Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council v. City of Maplewood,Missouri

Filing 47

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER : IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council's Motion for Relief from Judgment (ECF No. 35 ) is DENIED. Signed by District Judge Ronnie L. White on 05/08/2018. (KCB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
METROPOLITAN ST. LOUIS EQUAL
HOUSING AND OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL,
Plaintiff,
v.

CITY OF MAPLEWOOD, MISSOURI,
Defendant.

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No. 4:17CV886 RLW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and
Opportunity Council's ("EHOC") Motion for Relief from Judgment, pursuant to Rules 59, 60(b),
and 60(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (ECF No. 35) The motion is fully briefed and
ready for disposition. For the reasons discussed herein, the motion is denied.
PlaintiffEHOC seeks relief from this Court's final judgment and Memorandum and
Order of December 8, 2017, granting Defendant City of Maplewood, Missouri's ("Maplewood")
motion to dismiss. (ECF Nos. 33, 34) Plaintiff claims that the Court overlooked that EHOC's
sex discrimination and disability discrimination claims are conceptually distinct from the race
discrimination claims, and thus the Court erred in dismissing those claims for the same reasons.
EHOC requests that the Court further consider the sex and disability claims under a different
analysis. Defendant Maplewood asserts that Plaintiff cannot use Rule 60(b) to re-litigate the
merits of its case and that the Court fully addressed all of Plaintiffs claims as pleaded. Plaintiff
replies that it brings the motion, not under Rule 60(b) but under Rule 59( e), which allows a court
to correct errors in a final judgment.

Under Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party may file a motion to
alter or amend a judgment within 28 days after the entry of judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). "A
district court has broad discretion in determining whether to grant or deny a motion to alter or
amend judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e)." United States v. Metro. St. Louis Sewer Dist., 440
F.3d 930, 933 (8th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). "Rule 59(e) motions serve the limited function
of correcting 'manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence."' Id.
(quoting Innovative Home Health Care v. P. T-0. T Assoc. of the Black Hills, 141 F.3d 1284,
1286 (8th Cir.1998) (internal quotation omitted)). Motions under 59(e) '"cannot be used to
introduce new evidence, tender new legal theories, or raise arguments which could have been
offered or raised prior to entry of judgment."' Id. (quoting Innovative Home Health Care, 141
F.3d at 1286). "Rule 59(e) motion may not be used to relitigate old matters, or to raise
arguments or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment." §
2810.l Grounds for Amendment or Alteration of Judgment, 11 Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ. § 2810.1
(3d ed.) (footnotes omitted).
Similarly, under Rule 60(b), a court may relieve a party from a court order for several
reasons including mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence,
fraud, misrepresentation, misconduct by an opposing party, or any other reason that justifies
relief. Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(l)-(3), (6). '"Motions for reconsideration serve a limited function:
to correct manifest errors oflaw or fact or to present newly discovered evidence."' Arnold v.

ADT Sec. Servs., Inc., 627 F.3d 716, 721 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Hagerman, 839 F.2d at 414
(quotations and citations omitted)). "The district court has wide discretion in ruling on a Rule
60(b) motion .... " Jones v. Swanson, 512 F.3d 1045, 1049 (8th Cir. 2008). Rule 60(b)
"authorizes relief based on certain enumerated circumstances (for example, fraud, changed

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conditions, and the like). It is not a vehicle for simple reargument of the merits." Broadway v.
Norris, 193 F.3d 987, 990 (8th Cir. 1999).
Upon review of Plaintiff's motion and supporting memoranda, the Court finds that
Plaintiff is not entitled to relief under either Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b), both rules cited by Plaintiff
as grounds for relief. Contrary to Plaintiff EHOC's assertion, the present motion is an attempt to
re-litigate the issues which the Court thoroughly addressed in the Memorandum and Order. To
the extent that EHOC finds the Court's judgment erroneous, a Rule 60(b) motion is not the
proper vehicle for raising such objections. The Eighth Circuit "has maintained consistently that
'Rule 60(b) was not intended as a substitute for a direct appeal from an erroneous judgment.'"
Spinar v. South Dakota Bd. of Regents, 796 F .2d 1060, 1062 (8th Cir. 1986) (quoting Hartman v.
Lauchli, 304 F.2d 431, 432 (8th Cir. 1962)). While Plaintiff now maintains that it is not
requesting Rule 60(b) relief, the motion states that the "Court overlooked that EHOC's sex
discrimination and disability discrimination claims are conceptually distinct from the race
discrimination claims .... " (Pl.'s Mot. for Relief p. 1, ECF No. 35) Plaintiff's motion then
argues that the Court's legal analysis of its sex and disability discrimination claims is erroneous.
As state above, relief for alleged judicial error is not a proper basis for Rule 60(b) relief. 1 See
Delaterjera v. Bowersox, No. 4:12-CV-1311NAB,2015 WL 300379, at *3 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 22,
2015) (citation and internal quotation omitted) (finding that an argument that the court
misunderstood or misapplied the law is not grounds for relief under Rule 60(b)(l)).
With respect to Rule 59(e), Plaintiff argues that the Court would commit error by
refusing to reconsider the merits of the motion to dismiss and correct factual or legal errors

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Nowhere in Plaintiffs initial memorandum does it argue that its request for relief meets the
requirements of either Rule 60(b) or Rule 59( e). Only in the reply memorandum does Plaintiff
explicitly rely upon Rule 59(e) as grounds for reconsideration.
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encompassed by the judgment. (Pl.' s Reply p. 2, ECF No. 40) However, contrary to Plaintiffs
assertion, Rule 59(e) does not allow a plaintiff to re-litigate matters previously determined by the
court. "It is not appropriate to use a Rule 59( e) motion to repeat arguments or to raise new
arguments that could have been made before judgment." In re Gen. Motors Corp. Anti-Lock
Brake Prod. Liab. Litig!., 174 F.R.D. 444, 446 (E.D. Mo. 1997) (internal quotations omitted).
Instead, as stated above, Rule 59( e) motions are limited to correcting manifest errors of law.
Metro. St. Louis Sewer Dist., 440 F.3d at 933. Here, PlaintiffEHOC has not pointed to any
manifest error by the Court. Review of Plaintiffs motion and related memoranda shows the
present motion is merely an attempt to re-argue the merits, which the Court previously and
thoroughly considered. Therefore, the Court will deny Plaintiffs motion for relief from
judgment. See Schoffstall v. Henderson, 223 F .3d 818, 827 (8th Cir. 2000) (affirming district
court's denial of Rule 59(e) motion to reconsider where plaintiff merely restated arguments made
in her opposition to defendant's summary judgment motion).
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and
Opportunity Council's Motion for Relief from Judgment (ECF No. 35) is DENIED.
Dated this 8th day of May, 2018.

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RONNIE L. WHITE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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