Laine v. Superior Court of Alameda County Hayward Hall of Justice
- James Donato
- 3:18-cv-04390
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Laine v. Superior Court, Judge Donato denied reconsideration and denied the plaintiffs’ request to proceed without fees on appeal.
The plaintiffs, who were representing themselves, were affected by the denial of reconsideration and the denial of their request to proceed without paying fees on appeal.
What happened
In Laine v. Superior Court of Alameda County Hayward Hall of Justice, the plaintiffs asked the court to reconsider its earlier dismissal of their case and asked to pursue their appeal without paying filing fees. The plaintiffs were representing themselves.
The court found that the plaintiffs had not obtained the required permission to file a reconsideration motion and had not identified a change in facts or law, or an important matter the court had overlooked. It also rejected their arguments about federal review of state-court decisions and abstention, and noted that they had not addressed another basis for dismissal: failing to respond to several motions.
Judge Donato denied reconsideration and denied the application to proceed without paying fees on appeal. The court said the application did not provide enough information to show that all plaintiffs qualified and that the family-law claims were frivolous for the reasons previously discussed.
The detailed version
- Laine v. Superior Court of Alameda County Hayward Hall of Justice · No. 3:18-cv-04390
- James Donato
- Feb. 26, 2020
Background
The plaintiffs, proceeding without lawyers, moved for reconsideration of the court’s earlier order dismissing the case with prejudice. They had also appealed that order and applied to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning without paying the usual court fees for the appeal. The appeal was temporarily held while the reconsideration motion was considered.
Motion for Reconsideration
The court explained that its local rules require a party to obtain permission before filing a motion for reconsideration. The plaintiffs did not seek that permission. The court also concluded that, even if it treated the filing as a request for permission, the plaintiffs did not satisfy the rule’s requirements. They did not identify a later change in fact or law, or a material fact or decisive legal argument that the court had failed to consider. Instead, the filing repeated earlier arguments or raised new issues unrelated to the jurisdictional question addressed in the dismissal order.
The earlier order concluded that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because of the domestic-relations exception, which limits federal jurisdiction over certain family-law disputes. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that an exception for fraud applied to the rule preventing federal review of allegedly erroneous state-court decisions. It also rejected their arguments that exceptions to the rule requiring federal courts to abstain from interfering with certain state proceedings applied, finding that the record did not support those exceptions. The court further noted that the earlier dismissal had relied independently on the plaintiffs’ failure to respond to multiple motions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), and that the reconsideration motion did not address that ground.
Application to Proceed Without Fees on Appeal
Judge Donato denied the plaintiffs’ application to proceed without paying fees on appeal for the same reasons as their prior requests. The application did not provide enough information to show that all plaintiffs qualified for that status. The court also stated that the family-law claims were frivolous for the reasons discussed in the opinion and the earlier dismissal order. The court denied reconsideration and denied the application.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.