the lowest price contemporaneously being charged by Dynegy to any of Multiut’s competitors.” Pursuant to the second alleged oral contract, Dynegy agreed to lock-in the price it charged Multiut for gas such that the fixed price Multiut was obligated to pay Dynegy was less than the fixed prices Multiut’s customers were obligated to pay it. Pursuant to the alleged implied-in-fact agreement, Dynegy implicitly agreed to waive Multiut’s obligation to pay interest on its arrearage, as evidenced by the omission of interest charges from several months’ worth of invoices. The district court concluded that there was no evidence establishing the existence of the alleged agreements and granted summary judgment in Dynegy’s favor on all three counterclaims. We review these decisions de novo, drawing every reasonable inference in Multiut and Draiman’s favor.
E.g., India Breweries, Inc. v. Miller Brewing Co.,
1. Oral “Most-Favored-Nations” Contract
Multiut claims that it had an “understanding,” dating back to “the mid-1990s,” that Dynegy would charge it either “(i) a price equal to or cent per therm higher than the index price, or (ii) the lowest price contemporaneously being charged by Dynegy to any of Multiut’s competitors.” It alleges that Dynegy fostered this understanding by repeatedly assuring one of Multiut’s employees that Multiut was “getting the best price there is,” though it acknowledges that Dynegy refused its requests to include a most-favored-nations clause in either the 1988 or 1994 agreements. Multiut claims that Dynegy violated part (i) of the understanding by charging Multiut five to twelve cents more than the index price per therm, and violated part (ii) by charging Multiut’s competitor Nicor Energy lower prices than it charged Multiut.
Unilateral “understandings” are not enough to give rise to an enforceable oral contract in Illinois. “A feeling of certainty ... that a party in position to contract would surely agree to terms present in the situation disclosed, does not evoke a contract from a plausible situation for contract. The agreement must actually be made by the parties to the alleged contract. It must be shown that those parties selected and concurred in the terms of the contract, or no contract exists.”
Richton v. Farina,
2. Oral Contract to Lock-in Prices
The second alleged oral contract also involves the prices Dynegy promised to offer Multiut. During a September 2001 meeting with Dynegy employees, Draiman floated the idea of locking-in Multiut’s pricing for an extended period of time. He testified that the Dynegy employees said “something along th[e] lines” of they would “work on it” or “would get it done” and requested a list of Multiut’s customers and profit margins. Draiman testified that although Dynegy did “not explicitly” agree to lock-in a price, he walked away from the meeting with the “impression and understanding” that Multiut would be getting fixed prices “for whatever period [its own fixed-price] contracts were.” Based on that understanding, Multiut did not seek out other sources of natural gas for its fixed-price customers. On September 17, 2001, Draiman sent a letter to Dynegy in which he provided for Dynegy’s “review” a list of the prices paid by Multiut’s fixed-price customers and pointed out that if Multiut could lock-in a price of about 15 cents per therm below what its average customer was paying, it could increase its profits by $2 million. Dynegy’s response to the letter did not mention fixed prices, and Draiman took no further steps to ensure that Multiut would actually receive locked-in prices. The district court concluded that this evidence was not enough to show that Dynegy agreed to provide gas at a set price and granted summary judgment. 1 We agree that summary judgment is warranted.
The evidence Multiut and Draiman presented does not demonstrate the existence of an agreement between Dynegy and Multiut. Multiut was able to more precisely identify the timeframe in which the alleged agreement was reached, and the actors who allegedly made it, but there is no evidence as to what price the agreement locked in or how long the agreement was in effect. “The essential terms of a contract must be definite and certain in order for a contract to be enforceable.”
Midland Hotel Corp.,
3. Implied Contract to Waive Interest
The third unwritten contract purportedly governing Dynegy and Multiut’s relationship grew out of Dynegy’s failure to invoice Multiut for interest during most of 1999 and 2000. Multiut and Draiman contend that through this conduct, Dynegy impliedly agreed to forgo the collection of interest, notwithstanding its subsequent submission to Multiut of corrected interest invoices and supporting schedules. The district court granted summary judgment for Dynegy after finding that Multiut and Draiman failed to demonstrate that any such agreement existed. We agree that summary judgment was proper.
“Contracts implied in fact arise under circumstances which, according to the ordinary course of dealing and the common understanding of men, show a mutual intention to contract.”
Mowatt v. City of Chicago,
C. Breach of Contract & Guaranty Claims
The district court granted summary judgment in Dynegy’s favor on both its breach-of-contract and breach-of-guaranty claims. Summary judgment is appropriate if the admissible evidence considered as a whole shows that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a), even after all reasonable inferences are drawn in the nonmovant’s favor. We review de novo the district court’s determination that this standard has been met.
