Bell v. Plante
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-05232
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Bell v. Plante, Judge Swain denied Bell’s Rule 60(b) motion and denied his extension request without prejudice while his appeal was pending.
Renzer Bell’s motions were denied. His request for more time was denied without prejudice, so the order allowed him to file another such request after the Second Circuit disposes of his appeal.
What happened
In Bell v. Plante, the court had previously dismissed Renzer Bell’s federal-law claims as untimely but gave him 30 days to file an amended complaint addressing timeliness. Bell, who was without a lawyer, then filed a request asking the court to reconsider that order and filed a notice of appeal.
The court treated Bell’s request for reconsideration as a motion for relief from an order under Rule 60(b). It treated his other filing as a request for more time to file an amended complaint. Because Bell’s notice of appeal was timely, the appeal took control of the part of the case involving the amended complaint, but the district court could still deny the Rule 60(b) motion.
The court denied Bell’s Rule 60(b) motion and denied his request for more time without prejudice, allowing him to file another such request after the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decides his appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal from this order, certifying that such an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Bell v. Plante · No. 1:22-cv-05232
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 12, 2022
Background
In an August 1, 2022 order, the court dismissed Renzer Bell’s federal-law claims for failure to state a claim because it determined that the claims were untimely. Because Bell was without a lawyer, the court gave him 30 days to file an amended complaint alleging facts showing that the claims were timely or that the filing deadlines should be extended for fairness reasons.
On August 31, Bell filed an application asking the court to reconsider the August 1 order and remove its certification that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. He also filed a notice of appeal and a motion asking for more time to refile his complaint or comply with the August 1 order.
Jurisdiction and Motions
The court treated Bell’s application as a motion for relief from an order under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It treated the other filing as a motion for an extension of time to file an amended complaint.
The court determined that Bell’s notice of appeal was timely because he filed it 30 days after the August 1 order. Filing the notice of appeal transferred control over the issues involved in the appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. As a result, the district court lacked authority to consider Bell’s request for more time to file an amended complaint. The court could, however, deny the Rule 60(b) motion while the appeal was pending.
Rule 60(b) Analysis
Rule 60(b) allows a party to seek relief from an order or judgment for specified reasons, including mistake, newly discovered evidence, misconduct by the opposing party, a void judgment, satisfaction of the judgment, or other extraordinary circumstances. Bell did not show that any of the first five grounds applied. His motion instead disagreed with the court’s earlier conclusions about when his federal-law claims arose and when the applicable filing deadlines expired.
The court also denied relief under Rule 60(b)(6), which applies only for reasons different from those listed in the first five provisions and requires extraordinary circumstances. The court found that Bell had not shown extraordinary circumstances warranting relief.
Disposition
The court denied Bell’s Rule 60(b) motion. It denied his motion for an extension of time without prejudice to filing another such motion after the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit disposes of his appeal. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.