Britt v. IEC Corp.
| Docket Number | 20-cv-60814-ALTMAN |
| Decision Date | 16 August 2022 |
| Parties | KAREEM BRITT, et al., Plaintiffs, v. IEC CORP., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
OMNIBUS ORDER
On September 13, 2021, we granted FCC's Motion to Compel Arbitration (the “Motion to Compel”) [ECF No 70]. See Order Granting the Motion to Compel Arbitration (the “Order”) [ECF No. 143]. Unhappy with our ruling, the Plaintiffs have now filed both a Motion for Reconsideration under Rule 59(e) (the “Motion for Reconsideration”) [ECF No. 144] and a Motion to Certify the Order Compelling Arbitration for Interlocutory Review (the “Motion to Certify”) [ECF No. 145]. But, because the Plaintiffs are really just looking for a “second bite at the apple,” O'Neal v. Kennamer, 958 F.2d 1044, 1047 (11th Cir. 1992), their motions fail to justify the “extraordinary” relief they've requested. The motions are DENIED.
The Plaintiffs, Kareem Britt and Sharon Henry, are former students at the Florida Career College (“FCC”). When they enrolled, both Britt and Henry agreed to arbitrate any claims they might later have against the school. See Britt Enrollment Agreement [ECF No. 70-2] at 4; Henry Enrollment Agreement [ECF No. 70-4] at 4. In 2016, the Department of Education (“DOE”) promulgated several regulations that required schools participating in a federal student-loan program to refrain from enforcing any pre-dispute arbitration agreements or class-action waivers they'd signed with their students. See 81 Fed.Reg. 75,926 (Nov. 1, 2016) (codified in scattered sections of 34 C.F.R.) (the “Old Regulations”). To comply with the Old Regulations, FCC sent its students a notice updating their enrollment agreements (the “Notice”) [ECF No. 81-2]. In the Notice, FCC waived its right to arbitrate-and made clear that its waiver would “apply to your arbitration agreement with [FCC] for any period of time during which these regulations are in effect.” Notice at 3. In July 2020, while this case was pending, a new set of regulations took effect. See 84 Fed.Reg. 49,788 (Sept. 23, 2019) (codified in scattered sections of 34 C.F.R.) (the “New Regulations”).[1] The New Regulations removed the Old Regulations' requirement that participating schools waive their arbitration agreements and class-action bans. On this crucial issue, it provided as follows: “Under final § 685.300, paragraphs (d) through (i) finalized in the 2016 final regulations covering . . . class action bans [and] pre-dispute arbitration agreements . . . are removed from the regulations.” Id. at 49,907.
When the New Regulations came into effect, we allowed FCC to re-brief its then-pending motion to compel arbitration. See Order at 7. In that second round of motions practice, FCC argued that, because the Notice's arbitration waiver was expressly limited to “any period of time during which [the Old Regulations] are in effect,” FCC was no longer precluded from enforcing the arbitration agreements Britt and Henry had signed in 2018 and 2016, respectively. Finding this argument persuasive, we granted FCC's Motion to Compel Arbitration. See Order at 29. Since then, the parties agree, neither the facts nor the law has changed.
“The only grounds for granting a Rule 59 motion are newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007) (cleaned up); see also Eveillard v. Nationstar Mortg. LLC, 2015 WL 1191170, at *5 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 16, 2015) (); United States v. Russell, 994 F.3d 1230, 1243 n.4 (11th Cir. 2021) . “[C]lear error or manifest injustice occurs where the Court ‘has patently misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of apprehension[.]'” Great Lakes Ins. SE v. Boat Rental Miami, Inc., 2020 WL 264674, at *6 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 17, 2020) (Altonaga, C.J.).
