Robinson v. Wix Filtration Corp. LLC

Decision Date26 March 2010
Docket NumberNo. 09-1167.,09-1167.
Citation599 F.3d 403
PartiesThomas ROBINSON, PlaintiffAppellant, v. WIX FILTRATION CORPORATION LLC; Dana-Spicer, Incorporated, d/b/a Wix Filtration Products Division; Affinia Group, Incorporated, d/b/a Wix Filtration Products Division, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Charles A. Everage, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Jeffrey D. Keister, McAngus, Goudelock & Courie, LLC Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellees.

Before KING, DUNCAN, and DAVIS Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge DUNCAN wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge DAVIS joined. Judge DAVIS wrote a separate concurring opinion. Judge KING wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

DUNCAN, Circuit Judge:

Thomas Robinson ("Appellant") appeals the denial of his post-judgment motions seeking relief from the district court's entry of summary judgment against him. Appellant had moved for relief from the judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), or, in the alternative, to alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). The district court construed Appellant's motion as one solely seeking relief pursuant to Rule 59(e), rather than one also seeking relief under Rule 60(b), and determined that altering or amending the judgment was not necessary to prevent manifest injustice in this case. Appellant argues that the district court erred in its analysis by failing to consider his motion pursuant to Rule 60(b), and that it erred in denying the motion pursuant to Rule 59(e). For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

On August 29, 2007, Appellant filed a two-count civil action against his former employer, Wix Filtration Corporation LLC, and related corporate entities Dana-Spicer, Inc. d/b/a Wix Filtration Products Division, and Affinia Group, Inc. d/b/a Wix Filtration Products Division (collectively, "Appellees"), in the North Carolina Superior Court, alleging wrongful termination in violation of North Carolina public policy, and retaliation in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C S 215(a)(3). On October 1, 2007, Appellees removed the case to the Western District of North Carolina.

Shortly thereafter, on December 18 2007, a magistrate judge, acting pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16 and the Local Rules of the Western District of North Carolina, issued a pretrial order and case management plan. In that order, the magistrate judge set August 8, 2008, as the deadline to file all dispositive motions. Appellant acknowledges receiving that order. In compliance with the order, on August 8, 2008, Appellees filed a motion for summary judgment. Appellant, however, never filed a response, and on December 3, 2008, after reviewing the entire record in this case, the district court granted Appellees' motion.

On December 12, 2008, Appellant filed a motion for relief from the judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60, or in the alternative, to alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59, asserting the same two grounds for each rule. First, Appellant claimed that although his counsel utilizes the court's Case Management/Electronic Case Filing ("CM/ECF") system, which generates a Notice of Electronic Filing ("NEF") whenever a document is filed, 1 his counsel never received electronic notice of Appellees' motion for summary judgment because counsel's computer system experienced several problems during the summer months of 2008 that caused him not to receive various e-mails.2 Appellant explained that his counsel's computer was afflicted by a malware virus and that his counsel's firm's domain name had temporarily expired when the motion for summary judgment was filed.3 In light of these computer problems, Appellant urged the district court to relieve him from the judgment, or in the alternative, to alter or amend the judgment.4 Second, Appellant claimed that there are genuine issues of material fact which should preclude the granting of summary judgment, and thus, he argued that the judgment should not stand.

On January 13, 2009, the district court denied Appellant's motion. The court construed the motion as one seeking relief pursuant to Rule 59(e) exclusively, andgave no consideration to Rule 60(b).5 Alter noting that nothing in the CM/ECF system indicated that Appellant failed to receive notice of Appellees' electronic filing, the court denied the motion on Rule 59(e) grounds, finding that the "computer problems did not relieve Plaintiff's counsel of his obligation to continue to monitor the docket in this case, " J.A. 183, and that "altering or amending the Judgment is not necessary to prevent manifest injustice, " id. at 185. This appeal followed.

II.

On appeal, Appellant challenges the denial of his motion for relief from the judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b), or in the alternative, to alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e). His argument is twofold. First, he asserts that the district court erred in denying the motion pursuant to Rule 59(e). Second, he argues that the district court erred in failing to analyze his motion under Rule 60(b). We address each contention below.

