Commercial Litigation and Arbitration

Judicial Notice of Filings in Other Courts Appropriate — 12(b)(6) Motion

Hensley v. United States District Court Eastern District of California, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11965 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2008):

On a motion to dismiss, the court may take judicial notice of matters of public record outside the pleadings. MGIC Indem. Corp. v. Weisman, 803 F.2d 500, 504 (9th Cir. 1986). A court may take judicial notice of its own files and of documents filed in other courts. Reyn's Pasta Bella, LLC v. Visa USA, Inc., 442 F.3d 741, 746 n.6 (9th Cir. 2006) (taking judicial notice of documents related to a settlement in another case that bore on whether the plaintiff was still able to assert its claims in the pending case); Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Auth. v. City of Burbank, 136 F.3d 1360, 1364 (9th Cir. 1998) (taking judicial notice of court filings in a state court case where the same plaintiff asserted similar and related claims); Hott v. City of San Jose, 92 F. Supp. 2d 996, 998 (N.D. Cal. 2000) (taking judicial notice of relevant memoranda and orders filed in state court cases). Cf. In re Zoran Corp. Derivative Litigation, 511 F. Supp. 2d 986, 1001 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (declining to take judicial notice of a fact document filed in a wholly unrelated action that involved the same legal principles but involved different parties making different allegations and asserting different claims, theories, and arguments). "[C]ourts routinely take judicial notice of documents filed in other courts . . . to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings." Kramer v. Time Warner Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 774 (2d Cir. 1991) (citations omitted). "The existence and content of opinions and pleadings are matters capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to official court files that cannot reasonably be questioned." Bogart v. Daley, No. CV 00-101-BR, 2001 WL 34045761, at *2 (D. Or. June 28, 2001) (citing Fed. R. Evid. 201(b)(2)).

Held, on defendants’ motions to dismiss, it is “appropriate to take judicial notice of the court records submitted by the parties. The records reveal that plaintiffs have engaged in extensive litigation in multiple state courts and that the present action is plaintiffs' fifth federal lawsuit arising from the state court proceedings.”

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