Perkins v. Iberville Parish School Board

Filing 14

ORDER & REASONS as to 11 MOTION to Alter Judgment filed by Emily Perkins: for the reasons stated, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the 11 Motion to Alter or Amend is DENIED. Signed by Judge Nanette Jolivette Brown on 7/2/2013. (RLL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
EMILY PERKINS

CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS

NO.: 12-0015

IBERVILLE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD

SECTION: G(5)

ORDER AND REASONS
The Court is in receipt of Plaintiff Emily Perkins' ("Plaintiff") Motion to Alter or Amend,1
wherein Plaintiff seeks reconsideration of this Court's prior ruling dismissing Plaintiff's complaint
with prejudice for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.2 Having considered
the motion, the memorandum in support, and the applicable law, the Court will deny the motion.

I. Background
The Court has previously detailed the factual and procedural background of this matter
in its Order and Reasons granting Defendant Iberville Parish School Board's ("Defendant")
Motion to Dismiss.3 Therefore, the Court will only provide here the factual and procedural
background as it pertains to the pending motion.
On January 10, 2012, Plaintiff filed this action in the Middle District of Louisiana;
however, pursuant to a General Order signed by Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson on February 6,
2012, this matter was reassigned to this section, Section "G," in the Eastern District of Louisiana.4

1

Rec. Doc. 11.

2

See Order & Reasons, Rec. Doc. 9.

3

Id. at pp. 1-4.

4

Rec. Doc. 3.

In the complaint, Plaintiff brought her claim "under 42 USC sec. 1981 as amended," and sought
"all legal and equitable relief under both counts, including lost wages, loss of leave, physical pain
and suffering, emotional distress, related medical and prescriptive drug cost, attorney fees, costs,
and trial by jury."5 Although Plaintiff failed to properly cite 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which "provides
the exclusive federal damages remedy for the violation of the rights guaranteed by § 1981 when
the claim is pressed against a state actor,"6 the Court nevertheless interpreted Plaintiff's complaint
to implicate § 1981 and § 1983.
On May 2, 2013, this Court dismissed Plaintiff's complaint with prejudice for failure to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted and did not permit Plaintiff to amend the complaint
to state claims against the school principals, individually, because the limitation period on the
claims had expired and any such amendment would have been futile.7
On May 29, 2013, Plaintiff filed the instant motion requesting that the Court "alter or
amend the judgment to conditionally dismiss the complaint subject to Plaintiff's filing the action
in state court" within 30 days.8 Defendant opposed the motion on June 11, 2013,9 and Plaintiff
filed a reply with leave of court.10

5

Rec. Doc. 1 ¶¶ 1, 8.

6

Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701, 735 (1989).

7

See Rec. Doc. 9 at pp. 8, 13.

8

Rec. Doc. 11-1 at pp. 2-3.

9

Rec. Doc. 12.

10

Rec. Doc. 13.

2

II. Parties' Arguments
In support of the pending motion, Plaintiff recognizes that regardless of whether the Court
had dismissed Plaintiff's complaint with or without prejudice, any claim in state court would have
been precluded by res judicata or the limitations period, respectively.11 However, Plaintiff claims
that the Court should amend the judgment to prevent "manifest injustice" by "foreclosing the
possibility of some recovery by the plaintiff," because "[h]ad the matter proceed[ed] on a faster
course [in federal court], re-filing in state court could have been done on a motion for
involuntary dismissal without prejudice before the one-year deadline."12
In opposition to the motion for reconsideration, Defendant notes that Plaintiff's complaint
contained no claims based on state law, and therefore, there is no need for a dismissal without
prejudice to permit the refiling of state law claims.13 Further, Defendant avers that permitting
Plaintiff to "re-file her action in state court" would be futile because any new claims under § 1981
and § 1983 have prescribed, and Plaintiff's failure to name known individuals could not be cured
by an amendment to the complaint.14 In addition, Defendant disputes Plaintiff's contention that
a "a faster track of this case would have allowed her to correct her failures within the prescriptive
period, is disingenuous and should be rejected," because Plaintiff did not even mention adding
the individual defendants until well outside of the prescriptive period.15 Finally, Defendant
contends that allowing Plaintiff to refile her action in state court is also futile, because Plaintiff
11

Id. at p. 1.

12

Id. at p. 2.

13

Rec. Doc. 12 at p. 2.

14

Id.

15

Id.

