ORIAKHI v. BUREAU OF PRISONS (B.O.P.) et al
Filing
50
MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 10/16/2012. (drw)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
FELIX ORIAKHI,
HON. JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Plaintiff,
Civil No. 07-264 (JBS/AMD)
v.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
BUREAU OF PRISONS, et al.,
Defendants.
SIMANDLE, Chief Judge:
This matter is before the court on pro se Plaintiff Felix
Oriakhi's motion to reopen his case.
[Docket Item 48.]
Plaintiff asks the court to reopen his case and set aside the
dismissal order filed February 27, 2008.
[Docket Item 22.]
For
the reasons stated below, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s motion
to reopen his case as the requirements of Rule 60 have not been
satisfied.
1.
THE COURT FINDS AS FOLLOWS:
Plaintiff Felix Oriakhi ("Plaintiff") filed the instant
action on January 17, 2007 against Defendants Bureau of Prisons,
Correctional Officer Youman and the United States ("Defendants")
seeking the return of his property which was seized by prison
officials.
[Docket Item 1.]
This action was brought pursuant to
the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346, 2671, et seq.,
and the United States Constitution, and arose out of the
Defendants' alleged confiscation of Plaintiff's book and gym bag
in 2006.
[Docket Item 1.]
2.
The court granted Defendants' motion for summary
judgment and dismissed Plaintiff's action on February 27, 2008.
[Docket Item 22.]
In its opinion, the court explained that
Plaintiff was bringing essentially four claims against the
Defendants: (1) an FTCA claim relating to the alleged
confiscation of Plaintiff’s book; (2) an FTCA claim relating to
the alleged confiscation of Plaintiff’s gym bag; (3) a claim for
damages against the BOP for violating Plaintiff’s First Amendment
rights by intercepting his book; and (4) a claim that Defendant
Yeoman violated Plaintiff’s constitutional right to due process
by taking Plaintiff’s gym bag without providing Plaintiff with a
confiscation form.
3.
The court dismissed Plaintiff's FTCA claims in light of
the Supreme Court's decision in Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons,
552 U.S. 214 (2008), which held § 28 U.S.C. 2680(c) exempts
claims against prison officers for the detention of inmates'
property from the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity.
Consequently, the court held the FTCA did not waive sovereign
immunity with respect to Plaintiff's tort claims arising out of
the prison officers' alleged confiscation of his book and gym
bag.
Therefore, the court dismissed Plaintiff's FTCA claims for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
4.
[Docket Item 22 at 6-9.]
With regard to Plaintiff's remaining claims, the court
held that it lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiff's First Amendment
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claim against the Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") and Officer Yeoman in
his official capacity.1
Id. at 9.
The court held that the BOP
and Officer Yeoman were protected by the doctrine of sovereign
immunity from suits for damages based on alleged constitutional
violations.
Therefore, the court found it lacked jurisdiction
over Plaintiff's claims for money damages against these
defendants for alleged violations of the First Amendment and
granted summary judgment.
5.
Id. at 10.
Finally, Plaintiff asserted a due process claim against
Officer Yeoman in his individual capacity.
The court found that
this claim was subject to the Prison Litigation Reform Act's
administrative exhaustion requirement2 and it was undisputed that
Plaintiff had not exhausted his administrative remedies with
regard to this claim.
Id. at 13-14.
Therefore, the court
entered summary judgment against the Plaintiff without prejudice
to Plaintiff's right to file a new complaint once he exhausted
his available administrative remedies.
Id. at 15.
As this was
1
The Plaintiff did not bring an individual capacity claim
against Officer Yeoman for violating his First Amendment rights
and did not assert that Officer Yeoman had any personal
involvement with the confiscation of his book. Rather, the book
was intercepted by the prison's mail room and held by the legal
department.
2
See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)("No action shall be brought with
respect to prison conditions under section 1979 of the Revised
Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1983), or any other
Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other
correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are
available are exhausted.")
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the only remaining claim, the court entered an order dismissing
Plaintiff's action in its entirety. [Docket Item 23.]
6.
After the dismissal of his case, the Plaintiff filed
numerous motions seeking to reopen the matter and amend the
judgment.
First, Plaintiff filed a motion seeking to reopen his
case pursuant to Rule 60(b)(2) and (6), Fed. R. Civ. P., on June
25, 2008.
[Docket Item 29.]
The court denied Plaintiff's motion
because he failed to present new evidence or demonstrate
exceptional circumstances in order to meet his burden under Rule
60.
[Docket Item 34.]
7.
The Plaintiff then filed a motion pursuant to Rule 59(e)
seeking to alter or amend judgment on June 29, 2009.
Item 37.]
[Docket
This court denied his motion first because it was
extremely untimely and second because it lacked merit.
The
Plaintiff did not identify any legal or factual matters which he
believed the court overlooked or failed to consider.
