Mortensen

MEMORANDUM **

John Mortensen, the lead plaintiff for a class of Imperial Credit Industries, Inc. (“ICII”) stockholders who purchased their shares between January 27, 1998 and October 1, 1998 (“class period”), appeals (1) the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of ICII corporate officials (“ICII defendants”); (2) the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ securities fraud action against the accounting firm KPMG, ICII’s auditor during the class period, on statute of limitations grounds; and (3) certain discovery and evidentiary rulings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

1. ICII Summary Judgment

The gravamen of plaintiffs’ claims is that ICII’s public filings during the class period fraudulently inflated the value of ICII’s securities by inflating the value of its 46.9% equity holdings in Southern Pacific Funding Corporation (“SPFC”). The dis *220 trict court did not err in granting summary judgment to the ICII defendants. It correctly concluded that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that SPFC’s “residuals,” 1 were, in fact, overvalued at any point in time during the class period. To prove the essential allegation of a material…