Cymeyon Hill v. T. Lemon
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-05230
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Cymeyon V. Hill v. T. Lemon, Judge Rogers denied Hill’s motion to enforce a settlement agreement because the court lacked jurisdiction.
Cymeyon V. Hill’s motion to enforce the settlement agreement was denied; the defendants in the closed action were not ordered to take any action.
What happened
Cymeyon V. Hill v. T. Lemon involved a closed prisoner civil-rights case that ended after the parties reached a settlement and the case was dismissed with prejudice. Hill later filed a motion alleging a breach of the settlement agreement and asking the court to compel compliance.
The magistrate judge recommended denying the motion because the court lacked jurisdiction to enforce the settlement and, alternatively, because Hill had not alleged a breach. No one objected to the recommendation, and the district court found no clear error in the record.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the recommendation and denied Hill’s motion for lack of jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Cymeyon Hill v. T. Lemon · No. 4:21-cv-05230
- Yvonne Rogers
- Nov. 8, 2023
Background
This was a closed prisoner civil-rights action. The parties appeared before Magistrate Judge Robert M. Illman for court-ordered settlement proceedings on April 13, 2023, entered into a settlement agreement, and then obtained a dismissal with prejudice on April 19, 2023.
Cymeyon V. Hill later filed a document titled “Notice [of] Motion [for] Breach of Settlement Agreement [and] Motion to Compel.” The filing appeared to seek enforcement of the settlement agreement. Hill asked the court to have Magistrate Judge Illman enforce the agreement and to compel Deputy Attorney General John Fa[u]lconer to comply with it.
Report and Recommendation
The district court referred Hill’s motion to Magistrate Judge Illman. On September 19, 2023, Illman recommended that the motion be denied because the court did not have jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement. The recommendation also stated, alternatively, that Hill had failed to allege a breach of the agreement.
The parties had fourteen days to object. No objections were filed. Because there was no timely objection, the district court reviewed the record for clear error rather than conducting a new, detailed review of the disputed issues.
Ruling
The court found no clear error, accepted Magistrate Judge Illman’s report and recommendation, and made it the order of the court. It denied Hill’s motion for breach of the settlement agreement and to compel for lack of jurisdiction. The order terminated Docket Nos. 34 and 37. The court did not need to address the returned mail and inactive-address issue because it adopted the jurisdictional ground for denying the motion.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.