Ruppersberger v. Ramos
| Decision Date | 31 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 11-00145 ACK-KJM |
| Parties | JOHN SIDNEY RUPPERSBERGER, Plaintiff, v. ROSARIO MAE RAMOS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Hawaii |
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
For the reasons discussed below, the Court DENIES Defendant's Motion for Reconsideration, ECF No. 136 (the "Motion").
BACKGROUND
The relevant factual and procedural history of this case was outlined in the Court's order granting summary judgment, ECF No. 134, Ruppersberger v. Ramos, No. CV 11-00145 ACK-KJM, 2020 WL 1894400 (D. Haw. Apr. 16, 2020) (the "April 16 Order"), on which Defendant now seeks reconsideration. The Court incorporates that background by reference here and will review the history as is pertinent to its discussion below.
After the April 16 Order was issued, Defendant filed her Motion seeking reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 59(e). See Reply, ECF No. 139, at 2. Pursuant to the Court's direction, Plaintiff filed his opposition on June 5, and Defendant filed her reply on June 12. Motions for reconsideration are decided without a hearing under Local Rule 7.1(d).
STANDARD
Under Rule 59(e), a litigant may file "[a] motion to alter or amend a judgment" within 28 days after entry of the judgment. "The Rule gives a district court the chance to rectify its own mistakes in the period immediately following its decision." Banister v. Davis, 140 S. Ct. 1698, 1703 (2020) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "In keeping with that corrective function, 'federal courts generally have [used] Rule 59(e) only' to 'reconsider[] matters properly encompassed in a decision on the merits'" and "will not address new arguments or evidence that the moving party could have raised before the decision issued." Id. (); see also Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471, 486 n.5, 128 S. Ct. 2605, 2617, 171 L. Ed. 2d 570 (2008) ().
Rule 59(e) offers "an extraordinary remedy, to be used sparingly in the interests of finality and conservation of judicial resources." Carroll v. Nakatani, 342 F.3d 934, 945 (9th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Ninth Circuit has announced "four basic grounds upon which a Rule 59(e) motion may be granted": (1) "to correct manifest errors of law or fact"; (2) "newly discovered or previously unavailable evidence"; (3) "to prevent manifest injustice"; or (4) if there is "an intervening change in controlling law." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Herron, 634 F.3d 1101, 1111 (9th Cir. 2011); Bylsma v. Hawaii, No. 19-CV-00535-DKW-WRP, 2020 WL 759119, at *1 (D. Haw. Feb. 14, 2020).
Mere disagreement with a previous order is an insufficient basis for reconsideration. See Leong v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 689 F. Supp. 1572, 1573 (D. Haw. 1988). "Whether or not to grant reconsideration is committed to the sound discretion of the court." Navajo Nation v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, 331 F.3d 1041, 1046 (9th Cir. 2003).
DISCUSSION
Defendant seeks reconsideration of the April 16 Order on two bases. First, Defendant argues that the Court failed to consider that the statute of limitations should bar Plaintiff's claim. Second, Defendant argues that the Court failed to consider enforcing the parties' forum selection clause. The Court rejects both arguments and DENIES Defendant's Motion.
This case was initially filed in 2011 based on Defendant's failure to pay two promissory notes. The parties reached settlement later that year, the terms of which included Defendant executing a new promissory note in favor of Plaintiff secured by a mortgage, and Plaintiff dismissing the case. The parties entered a self-executing stipulated dismissal of that original action with prejudice, which the Court approved as to form only in January 2012. ECF No. 35.
After the parties reached settlement, however, Defendant committed ongoing and blatant violations of that settlement. See ECF Nos. 51, 53. Plaintiff returned to the Court and sought enforcement of the parties' settlement agreement. ECF No. 36. In so doing, Plaintiff did not pay a new filing fee and obtain a new case number; instead Plaintifffiled a subsequent Motion to Enforce the Settlement (the "Enforcement Motion") under the original case heading.