3

"has already admitted that she has no facts to back her claims of race discrimination against
[Defendant]."16
In reply, Plaintiff reiterates arguments asserted in the Motion to Alter or Amend. Plaintiff
also argues that a state law cause of action would be available to Plaintiff under Louisiana
Revised Statute § 23:303 if this Court amends it's previous order and grants a conditional
dismissal.17

II. Law and Analysis
A. Standard on a Motion for Reconsideration
Although the Fifth Circuit has noted that the Federal Rules “do not recognize a ‘motion
for reconsideration’ in haec verba,”18 it has consistently recognized that such a motion may
challenge a judgment or order under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54(b), 59(e), or 60(b).19
Such a motion “calls into question the correctness of a judgment,”20 and courts have considerable
discretion in deciding whether to grant such a motion.21 In exercising this discretion, courts must
carefully balance the interests of justice with the need for finality.22 Courts in the Eastern District

16

Id. at p. 3.

17

Rec. Doc. 13-3.

18

Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. & Tool Works, Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 173 (5th Cir. 1990).

19

Id. (Rules 59 and 60); Castrillo v. Am. Home Mortg. Servicing, Inc., No. 09-4369, 2010 WL 1424398, at
**3-4 (E.D. La. Apr. 5, 2010) (Vance, C.J.) (Rule 54).
20

Tex. Comptroller of Pub. Accounts v. Transtexas Gas Corp. (In re Transtexas Gas Corp.), 303 F.3d 571,
581 (5th Cir. 2002).
21

Edward H. Bohlin Co., Inc. v. Banning Co., Inc., 6 F.3d 350, 355 (5th Cir. 1993).

22

Id. at 355-56.

4

of Louisiana have generally considered four factors in deciding motions for reconsideration,
which are typically decided under the Rule 59(e) standard:
(1) the motion is necessary to correct a manifest error of law or fact upon which the
judgment is based;
(2) the movant presents newly discovered or previously unavailable evidence;
(3) the motion is necessary in order to prevent manifest injustice; or
(4) the motion is justified by an intervening change in controlling law.23
A motion for reconsideration, “‘[is] not the proper vehicle for rehashing evidence, legal
theories, or arguments. . . .’”24 Instead, such motions “serve the narrow purpose of allowing a
party to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.”25 “It is
well settled that motions for reconsideration should not be used . . . to re-urge matters that have
already been advanced by a party.”26
Reconsideration, therefore, is not to be lightly granted, as “[r]econsideration of a
judgment after its entry is an extraordinary remedy that should be used sparingly”27 and the
motion must “clearly establish” that reconsideration is warranted.28 When there exists no
independent reason for reconsideration other than mere disagreement with a prior order,
reconsideration is a waste of judicial time and resources and should not be granted.29
23

See, e.g., Castrillo, 2010 WL 1424398, at *4 (citations omitted).

24

Id. (quoting Templet v. HydroChem Inc., 367 F.3d 473, 478-79 (5th Cir. 2004)).

25

See Waltman v. Int’l Paper Co., 875 F.2d 468, 473 (5th Cir. 1989).

26

Helena Labs., 483 F. Supp. 2d at 539 (citing Browning v. Navarro, 894 F.2d 99, 100 (5th Cir. 1990)).

27

Templet, 367 F.3d at 478-79 (citation omitted).

28

Schiller v. Physicians Res. Group Inc., 342 F.3d 563, 567 (5th Cir. 2003).

29

Livingston Downs Racing Ass’n v. Jefferson Downs Corp., 259 F. Supp. 2d 471, 481 (M.D. La. 2002).
See also Mata v. Schoch, 337 BR 138, 145 (S.D. Tex. 2005) (refusing reconsideration where no new evidence was
presented). See also FDIC v. Cage, 810 F.Supp. 745, 747 (S.D. Miss. 1993) (refusing reconsideration where the
motion merely disagreed with the court and did not demonstrate clear error of law or manifest injustice).

5

B. Analysis
This Court granted Defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and dismissed the complaint
with prejudice.30 The doctrine of res judicata provides that "[a] final judgment on the merits of
an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have
been raised in that action.31 "A dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6) is a 'judgment on the merits.'"32 As Plaintiff recognizes, such an adjudication
on the merits, provided for under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) as a dismissal "with
prejudice," bars Plaintiff from refiling her claim in state court based upon the principle of res
judicata.33
Here, Plaintiff does not challenge the basis of the Court's decision, but rather requests a
conditional dismissal so that she may refile her claims in state court. Although Plaintiff does not
articulate why she is entitled to a conditional dismissal, she cites Moses v. University Hospital,34
a case from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in support of her
request. In Moses, when the district court granted summary judgment dismissing the plaintiff's
remaining claim on judicial estoppel grounds because the plaintiff had failed to disclose the claim
in two contemporaneous bankruptcy proceedings, the district court was not aware that the

30

See Rec. Doc. 9.