A.

We first consider whether the district court erred in denying Appellant's motion pursuant to Rule 59(e). This court reviews the denial of a Rule 59(e) motion under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. Ingle ex rel. Estate of Ingle v Yelton. 439 F.3d 191, 197 (4th Cir.2006). Rule 59(e) provides that a court may alter or amend the judgment if the movant shows either (1) an intervening change in the controlling law, (2) new evidence that was not available at trial, or (3) that there has been a clear error of law or a manifest injustice.6 Id. Appellant only argues that there has been a manifest injustice, and thus, we need not consider the other two prongs of this rule.

Appellant argues that his counsel's computer problems pre vented him from presenting his meritorious opposition to the Appellees' motion, thereby creating a manifest injustice. He insists that without this response, the district court was left without the kind of accurate and full record necessary for adjudication of his claim and that it would be a manifest injustice to allow " 'a ruling based on an erroneous and inadequate record to stand.' " Appellant's Br. at 18 (quoting EEOC v. Lockheed Martin Corp.. Aero & Naval Sys., 116 F.3d 110, 112 (4th Cir.1997)). He thus contends that the district court abused its discretion in denying his motion. We disagree.

We can hardly say that the district court abused its discretion in declining to vacate its judgment to prevent "manifest injustice" given that Appellant's failure to receive notice of the motion resulted from his counsel's conscious choice not to take any action with respect to his computer troubles. As the district court found, because a pretrial order was entered on December 18, 2007, establishing August 8, 2008, as the deadline for filing dispositive motions, Appellant's counsel knew full well that the deadline for dispositive motions was pending. See J.A. 184. Also, "Plaintiff's counsel... knew... that he and other members of his firm were experiencing problems receiving... emails, " J.A. 184, and that, pursuant to the local rules of practice and procedure, any notice of docket activity would arrive through e-mail, see W.D.N.C. R. 5.2.1(B) (requiring that "[a]ll documents submitted for filing... be filed electronically unless expressly exempted from electronic filing either by the Administrative Procedures or by the assigned judge"). Finally, neither the district court nor Appellees had reason to know about Appellant's counsel's computer troubles. See J.A. 179-80 ("There is nothing in the ECF system to indicate that the transmission of the [ ] NEF's to the Plaintiffs counsel was not successful."). Despite all of this, Appellant's counsel deliberately chose not to contact anyone. See J.A. 184.

Only Appellant's counsel was in a position to protect Appellant from precisely what occurred here; neither the district court nor Appellees had reason to know that Appellant had not received notice of the motion, especially since nothing in the CM/ECF system indicated that Appellant failed to receive the filing. See W.D.N.C R. 5.3(A) (recognizing that "[i]ssuance of the... NEF... constitutes proof of service of the filed document upon all registered users"); see also J.A. 179, 185 (noting that "La] NEF generated by the Court's ECF system indicates that notice of each of these documents was electronically mailed to Plaintiffs counsel on August 8, 2008, " and finding that there is a "lack of any evidence of an error in the docketing of the Defendants' Motion in the Court's ECF system"). Knowing that dispositive motions were due on August 8, 2008, Appellant's counsel had good reason, after realizing he was experiencing computer problems, to check the court's docket after such date or contact the court and opposing counsel to notify them of his computer troubles. Had Appellant's counsel done either of these two things, he would have discovered the motion for summary judgment before judgment was entered.7 See Fox v. Am, Airlines, 389 F.3d 1291, 1296 (D.C.Cir.2004) (affirming the district court's decision not to grant a Rule 59(e) motion since "the dismissal of the [ ] suit might have been avoided through the exercise of due diligence"); see also J.A. 184-85 ("Had counsel done either of these things at any point in the nearly four months between the time that the Motion for Summary Judgment was filed and the Court entered its Order, counsel would have learned that a dispositive motion had been filed, and he could have taken steps to respond to the motion in a proper fashion."). Instead, Appellant's counsel strategically chose not to call opposing counsel after the deadline for filing dispositive motions had passed because he did not want to...

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