Kapacs v. City of Minneapolis, The
- Susan Nelson
- 0:17-cv-02291
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 5
In Kapacs v. City of Minneapolis, Judge Nelson denied requests for a temporary restraining order and more time to appeal.
Margots Kapacs, who sought both motions, and the City of Minneapolis and the other defendants.
What happened
In Kapacs v. City of Minneapolis, Margots Kapacs challenged actions involving Minneapolis rental licenses and other alleged constitutional violations. The court had previously denied Kapacs’s request for a temporary restraining order, and the Eighth Circuit had dismissed an earlier appeal.
Kapacs renewed the request for a temporary restraining order and sought more time to file another appeal. Kapacs argued that an earlier appeal was still pending and that long work hours and a simultaneous divorce proceeding justified the extension.
Judge Susan Richard Nelson denied both motions. She concluded that the earlier appeal had already been dismissed, and that Kapacs’s stated reasons were within Kapacs’s control and therefore did not establish the required good cause.
The detailed version
- Kapacs v. City of Minneapolis, The · No. 0:17-cv-02291
- Susan Nelson
- Nov. 5, 2018
Background
Margots Kapacs proceeded without a lawyer and was identified as the owner and operator of Minnehaha Lofts, LLC. The City of Minneapolis revoked a rental license for a duplex property after Kapacs allegedly failed to respond to the City’s attempts to inspect it. The City later denied rental-license applications for other properties based on a city ordinance concerning applicants whose licenses had been revoked during the preceding year.
Kapacs pursued related litigation in Minnesota state court and in the District of Minnesota. The state courts affirmed the rental-license revocation, an application denial, and the dismissal of most of Kapacs’s state-court claims. In this federal case, Kapacs had previously sought a temporary restraining order. The magistrate judge recommended denying that request, and the Court adopted that recommendation and denied the motion.
Temporary Restraining Order
Kapacs filed another motion for a temporary restraining order on May 1, 2018. The Court denied the renewed motion because it had already denied Kapacs’s earlier motion for a temporary restraining order, so Kapacs could not succeed on the renewed request.
Extension of Time to Appeal
Kapacs also sought more time to file an appeal concerning what Kapacs called the grant of “summary judgment.” Construing the filing liberally because Kapacs was proceeding without a lawyer, the Court treated the request as an effort to appeal the Court’s earlier grant of the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(a), a district court may extend the deadline for filing a notice of appeal when the party shows good cause. The Court explained that good cause requires a need for an extension caused by something outside the party’s control. Kapacs argued that an earlier appeal was still pending and cited long work hours and a simultaneous divorce proceeding. The Court found that the earlier appeal had been dismissed by the Eighth Circuit on May 24, 2018, and that Kapacs’s other reasons were within Kapacs’s control. The Court also noted that Kapacs had previously been warned that future requests for extensions would be viewed with disfavor.
Disposition
The Court denied Kapacs’s Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and denied Kapacs’s Motion for Extension of Time to File an Appeal. The order did not decide the underlying rental-license or constitutional claims on their merits.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.