E.g., Davis v. Time Warner Cable of Se. Wis., L.P.,
1. Breach of Contract
Multiut and Draiman take an unusual tack in challenging summary judgment on the breach-of-contract claim. Rather than
Multiut and Draiman first contend that Dynegy inadequately proved its damages because it based its calculations not on (largely nonexistent) Exhibit Bs but instead had an expert review invoices and tabulate a total due. Under Illinois law, plaintiffs alleging breaches of contract “bear[ ] the burden of proving that [they] sustained damages resulting from the breach and establishing both the correct measurement of damages and the final computation of damages based on that measurement.”
Ollivier v. Alden,
Multiut and Draiman next contend that even if Dynegy adequately computed its damages, it should be barred from recovering them because of its alleged manipulation of gas price indices. Even if the invoices accurately reflected the prices charged, the argument goes, they improperly reflected inflated prices and therefore create a genuine issue of material fact as to the amount that would have been due had the price indices been left to the mercy of the invisible hand. Moreover, Multiut and Draiman continue, Dynegy “bears the burden of proving that the amounts of the invoices it seeks to collect are accurate based on free and open market indices.” Appellants’ Br. 27. The district court rejected these arguments, finding that “the causal chain that Multiut seeks to prove is too attenuated and diffuse,” and noting, “it is not clear how damages would apply in that Multiut’s theory is that fraud was perpetrated on the whole marketplace so that the price charged by all suppliers presumably would have been equally affected by the alleged manipulation.”
Multiut and Draiman’s final argument against the entry of summary judgment is similar to their previous one. They contend that the invoices are inaccurate and therefore unenforceable because they do not take into account the provisions of three alleged unwritten contracts: an oral “most-favored-nations” contract, an oral fixed-price contract, and an implied-in-fact contract to waive interest. We have already seen, however, that the record does not support the inference that such binding contracts existed. See supra Part II.B. If they did not exist, they could not possibly have hampered Dynegy’s ability to abide by the concededly valid written agreement.
2. Breach of Guaranty
Dynegy also alleged that Multiut and Draiman breached a 1995 guaranty by failing to satisfy the debts Multiut incurred in connection with the agreement. Draiman signed the guaranty in both his official and individual capacities, and he and Multiut concede that it is a valid document. They argue that it should not be enforced against them, however, because Dynegy failed to comply strictly with the agreement’s Exhibit B requirements. This argument gets them no further here than it did in connection with Dynegy’s breach of contract claim.
A guaranty is a “third party’s promise to answer for payment on or fulfill an obligation if the person primarily liable fails to perform.”
Panno v. Nicolau,
D. Breach of Confidentiality Agreement Counterclaim
In 1997, Dynegy expressed an interest in acquiring Multiut. Multiut was keen on the deal but insisted that Dynegy sign a confidentiality agreement before it would divulge any sensitive information. The confidentiality agreement prohibited Dynegy from disclosing any confidential or proprietary information provided by Multiut without first obtaining Multiut’s written consent. The confidentiality agreement further restricted Dynegy’s use of the information to “evaluating a Proposed Transaction between Multiut and [Dynegy].” Dynegy signed the agreement and gained access to Multiut’s confidential information, including “contracts, pricing, volumes, and terms” in addition to “customer information.” Dynegy copied much of the information and pursued the acquisition for a time, but ultimately decided not to pull the trigger. It opted instead to enter into a joint venture with one of Multiut’s competitors, Nicor Inc., a possibility it had been considering while courting Multiut. A handful of high-level executives at Dynegy had at least some involvement with both the Multiut due diligence and the Nicor joint venture. Citing the overlap in staffing, and cases from this court,
PepsiCo, Inc. v. Redmond,
The district court did not evaluate Multiut’s “inevitable disclosure” arguments, concluding that Multiut could not survive summary judgment even if the doctrine applied because Multiut failed to present any evidence of its damages.
See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,
There is no need to delve into the murky waters of the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine here. Like most of Multiut’s other counterclaims, this claim against Dynegy is a standard breach of contract claim. Under Illinois law, plaintiffs alleging breaches of contract “bear[ ] the burden of proving that [they] sustained damages resulting from the breach and establishing both the correct measurement of damages and the final computation of damages based on that measurement.”
Ollivier,
It is a bedrock principle that “[d]amages may not be awarded on the basis of speculation and conjecture.”
