Suber v. VVP Services, LLC

Background

Karen M. Suber filed a Second Amended Complaint asserting state and federal claims against VVP Services, LLC and other defendants arising from her previous employment. Each defendant separately moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. On September 27, 2021, the court dismissed all defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Suber filed two motions seeking to revisit that order. One was a motion to alter the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and Local Civil Rule 6.3. The other sought relief from the order under Rule 60(b)(6). The order states that Alison J. Nathan, a Circuit Judge sitting by designation, decided the motions.

Motion to Alter the Judgment

Suber asked the court to change its dismissal order and transfer the case to the Central District of California under 28 U.S.C. § 1631. She argued that having to refile there could require her to rely on equitable doctrines to preserve her claims and could prevent her from pleading the claims in her Second Amended Complaint. She also argued that having to serve the defendants again would cause substantial costs and that the Central District of California was a forum where the case could originally have been filed.

The defendants argued that Suber had not been diligent in choosing the forum, had not shown that jurisdiction or venue was proper in the Central District of California as to every defendant, and had not shown severe prejudice from dismissal.

The court denied the motion without deciding whether jurisdiction was proper in the Central District of California. It held that this was not the appropriate stage to request a transfer and that Suber had not shown that transfer was necessary to prevent manifest injustice. The court also held that she had had an earlier opportunity to seek transfer because the defendants’ motions to dismiss had raised personal-jurisdiction arguments. Because she had not previously requested transfer, the court treated her transfer argument as a new theory that she could have raised earlier and denied the motion.

Motion for Relief from the Order

Rule 60(b)(6) permits relief from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for another reason that justifies relief. The court explained that this relief is reserved for extraordinary circumstances or extreme hardship.

Suber based this motion on the court’s earlier decision to seal certain exhibits because they contained information relating to attorney-client privilege. She argued that no attorney-client relationship existed between her and some defendants, that the materials were not protected, that any privilege had been waived, and that the exception for materials connected to wrongdoing applied. She also argued that the court had not considered all the factual material and had misstated her arguments.

The court denied the motion. It found that Suber was repeating arguments made when the sealing issue was first presented rather than identifying a proper basis for reopening the decision. The court also rejected her claim that it had failed to consider whether an attorney-client relationship existed, pointing to its earlier findings that she had performed legal services for VVP Services and had consulted outside counsel about concerns regarding the defendants’ conduct. The court further found that her criticisms of other factual and legal findings did not support relief from the decision to seal the documents. It concluded that she had not identified extraordinary circumstances or extreme hardship.

Disposition

The court denied both motions and stated that the order resolved docket numbers 145 and 149. It did not revisit the earlier dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction or decide whether transfer to the Central District of California was proper.