Instead,
the Plaintiff argued that he could have prevailed if he litigated
his case differently and pursued other legal theories.
Since
none of the Plaintiff's new legal claims were ever plead in the
underlying action and were raised for the first time in a motion
for reconsideration, the court denied Plaintiff's request to
alter or amend the judgment.
8.
[Docket Items 38 and 39.]
The Plaintiff then filed a second motion to reopen his
case on August 14, 2009.
[Docket Item 40.]
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At this point, the
case had been closed for over a year.
In this motion to reopen,
the Plaintiff argued the court could issue a writ of mandamus to
compel the Defendants to return his allegedly confiscated
property.
The court denied Plaintiff's motion to reopen and
held: "This is not grounds for reopening this case.
Plaintiff
simply seeks leave to re-litigate the case according to a new
legal theory long after the matter was adjudicated."
Item 41 at 2.]
[Docket
The court held that this type of argument could
not support a motion to reopen and instructed the Plaintiff to
file a new complaint on the docket to assert these new legal
theories, if these claims would not otherwise be barred.
9.
Id.
The Plaintiff then appealed the court's denial of his
motion to reopen to the Third Circuit.
[Docket Item 43.]
This
appeal was summarily dismissed for failure to timely prosecute.
[Docket Item 47.]
10.
The Plaintiff now files his third motion to reopen his
case and his fourth post-judgment motion seeking to relitigate
this matter.
[Docket Item 48.]
This motion was filed on
September 10, 2012, over four years after the court granted the
Defendants' motion for summary judgment, and two years after the
Third Circuit dismissed Plaintiff's appeal.
This motion to
reopen suffers from the same deficiencies as Plaintiff's previous
attempts to relitigate this matter and will be denied.
11.
In the instant motion, the Plaintiff does not cite to a
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specific rule or authority in support of his motion to reopen.
Instead, Plaintiff simply states he "is now seeking relief under
the APA solely" and that the "prison officials actions of
confiscating and destroying prisoners property items [sic]
without adequate compensation is reckless and capricious under
the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) 5 USC §706(2)(A), and that
it deprives plaintiff and other similarly situated prisoners of
their property without due process of law in violation of the
Fifth Amendment."
12.
(Pl.'s Mot. to Reopen at 2.)
Like his prior motions to reopen, Plaintiff seeks to
relitigate this matter based on new legal theories.
As explained
in the court's previous opinions, this is insufficient to support
a motion to reopen and Plaintiff cites no authority to the
contrary.
13.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 60 governs motions for relief from a
judgment or order and applies to the instant motion before the
court.
Rule 60(b)(6) applies to Plaintiff's motion to reopen
since the Plaintiff fails to allege a clerical mistake with the
order, a mistake by the court in issuing the judgment, newly
discovered evidence, fraud or that the judgment is void or has
been satisfied.
Accordingly, Rule 60(b)(6), the catchall
provision, governs Plaintiff's motion.
14.
Analyzing Plaintiff's claims under Rule 60(b)(6),
Plaintiff's motion must be denied.
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Although the text of Rule
60(b)(6) states that a court may grant relief from a final
judgment for “any other reason that justifies relief,” the courts
have added a requirement that the party seeking relief must
demonstrate the existence of “extraordinary circumstances” which
justify the use of the Rule 60(b)(6) catch-all provision to
vacate the judgment.
251 (3d Cir. 2008).
Budget Blinds, Inc. v. White, 536 F.3d 244,
Extraordinary circumstances “rarely exist
when a party seeks relief from a judgment that resulted from the
party's deliberate choices.”
Id. at 255.
The belated desire to
pursue alternative legal theories that were available and
squarely implicated when the original motion was decided does not
constitute extraordinary circumstances sufficient to invoke Rule
60(b)(6).
Rastelli Bros., Inc. v. Netherlands Ins. Co., 68 F.
Supp. 2d 451, 454 (D.N.J. 1999).
Such an outcome "would turn the
presumption of finality of judgments on its head."
Id. (citing
Polites v. United States, 364 U.S. 426 (1960); Marshall v. Board
of Education of Bergenfield, New Jersey, 575 F.3d 417 (3d Cir.
1978); and Martinez-McBean v. Gov't of Virgin Islands, 562 F.2d
908 (3d Cir. 1977)).
15.
The Plaintiff provides nothing to support his motion to
reopen except the argument that he now wishes to pursue another
legal theory to support his claim.
under Rule 60(b)(6).
This alone is insufficient
Further, Plaintiff's motion is his fourth
attempt to set aside the court's order of dismissal and is filed
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more than four years after his case was closed.
Given the
extreme untimeliness of Plaintiff's motion and its complete lack
of merit, the court will deny Plaintiff's motion to reopen his
case.
The accompanying Order will be entered.
October 16, 2012
Date
s/ Jerome B. Simandle
JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Chief U.S. District Judge
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