Jack & Joe’s Franchising v. EB Window Cleaning LLC

Background

The court considered Defendant Eric Bernadin’s motion to reconsider an earlier order. That earlier order granted Plaintiffs Jack & Joe’s Franchising, Inc. and Jack & Joe’s Management Company’s motion for a preliminary injunction and denied Bernadin’s motion to compel arbitration, meaning his request to require the dispute to be handled through arbitration rather than in court.

Bernadin explained that, because he was representing himself, he did not fully understand that he needed to respond to the plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction motion. He sought to dispute certain factual allegations in the reconsideration motion. The court noted that it had previously ordered him to file a response to the preliminary-injunction motion, but he had not done so.

Court’s Reasoning

The District of Minnesota’s local rules require a party to obtain the court’s permission before filing a motion for reconsideration. Bernadin did not obtain that permission, which the court held was an independent reason to deny his motion.

The court also held that Bernadin had not shown the required “compelling circumstances.” It explained that reconsideration is limited to correcting a clear legal or factual error or addressing newly discovered evidence. It cannot be used to repeat earlier arguments, present evidence or arguments that could have been raised earlier, or introduce a new legal theory. Because Bernadin was presenting arguments and evidence that could have been offered in response to the earlier motion, the court concluded that permission to seek reconsideration was not warranted.

Ruling

The court ordered that Eric Bernadin’s motion for reconsideration, Docket 50, was DENIED. The court added that the ruling did not prevent Bernadin from filing a future motion to have the preliminary injunction lifted based on changed circumstances.