Hill v. Batchley
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:20-cv-06428
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Hill v. Batchley, Judge Rogers granted reconsideration, reopened the case, vacated its dismissal, and reinstated Hill’s amended complaint.
Cymeyon V. Hill’s case was reopened, his prior dismissal without prejudice was vacated, and his amended complaint was reinstated; the defendants remain parties to the reopened action.
What happened
In Hill v. Batchley, the court reconsidered its earlier dismissal of Hill’s civil-rights case. The dismissal had occurred because Hill did not timely submit an application to proceed without paying the filing fee.
Hill said he never received the clerk’s notice setting the deadline. He later submitted a completed application, and the court found that his failure to respond resulted from not receiving the notice.
The court granted Hill’s motion for reconsideration, reopened the case, vacated the earlier dismissal without prejudice, and reinstated his amended complaint. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said the court would separately review that complaint and the application.
The detailed version
- Hill v. Batchley · No. 4:20-cv-06428
- Yvonne Rogers
- June 14, 2021
Background
This civil-rights action was brought by Cymeyon V. Hill, whom the opinion describes as a civil detainee. The court dismissed the action without prejudice on November 16, 2020, because Hill had not timely filed an application to proceed without paying the filing fee. The deadline came from a clerk’s notice dated September 14, 2020.
Hill filed a motion asking the court to reconsider the dismissal under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He also filed a completed application to proceed without paying the filing fee as a non-prisoner.
Reasoning
Hill stated that he had not received the clerk’s September 14, 2020 notice, which informed him that the action could not proceed until he paid the filing fee or filed a completed application. The court concluded that the record showed Hill failed to respond because he never received the notice.
Rule 60(b)(1) permits reconsideration based on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The court determined that Hill had provided enough support for reconsideration under those circumstances.
Ruling
The court granted Hill’s motion for reconsideration. It ordered the clerk to reopen the action, vacated the November 16, 2020 order dismissing the case without prejudice, and reinstated Hill’s amended complaint filed November 12, 2020. The court identified that amended complaint as the operative complaint. It stated that it would review the amended complaint and Hill’s completed application in a separate written order. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered the case reopened and terminated the reconsideration motion docket entry.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.