Gurvey v. Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman PC
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:06-cv-01202
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 124
In Gurvey v. Cowan, Judge Schofield denied reconsideration because Gurvey offered no new basis and her challenge to the 2009 dismissal was untimely.
Amy R. Gurvey’s attempt to reconsider the denial of her motion to vacate the 2009 dismissal was unsuccessful; the dismissal and closure of the action were not reopened.
What happened
Amy R. Gurvey asked the court to reconsider its February 13, 2020 order denying her request to reopen the dismissal of Live Nation and related claims. She argued that a 2010 filing, later-issued patents, and information from a separate government antitrust case justified revisiting the earlier rulings.
The court rejected that request. It said no April 22, 2010 motion appeared on the docket and that, even if such a motion had been filed, it would not have been made within a reasonable time because it challenged an order entered more than a year earlier. The court also noted that the issues had already been fully adjudicated and appealed twice.
In Amy R. Gurvey v. Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman PC, Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied reconsideration of the February 13 order. The court did not reopen the case or address the merits of Gurvey’s patent, antitrust, or related claims.
The detailed version
- Gurvey v. Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman PC · No. 1:06-cv-01202
- Lorna Schofield
- Mar. 9, 2020
Background
Amy R. Gurvey, appearing without a lawyer, asked Judge Schofield to reconsider the court’s February 13, 2020 order. That earlier order denied Gurvey’s motion to vacate the 2009 order dismissing Live Nation from the case. The materials identify the case as involving Gurvey’s claims concerning patents, alleged patent infringement, antitrust violations, and alleged misconduct by attorneys and other defendants.
Gurvey argued that the court should revisit the dismissal because, among other things, she claimed a motion filed on April 22, 2010 had not been adjudicated, her patents were issued after the earlier dismissal, and later developments in a separate government antitrust case involving Live Nation supported her position. She also challenged the court’s handling of docket entries and asserted that the case had not been properly resolved.
Court’s reasoning
The court said Gurvey had not provided new information compelling a different result. It corrected the date identified in Gurvey’s filing, explaining that the order dismissing Live Nation was dated March 17, 2009, not April 24, 2009. The court further stated that no April 22, 2010 motion appeared on the docket. Even assuming such a motion had been filed, the court concluded it would not have been reasonably prompt because it would have been filed more than a year after the March 17, 2009 order. The court cited the rule requiring motions to vacate generally to be filed no more than one year after the challenged order and, for other grounds, within a reasonable time.
The court also stated that an appeal from the March 17, 2009 order was not timely. It noted that the issues in the action had been fully adjudicated and appealed twice in prior related proceedings. The court concluded that the government antitrust judgment Gurvey referenced did not bear on the issues before it and did not justify vacating the orders in this case.
Disposition
Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied reconsideration of the February 13, 2020 order. The ruling did not reopen the case, revive the dismissed claims, or decide the merits of Gurvey’s patent and antitrust allegations. The order also stated that frivolous future filings could result in sanctions and could require Gurvey to obtain permission before filing additional materials, although the text supplied is partially obscured in that passage.
Read the full 124-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.