Nearly three years of litigation followed during which the Court granted Plaintiff's Enforcement Motion, ECF Nos. 51, 53; the Court appointed a receiver, ECF No. 54; and the receiver sought a writ of possession and ejectment, ECF No. 64. These developments culminated in December 2018 when the Court denied the receiver's motion for a writ of possession and ejectment. ECF No. 99. The Court held that Defendant successfully resisted the eviction motion because neither Plaintiff nor the receiver had title to the property and therefore under the law were not entitled to proceed with an eviction remedy. Plaintiff's only remedy at that juncture was to seek to foreclose the mortgage Plaintiff held on the property. Accordingly, the Court granted Plaintiff leave to file an amended complaint pursuing foreclosure. Plaintiff filed an amended complaint three weeks later, ECF No. 100, and then moved for summary judgment on the amended complaint, ECF No. 110 (the "Summary Judgment Motion").
In opposing Plaintiff's Summary Judgment Motion, Defendant argued at length that the Supreme Court's holding in Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 114 S. Ct. 1673, 128 L. Ed. 2d 391 (1994) meant that the Court lacked jurisdiction over this case. ECF No. 119. Defendant acknowledged that the Court had diversity jurisdiction over theoriginal complaint but argued that the Court was divested of jurisdiction when the parties entered a self-executing stipulation of dismissal with prejudice.
The April 16 Order ultimately rejected Defendant's argument. First, the Court acknowledged that it lacked jurisdiction over the original complaint under Kokkonen. ECF No. 134. But diversity was still present with regard to the subsequent enforcement dispute and Defendant herself conceded that Plaintiff could merely refile the same action in the same court. ECF No. 119 at 22-23. The Court relied on analogous precedent from the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit, and other district courts to find that—in certain instances—it is appropriate to construe an amended complaint as a new action. Construing Plaintiff's amended complaint as a new action, the Court found that it has diversity jurisdiction over the case. The Court then granted the motion for summary judgment.
Seeking reconsideration, Defendant now argues that treating the amended complaint as a new action for jurisdictional purposes created a statute of limitations problem for Plaintiff. Enforcement of a settlement agreement is a breach of contract dispute, Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 381, to which a six-year limitation period applies, HRS § 657-1. Because the first breach of the settlement agreement occurred by June 2012,and the amended complaint was not filed until December 2018, Defendant argues that the six-year limitations period had elapsed.
The Court rejects Defendant's argument because the Court finds that equitable tolling applies. Equitable tolling of the limitations period applies when a plaintiff "has been pursuing his rights diligently" and "some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way" preventing timely filing. Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649, 130 S. Ct. 2549, 2562, 177 L. Ed. 2d 130 (2010); see also Office of Haw. Affairs v. State, 110 Haw. 338, 360, 133 P.3d 767, 789 (2006) (). Plaintiff meets both requirements here.1
As explained above, when Defendant failed to comply with the settlement agreement, Plaintiff diligently pursued his rights to obtain enforcement of the settlement agreement. Plaintiff brought a motion to enforce the agreement, on which he received a favorable ruling and obtained a court-appointed receiver. ECF Nos. 53, 54. Plaintiff and the court-appointed receiver continued to seek relief for Defendant's ongoing violations of the settlement agreement over the next three years. When the Court ultimately denied the receiver's motion for a writ of possession and ejectment based on Plaintiff lacking title, ECF No. 99, Plaintiff promptly filed his amended complaint to foreclose his mortgage on the property, ECF No. 100.
Plaintiff has also been faced with extraordinary circumstances preventing his timely filing of a new action: the Court granted his Enforcement Motion in 2015. ECF Nos. 51, 53. Had the Court held then that the stipulated dismissal divested it of jurisdiction (as it later held in the April 16 Order),Plaintiff could have simply, and timely, filed a new action to foreclose his mortgage. The Court will not now prevent Plaintiff from seeking that relief where he reasonably relied on the Court's prior orders. See Kwai Fun Wong v. Beebe, 732 F.3d 1030, 1053 (9th Cir. 2013), aff'd and United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U.S. 402, 135 S. Ct. 1625, 191 L. Ed. 2d 533 (2015) (); Sossa v. Diaz, 729 F.3d 1225, 1230 (9th Cir. 2013) (...
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