Ashton v. Al Qaeda Islamic
- George Daniels
- 1:02-cv-06977
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Ashton v. al Qaeda Islamic Army, Judge Netburn denied Burlingame plaintiffs’ requests concerning Taliban default judgments and a decade-old judgment.
The Burlingame Plaintiffs were not allowed to challenge other plaintiffs’ Taliban default-judgment motions through adversary briefing, modify the case-management process, obtain a preemptive ruling on potential claims, or seek permission to file a late Rule 60(b) motion challenging the Havlish Judgment.
What happened
In Ashton et al. v. al Qaeda Islamic Army et al., plaintiffs from a related case asked to participate in other plaintiffs’ default-judgment proceedings against the Taliban and to challenge an older judgment.
The court denied all four requests: adversary briefing, changes to case-management orders, a preemptive ruling on potential claims, and permission to file a motion challenging the Havlish Judgment. It ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the required relationship to assert the Taliban’s defenses and that the proposed challenge to the nearly decade-old judgment was too late.
Judge Sarah Netburn also concluded that the delay was not reasonable under the applicable rule and entered the order on August 24, 2022.
The detailed version
- Ashton v. Al Qaeda Islamic · No. 1:02-cv-06977
- George Daniels
- Aug. 24, 2022
Background
The order concerns requests by the plaintiffs in Burlingame v. Bin Laden, et al., referred to as the “Burlingame Plaintiffs.” They asked the court to: (1) allow them to submit adversary briefing on other plaintiffs’ motions for default judgment against the Taliban; (2) modify the case-management orders governing those motions; (3) decide in advance whether certain actions concerning Taliban claims were permissible; and (4) allow them to file a motion under Rule 60(b) challenging the Havlish Judgment, which had been entered nearly a decade earlier.
The Burlingame Plaintiffs wanted to argue that some claims against the Taliban were untimely and that some claimants were not proper heirs of September 11 victims. They said that, because the Taliban was in default, an adversary party was needed to identify claims that should not receive money from a limited fund.
Court’s Analysis
The court denied the request for adversary briefing because the Burlingame Plaintiffs lacked standing to assert the Taliban’s defenses against other plaintiffs’ claims. Standing is the legal requirement that a party have the proper connection to assert a claim. Generally, a party must assert its own legal rights rather than the rights of someone else. An exception may apply when the party has a close relationship with the injured person or entity and that person or entity faces a barrier to asserting its own interests.
The court found no close relationship between the Burlingame Plaintiffs and the Taliban. It described the plaintiffs as Taliban victims with their own claims who sought to assert the Taliban’s defenses to improve their own chances of recovery. The court held that this adversarial relationship could not establish standing.
The court also denied the requests to modify the case-management order and to issue a preemptive ruling on the standing and timeliness of all potential claims against the Taliban. It concluded that there was no need to modify the existing order and that one ruling could not comprehensively or fairly address the range of possible claims and claimants.
Finally, the court denied leave to file the Rule 60(b) motion challenging the Havlish Judgment. Rule 60(c)(1) requires such motions to be filed within a reasonable time and imposes a one-year limit for certain grounds, including mistake, surprise, newly discovered evidence, or fraud. The court stated that the one-year limit was absolute and had expired. It also found that a motion filed nearly a decade after the judgment would not be filed within a reasonable time. The plaintiffs had noted their disapproval of the award by December 16, 2019, but did not seek permission to file the Rule 60(b) motion until April 20, 2022—28 months later.
The court noted a narrow exception for challenges asserting that a judgment is void because of certain jurisdictional errors or a due-process violation depriving a party of notice or an opportunity to be heard. It found nothing in the Burlingame Plaintiffs’ papers suggesting that this exception applied.
Disposition
The court denied the Burlingame Plaintiffs’ requests for adversary briefing, modifications to the case-management orders, a preemptive ruling on potential Taliban claims, and leave to file a Rule 60(b) motion challenging the Havlish Judgment. The order was signed by Sarah Netburn, United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.