Anderson v. TOL, Inc.

940 F.Supp.2d 766

Lloyd Randall ANDERSON, Plaintiff,

v.TOL, INC., Defendant.

Case No. 3:12–cv–01312.

United States District Court,

M.D. Tennessee,

Nashville Division.

April 15, 2013.

Lucas R. Smith, Paige Waldrop Mills, Bass, Berry & Sims, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiff.

Stephen H. Price, Stites & Harbison, PLLC, Nashville, TN, Daniel M. Cislo, Sean D. O'Brien, Cislo & Thomas, LLP, Santa Monica, CA, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, District Judge.

Defendant TOL, Inc. (“TOL”) has filed a so-styled Motion to Dissolve, Alter, or Amend Preliminary Injunction pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) ( “Rule 59 Motion”) (Docket No. 48), to which plaintiff Lloyd Randall Anderson filed a Response in opposition (Docket No. 53), and TOL filed a Reply (Docket No. 57). Anderson has filed a Motion to Reschedule Initial Case Management Conference and Renewed Motion for Leave to File a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket No. 54) (“Motion to Reschedule ICMC and Motion for Leave”), to which TOL filed a Response in partial opposition (Docket No. 58). For the reasons stated herein, TOL's Rule 59 Motion will be denied, the court will reschedule the Initial Case Management Conference, and Anderson's request for leave to file a partial motion for summary judgment will be denied without prejudice.

BACKGROUND

On February 7, 2013, after receiving written submissions from the parties and conducting a preliminary injunction hearing (“Preliminary Injunction Hearing”), the court granted Anderson's request for a preliminary injunction from the bench. The court entered that preliminary injunction against TOL on the docket on February 8, 2013. ( See Docket No. 36 (“Preliminary Injunction Order”).) On February 28, 2013, the court issued an opinion explaining the basis for the Preliminary Injunction Order. See Anderson v. TOL, Inc., 927 F.Supp.2d 475, 2013 WL 772055 (M.D.Tenn. Feb. 28, 2013) [Docket No. 44 in this case, associated Order at Docket No. 45].¹ Familiarity with that opinion is assumed.

On March 8, 2013, TOL timely filed the instant Rule 59 Motion, which urges the court to reconsider its previous decision and, as a consequence, to dissolve or modify the injunction. On March 8, 2013, TOL also filed a Notice of Appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. (Docket No. 49.) The court takes judicial notice of the fact that, on March 15, 2013, the Federal Circuit deactivated TOL's appeal, stating that “a motion of the type enumerated in Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4) has been filed in [the district court] rendering the notice of appeal ineffective ....” ( See Anderson v. TOL, Inc., Appeal No. 13–1253 (Fed. Cir. filed Mar. 8, 2013), at Entry No. 2.)

JURISDICTION

The parties dispute whether this court has jurisdiction to consider the Rule 59 Motion. Anderson argues that, under Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. v. Third Dimension (3D) Semiconductor, Inc., No.2009–1168, 2009 WL 790105 (Fed.Cir. Mar. 25, 2009), Power Controls Corp. v. Hybrinetics, Inc., 806 F.2d 234 (Fed.Cir.1986), and Chemlawn Servs. Corp. v. GNC Pumps, Inc., 823 F.2d 515 (Fed.Cir.1987), the Notice of Appeal divested this court of jurisdiction to address the Preliminary Injunction Order any further. In response, TOL argues that Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4) authorizes this court to decide the pending motion.

As an initial matter, although styled as a “Motion to Dissolve, Alter, or Amend Preliminary Injunction,” TOL's motion is actually a “motion to reconsider,” because it does not rely on any intervening factual or legal changes following entry of the Preliminary Injunction Order. See Gooch v. Life Investors Ins. Co. of Am., 672 F.3d 402, 414–416 (6th Cir.2012). At any rate, as the Federal Circuit appears to have acknowledged in this case, under Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4), a notice of appeal of a district court order is not effective until the court has disposed of a timely motion concerning that order filed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. Thus, under a straightforward application of Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4), this court must decide the Rule 59 Motion before TOL's appeal can even be effective. Indeed, the court has located one unpublished Sixth Circuit decision that suggests that this approach is the correct one here. See Barnett v. Cross, No. 89–2260, 894 F.2d 1336, 1990 WL 7939 (6th Cir. Feb. 2, 1990).²

The Federal Circuit authority cited by Anderson does not persuade the court that Fed. R.App. 4(a)(4) is somehow displaced here. First, the Federal Circuit looks to the law of the originating circuit on procedural issues, but none of the cited cases address how the Sixth Circuit would decide this jurisdictional issue. See Power Controls, 806 F.2d at 237 (looking to Ninth Circuit); Chemlawn, 823 F.2d at 517 (looking to Fifth Circuit). ³ Therefore, the cases are not binding and constitute, at most, persuasive authority.

