Salahuddin v. Donnellan Gambella
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-07334
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Salahuddin v. Donnellan Gambella, Judge McMahon denied reconsideration and an unnecessary motion to extend the appeal deadline.
Shaifah Salahuddin was affected: the court refused to reconsider the earlier dismissal, denied her request for more time to appeal as unnecessary, and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The order also confirms that her notice of appeal was timely.
What happened
In Salahuddin v. Donnellan Gambella, Shaifah Salahuddin, who was representing herself, asked the court to reconsider its earlier dismissal of her case and requested disability accommodations. She also filed a notice of appeal and asked for more time to appeal.
The court treated her letter as a request to change the judgment under Rule 59(e) and for reconsideration under a local court rule. Because she filed that request within 28 days of the judgment, the court had authority to decide it even though she had filed a notice of appeal.
Judge Colleen McMahon denied the reconsideration request because Salahuddin did not show that the court had overlooked controlling law or previously presented facts. The judge also denied the request for more time to appeal as unnecessary because the notice of appeal was timely, and denied permission to appeal without paying fees.
The detailed version
- Salahuddin v. Donnellan Gambella · No. 1:19-cv-07334
- Colleen McMahon
- Feb. 4, 2020
Background
The court had dismissed this action in an order and judgment dated November 22, 2019, and entered on November 25, 2019. Salahuddin, who was proceeding without a lawyer, filed a December 6, 2019 letter seeking disability accommodations and asking the court to reconsider the dismissal. She later filed a notice of appeal on December 26, 2019, along with a motion for an extension of time to file that notice.
Reconsideration request
The court construed the December 6 letter as a motion to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and as a motion for reconsideration under Local Civil Rule 6.3. The court explained that both standards require the moving party to show that the court overlooked controlling decisions or factual matters that had previously been presented.
The court first determined that it had jurisdiction to decide the motion. Salahuddin filed the Rule 59(e) motion 11 days after judgment was entered and filed the notice of appeal 20 days later. Because the Rule 59(e) motion was timely and had not been decided before the notice of appeal was filed, the notice of appeal was not yet effective for purposes of transferring authority over the matter to the appeals court.
The court then denied relief under Rule 59(e) and Local Civil Rule 6.3. It found that Salahuddin had not shown that the court overlooked controlling decisions or factual matters that would justify vacating the earlier order and judgment.
Extension of time to appeal
The court denied the motion for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal as unnecessary. A timely Rule 59(e) motion pauses the appeal deadline until the court enters its order deciding that motion. The court therefore concluded that Salahuddin’s December 26 notice of appeal was timely. The court also stated that the notice would have been timely even without the Rule 59(e) motion because the ordinary 30-day deadline fell on December 25, a federal holiday, extending the deadline to December 26.
Disposition
The court denied the Rule 59(e) and Local Civil Rule 6.3 motion, denied the motion for an extension of time to appeal, and directed the Clerk of Court to mail Salahuddin a copy of the order and note service on the docket. The court certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The opinion does not explain the basis for the earlier dismissal of the action.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.