Perfection Corp.,
E. Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Counterclaim
Multiut and Draiman’s final counterclaim alleges that Dynegy violated section 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 13(a), by charging Multiut more for gas than it charged Nicor Energy. They point to price differentials of up to ten cents per therm and contend that Multiut was injured by them. Proceeding under section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15, they seek treble damages and attorneys’ fees. The district court found that Multiut and Draiman failed to offer any evidence that Multiut suffered injury and therefore granted summary judgment in Dynegy’s favor even though it was not persuaded by Dynegy’s other arguments. We review this determination de novo, drawing all reasonable inferences in Multiut and Draiman’s favor.
E.g., Davis,
“Section 2(a) of the RobinsonPatman Act makes it illegal to discriminate in price when an injury to competition is the consequence.”
Reserve Supply Corp. v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp.,
But mere demonstration of a “competitive injury” and the other elements of a violation “does not mean that a disfavored purchaser has been actually ‘injured’ within the meaning of § 4 [of the Clayton Act].”
J. Truett Payne Co.,
Multiut and Draiman devote much of their briefing on this issue to an argument that they established a prima facie violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. The district court rejected Dynegy’s arguments for summary judgment on those grounds, however, so we are unsure why Multiut and Draiman have pursued this line of argument at the expense of attempting to establish an actual injury resulting from Dynegy’s alleged price discrimination, an argument to which they dedicate a mere five sentences between their opening and reply briefs. In those five sentences, Multiut and Draiman contend that they have “identified evidence of lost sales and profits resulting from Dynegy’s price discrimination.” They do not, however, give any indication of what that evidence was, or how it tied to Dynegy’s actions. We assume they are referring to the $5 million lost profits figure reported only in the properly excluded Draiman declaration, and their expert’s computation that the long-term difference in prices charged amounted to roughly $1.86 million,
F. Denial of Second Motion to Reconsider
After we dismissed Multiut and Draiman’s first appeal for lack of jurisdiction, the case returned to the district court and both sides submitted briefing on the proper computation of prejudgment interest. While the district court was considering that issue, Multiut and Draiman filed a motion asking the district court to reconsider its summary judgment rulings. They recognized that the district court had denied their previous motion to reconsider, but asserted that new evidence they obtained in connection with their multi-district litigation action against Dynegy rendered the grants of summary judgment inappropriate. The new evidence included an affidavit and a memorandum from former Dynegy employee Jeffrey Hornback, which demonstrated that Dynegy was aware of the alleged price index manipulation while it was contracting with Multiut, and an affidavit from Dr. Michael Harris, an economist who reviewed the FERC report and concluded that manipulation of the gas price indices out west would have impacted prices in Chicago. The district court ordered briefing on the motion to reconsider but denied it (and its accompanying evidentiary submissions) without reaching the merits. In doing so, the district court first cited concerns of finality and noted that it had already visited the issue of price index manipulation at least twice. The district court gave as an alternative ground the limited scope of the mandate we issued, which instructed the district court only to determine prejudgment interest. The district court reasoned, “[i]t would be contrary to the spirit of [the mandate] to construe it as an open invitation to allow the parties to delve back into the substantive issues of the case, issues that were the subject of the appeal in the first place.”
Multiut and Draiman now contend that the district court erred in disregarding their new evidence and denying their motion. But they do not challenge either of the district court’s asserted bases for denying their motion. Instead, they assert that the district court “should have reconsidered its summary judgment ruling in light of the Hornback and Harris affidavits.” They then walk us through the evidence and reiterate that the evidence was not in their possession when summary judgment briefs were filed. These “arguments” do not get them very far, as they have failed to articulate a ground on which we could find that the district court abused its discretion. The district court did not deny their motion because the evidence was not “newly discovered,” or because it failed to find a nexus between the evidence and the summary judgment motion; it denied it for other grounds that Multiut and Draiman wholly disregard. “We cannot make a party’s arguments for him, or force him to make arguments he seems determined not to raise.”
United States v. Foster,
III. Conclusion
The district court appropriately granted summary judgment in Dynegy’s favor on
Notes
. The district court also found summary judgment warranted on the "separate and independent” ground that Multiut failed to offer evidence of its damages stemming from the alleged breach. We need not address that ground here.
. There are three categories of competitive injury that may give rise to Robinson-Patman Act claims: “primary line,” "secondary line,” and “tertiary line.” Primary-line cases involve price discrimination that injures competition at the level of the discriminating seller and its direct competitors. Secondary-line cases like this one involve price discrimination that injures competition among customers of the discriminating seller. Tertiary-line cases involve injury to competition among the customers of the differently treated purchasers.
Volvo Trucks N. Am., Inc. v. Reeder-