Second, none of the cases cited by Anderson even addresses the intersection of Fed.R.Civ.P. 59, Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4), and § 1292(a), which is the pertinent issue presented here.

Third, even given their limited potential relevance, none of the cases cited by Anderson involves the procedural circumstances presented here. In Power Controls, the district court issued a preliminary injunction against the defendant, supported only by a one-sentence explanation from the bench that was not followed by any further findings of fact or conclusions of law. 806 F.2d at 236. The defendant appealed and filed an initial brief to the Federal Circuit, in which it criticized the district court for failing to make necessary findings. 806 F.2d at 238. The plaintiff-appellee, now aware of the deficiencies identified by the defendant on appeal, filed a motion in the district court seeking to “clarify” the basis for the district court's opinion. 806 F.2d at 236–37. The district court granted the motion and, months after it entered the preliminary injunction and after the defendant had briefed its appeal, issued an opinion that essentially plugged the gaps identified on appeal. 806 F.2d at 236–38. Similarly, in Chemlawn, the defendant appealed two district court preliminary injunction orders that were not supported by findings of fact or conclusions of law (in violation of Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a)) and that failed to require a security bond (in violation of Fed. R. Civ. 65). 823 F.2d at 516–18. Four months after the court issued the first of these injunctions and two months into the pendency of the defendant's appeal thereof, the district court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law purporting to justify the injunctions, and finally required the necessary bond. Id. at 516. Thus, in both Power Controls and Chemlawn, which involved serious procedural violations that each district court had endeavored to cure belatedly and retroactively, the Federal Circuit (looking to the law of the relevant circuit court in each case) understandably found that each district court lacked jurisdiction to address the preliminary injunction orders while each appeal was pending. See Power Controls, 806 F.2d at 238;Chemlawn, 823 F.2d at 518.

In Fairchild, which is a three-paragraph, unpublished opinion, the Federal Circuit considered the defendant's appeal for a stay of all proceedings before the District of Maine, which had issued a preliminary injunction against the defendant. 2009 WL 790105, at *1. The Federal Circuit held that it did not have authority to stay district court proceedings unrelated to the preliminary injunction and therefore denied the request for a total stay. Id. In dicta, it cited Chemlawn and Power Controls for the proposition that a district court “may not amend the injunction [ ] or make findings of fact to support its injunction while the injunction is on appeal.” Id. Given that Fairchild is an unpublished summary opinion, that the cited language is dicta, and that the cited language provides an over-broad characterization of both Chemlawn and Power Controls—neither of which addressed Sixth Circuit law or the intersection of Fed.R.Civ.P. 59 and Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4) in the first place—the court is not persuaded that Fairchild displaces or should be construed as displacing the straightforward application of Fed. R.App. 4(a)(4) here.⁴

Here, the procedural posture of the case does not implicate the concerns that animated the Federal Circuit's decisions in Power Controls and Chemlawn. In addressing the Rule 59 Motion here, the court is not exercising concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Circuit over this case; to the contrary, the Federal Circuit has deactivated the appeal pending resolution of the Rule 59 Motion, a result which is consistent with Barnett. Also, unlike Power Controls and Chemlawn, this court issued its findings of fact and conclusions of law before TOL appealed, neither party has disclosed its appellate arguments, and it is TOL itself ( i.e., the party against whom the preliminary injunction issued) that seeks timely relief from the preliminary injunction before this court under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. Finally, addressing the timely Rule 59 Motion promotes judicial economy: with respect to the Preliminary Injunction Order, the Federal Circuit and the parties will have a complete record on appeal. Thus, under the circumstances presented here, the court finds that it has jurisdiction to address the Rule 59 Motion.⁵

RULE 59 STANDARD

Under Rule 59, a court may alter or amend an order based on: (1) a clear error of law; (2) newly discovered evidence; (3) an intervening change in controlling law; or (4) a need to prevent manifest injustice. Id. at 615;GenCorp, Inc. v. Int'l Underwriters, 178 F.3d 804, 834 (6th Cir.1999); Roger Miller Music, Inc. v. Sony/ATV Publ'g, LLC, 477 F.3d 383, 395 (6th Cir.2007). However, a motion under Rule 59(e) is not a vehicle for presenting new legal arguments that could have been raised before a judgment was issued. Roger Miller Music, 477 F.3d at 395;see also Leisure Caviar, LLC v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 616 F.3d...