AAA National Maintenance et al v. Denver, City and County of et al

Filing 159

ORDER. Plaintiffs Motion To Appeal Courts Decision Denying Request for Re-Open Settlement Agreement Due to Lack of Jurisdiction 157 filed 10/18/2011, is DENIED. By Judge Robert E. Blackburn on 11/17/2011.(sah, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge Robert E. Blackburn
Civil Case No. 09-cv-00007-REB-MEH
AAA NATIONAL MAINTENANCE, a Georgia corporation, and
DANA MAYFIELD,
Plaintiffs,
v.
CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, a municipal corporation, and
DENVER DEPARTMENT OF AVIATION, a Department of the City and County of
Denver,
Defendants.

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO APPEAL COURT’S
DECISION DENYING REQUEST TO RE-OPEN SETTLEMENT
AGREEMENT DUE TO LACK OF JURISDICTION
Blackburn, J.
The matter before me is plaintiffs’ Motion To Appeal Court’s Decision Denying
Request for Re-Open Settlement Agreement Due to Lack of Jurisdiction [#157]1
filed October 18, 2011. Construing the motion as a request for me to reconsider my
Minute Order [#156] filed October 11, 2011, I deny the request.
The bases for granting reconsideration are extremely limited:
Grounds warranting a motion to reconsider include (1) an
intervening change in the controlling law, (2) new evidence
previously unavailable, and (3) the need to correct clear
error or prevent manifest injustice. Thus, a motion for
reconsideration is appropriate where the court has
misapprehended the facts, a party’s position, or the
controlling law. It is not appropriate to revisit issues already
1

“[#157]” is an example of the convention I use to identify the docket number assigned to a
specific paper by the court’s electronic case filing and management system (CM/ECF). I use this
convention throughout this order.

addressed or advance arguments that could have been
raised in prior briefing.
Servants of the Paraclete v. Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1012 (10th Cir. 2000) (citations
omitted). Plaintiffs offer nothing suggesting that any of these factors are implicated in
this case.2
The decisions from courts outside the Tenth Circuit to which plaintiffs cite are not
binding on me, nor do they convince me that the apposite authority cited in my Minute
Order is erroneous. As I stated there, and shall reiterate here for plaintiffs’ benefit,
“there is no procedural mechanism to reopen a case dismissed with prejudice to enforce
the settlement. Instead, an independent action must be commenced asserting a breach
of the settlement contract, and an independent basis for jurisdiction in the enforcement
action must be established.” Cattlco, LLC v. United AG Export Corp., 2009 WL
973562 at *3 (D. Colo. April 10, 2009)
THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that plaintiffs’ Motion To Appeal Court’s
Decision Denying Request for Re-Open Settlement Agreement Due to Lack of
Jurisdiction [#157] filed October 18, 2011, is DENIED.
Dated November 17, 2011, at Denver, Colorado.
BY THE COURT:

2

I note further that a corporation cannot appear before a federal court pro se but must be
represented by a licensed attorney. Tal v. Hogan, 453 F.3d 1244, 1254 (10th Cir. 2006). Thus plaintiff
Mayfield’s attempt to represent the interests of the corporate plaintiff are ineffectual.

2