31
Federated Dept. Store, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398 (1981) (citing Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333
U.S. 591, 597 (1948)).
32

Id. at 399 n. 3 (citing Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 190 (1946)).

33

Id. at 398-99.

34

601 F. Supp. 2d 1 (2009).

6

plaintiff's Chapter 7 Bankruptcy trustee was already involved in negotiations relating to the case35
Therefore, the Court granted the trustee's motion to amend the judgment, to allow the trustee to
pursue the plaintiff's claim on behalf of the bankruptcy estate, in accordance with Chapter 7 of
the Bankruptcy Code.36 The district court specifically noted that the amendment to the order was
permitted to avoid the manifest injustice of disadvantaging the plaintiff's creditors–an unintended
and undesirable consequences of the district court's prior decision to dismiss the claim.37
The Court can find no similarity between Moses and the instant case. In deciding the
motion to dismiss, this Court determined that Plaintiff is not entitled to recovery based on the
facts she alleged in her complaint, because she failed to state any cognizable cause of action. No
manifest injustice results when the Court makes a determination that Plaintiff failed to state a
cause of action and dismisses with prejudice Plaintiff's claims based on federal law.38 Thus, res
judicata appropriately applies to bar a subsequent state court action on a claim that a federal court
has adjudicated on the merits.
Further, the Court finds Plaintiff's argument that a delay in ruling on this motion impacted
Plaintiff's ability to file this action in state court unavailing. Plaintiff chose a federal forum to
assert her claim of discrimination under federal law, without stating any state law claims, and the
Court ruled on the merits of her claim. Even if this motion had been decided more expeditiously,
the outcome–a dismissal with prejudice–would have been the same, and Plaintiff would have

35

Id. at 2-3.

36

Id. at 4.

37

Id. at 5.

38

Plaintiff's complaint did not contain any indication that she was asserting any state law claims.

7

been barred from asserting any action in state court "arising from a 'common nucleus of operative
facts'"39 under the doctrine of res judicata. Therefore, the time in which it took this Court to rule
on this motion has no bearing on the appropriate resolution of this case.
To allow Plaintiff to file the same action in state court would contradict well-established
law that "[a] final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from
relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action."40 Further, the rule against
claim-splitting required Plaintiff to bring all claims arising from a "single legal wrong" in one
cause of action,41 and therefore, the Court is not persuaded by Plaintiff's assertion that this Court
should amend its decision to allow Plaintiff to "file an action against the employer under La. RS
23:303."42 Plaintiff failed to assert a cause of action pursuant to Louisiana Revised Statute §
23:303 in her complaint, and she may not rely on this failure to support a motion for
reconsideration under Rule 59(e).
Moreover, the Supreme Court has stated that "[t]here is simply 'no principle of law or
equity which sanctions the rejection by a federal court of the salutary principle of res judicata.'"43
Finally, reconsideration of the Court's prior order would be inappropriate and a waste of judicial
resources in a case such as this where "there exists no independent reason for reconsideration

39

Proctor & Gamble Co. v. Amway Corp., 376 F.3d 496, 499 (5th 2004) (citing Agrilectric Power
Partners, Ltd. v. Gen. Elec. Co., 20 F.3d 663 (5th Cir. 1994)).
40

Federated Dept. Store, Inc., 452 U.S. at 398 (citing Commissioner, 333 U.S. at 597).

41

Gideon v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 761 F.2d 1129, 1136 (5th Cir. 1985).

42

Rec. Doc. 13-3 at p. 1.

43

Federated Dept. Store, Inc., 452 U.S. at 401 (quoting Heiser v. Woodruff, 327 U.S. 726, 733 (1946))

8

other than mere disagreement with a prior order."44

III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Motion to Alter or Amend45 is DENIED.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, this

day of July, 2013.
_________________________________
NANNETTE JOLIVETTE BROWN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

44

Livingston Downs Racing Ass’n, 259 F. Supp. 2d at 481.

45

Rec. Doc. 11.

9