To prevail on a Rule 59(e) motion, then, the movant “must demonstrate why the court should reconsider its prior decision and set forth facts or law of a strongly convincing nature to induce the court to reverse its prior decision.” Instituto de Prevision Militar v. Lehman Bros., 485 F.Supp.2d 1340, 1343 (S.D. Fla. 2007) (Moore, J.). “[A] Rule 59(e) motion [cannot be used] to relitigate old matters, raise argument or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Michael Linet, Inc. v. Vill. of Wellington, Fla., 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005). “This prohibition includes new arguments that were previously available, but not pressed.” Wilchombe v. TeeVee Toons, Inc., 555 F.3d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 2009) (cleaned up); see also Colomar v. Mercy Hosp., Inc., 242 F.R.D. 671, 684 (S.D. Fla. 2007) (Seitz, J.) (“[T]o the extent Plaintiff merely reargues points previously considered and rejected by the Court, or tries to raise new arguments and point to new evidence that could have been raised earlier, this is insufficient grounds to satisfy the clear error or manifest injustice standard for granting a motion for reconsideration.”). It's thus “well-settled that motions for reconsideration are disfavored and that relief under Rule 59(e) is an extraordinary remedy to be employed sparingly.” Krstic v. Princess Cruise Lines, Ltd., 706 F.Supp.2d 1271, 1282 (S.D. Fla. 2010) (Gold, J.) (cleaned up). And “[t]he decision to alter or amend a judgment is committed to the sound discretion of the district court.” O'Neal, 958 F.2d at 1047 (citing Am. Home Assur. Co. v. Glenn Estess & Assoc., Inc., 763 F.2d 1237, 1238-39 (11th Cir. 1985)).
The Plaintiffs[2] don't identify any new facts or changes in the governing law. See generally Motion for Reconsideration. Their Motion for Reconsideration thus turns on their view that our Order resulted in four “clear errors” and a not-insignificant helping of “manifest injustice.” In the main, they contend as follows: (1) “[t]he [Court] failed to acknowledge that arbitration is a question of venue determined at the time of filing”; (2) “the Court's decision . . . rests on an argument not advanced by the Parties”; (3) “the Court's decision . . . misinterprets and misapplies a condition subsequent”; (4) “the Court . . . did not construe ambiguity in the Supplement[3] against FCC”; and (5) “the Court's decision is patently unfair and contravenes public policy.” Motion for Reconsideration at 1. We address-and reject-each argument in turn.
In their first argument for reconsideration, the Plaintiffs contend that our Order was “clearly erroneous” because it “failed to acknowledge” that arbitration clauses implicate questions of venue, which (the Plaintiffs say) must be determined on the facts as they existed at the time the complaint was filed. See id. at 2. But, as the Defendant points out, see Motion for Reconsideration Response [ECF No. 146] at 3, this (purported) connection between arbitration clauses and the law of venue appeared nowhere in the Plaintiffs' briefing on the Motion to Compel. Resisting this conclusion, the Plaintiffs insist they've “consistently argued” that “[t]his question of timing is dispositive.” Motion for Reconsideration at 2. Timing, yes-but not venue. In their opposition to the Motion to Compel, the Plaintiffs relied on “the plain language of the waiver,” which (they claimed) “contemplates analyzing the issue of waiver at a time before the effective date of the New Regulations[.]” Motion to Compel Response [ECF No. 81] at 12. But they never tied this discussion to the law of venue-as they do now. Nor did they suggest-even obliquely-that arbitration clauses implicate questions of venue. Venue, in fact, never came up. That's sufficient for us to conclude that this is a new argument the Plaintiffs cannot advance in a motion for reconsideration. See O'Neal, 958 F.2d at 1047 (“Motions to amend should not be used to raise arguments which could, and should, have been made before the judgment was issued.”); see also Stone v. Wall, 135 F.3d 1438, 1442 (11th Cir. 1998) ().[4]
Even if this argument had been preserved, it would fail. In support of their venue theory, the Plaintiffs create a new-what they call-“rule” of law by stringing together sentences from two completely unrelated Eleventh Circuit cases: Lipcon v. Underwriters at Lloyd's, London, 148 F.3d 1285 (11th Cir. 1998); and Flowers Indus., Inc. v. F.T.C., 835 F.2d 775 (11th Cir. 1987). See Reply in Support of Motion to Certify (“Motion to Certify Reply”) [ECF No. 150] at 3. According to the Plaintiffs, “[t]he Eleventh Circuit treats issues involving arbitration clauses as questions of venue, see Lipcon v. Underwriters at Lloyd's, London, 148 F.3d 1285, 1290 (11th Cir. 1998), which ‘must be determined based on the facts at the time of filing,' see Flowers Indus., Inc. v. F.T.C., 835 F.2d 775, 776 n.1 (11th Cir. 1987).”
Motion for Reconsideration at 2. Lipcon (the Plaintiffs say) thus stands for the proposition that the court's enforcement of an arbitration clause implicates questions of venue.
Lipcon-an international-arbitration case with a forum-selection clause that mandated arbitration in England-did hold that “motions to dismiss upon the basis of choice-of-forum and...
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