Securities and Exchange Commission v. Wealth Management LLC et al

Filing 408

ORDER denying 400 Motion for Reconsideration; denying 403 Motion to Vacate, signed by Judge William C Griesbach on 07/03/2012. See Order for full detail. (cc: all counsel by efile; Putman by U.S. Mail) (Griesbach, William)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 09-C-506

WEALTH MANAGEMENT, LLC, et al.,
Defendants.

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Pro se Defendant James Putman moves for reconsideration of this Court’s decision and
order granting summary judgment to the Plaintiff, the Securities and Exchange Commission. In my
ruling, dated April 24, 2012, I noted that the plaintiff had properly included the various pro se
notices required by Civil Local Rule 56, which alerted Putman that “any factual assertion in the
SEC’s affidavits, declarations, or other admissible documentary evidence will be accepted by the
Court as being true unless James Putman submits his own affidavits, declarations, or other
admissible documentary evidence contradicting the factual assertion.” (Dkt. No. 376 at 2.)1
Although Putman had filed his own motion for summary judgment, he did not meaningfully respond
to the government’s motion and did not file supporting affidavits or other evidence. Accordingly,
I found no material disputes as to the facts the government proposed and accepted them as true.
This resulted in a grant of summary judgment in the government’s favor.

1

The government concedes that it did not include the text of each section of Civil Local
Rule 56, but the portion cited is the key one.

Putman now argues that he is unschooled in the law and the particulars of summary
judgment practice, and that his ignorance should forgive his failure to respond. But of course that
is true of any pro se litigant. The obvious purpose of the Civil L.R. 56(a) is to alert the pro se party
that silence in the face of a dispositive motion could be fatal. Thus, it makes little sense to protest
that one should be excused because he is unschooled in the law—the rule assumes that the pro se
litigant is unschooled in the law. Accepting Putman’s argument that being unschooled in the law
should excuse him from the rules ignores the fact that the rules already account for his argument and
provide a preemptive means of remedying the problem.
Rule 59(e) (which allows so-called motions for reconsideration) “does not provide a vehicle
for a party to undo its own procedural failures,” Bordelon v. Chicago Sch. Reform Bd. of Trs., 233
F.3d 524, 529 (7th Cir. 2000). When a litigant pleads ignorance of the law, the question is whether
that ignorance constitutes excusable neglect. Harrington v. City of Chicago, 433 F.3d 542, 546 (7th
Cir. 2006). “[T]he determination is at bottom an equitable one, taking account of all relevant
circumstances surrounding the party's omission.” Pioneer Inv. Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates
Ltd. Partnership, 507 U.S. 380, 395 (1993). Here, the pro se litigant is an intelligent individual who
ran an investment company for many years, often overseeing millions of dollars of other people’s
money. He is not an attorney, of course, but he is familiar through experience with the securities
laws and understood the claims brought against him. He has been able to articulate his legal
position and labors under no appreciable mental illness or disease. In short, Putman is far more
sophisticated than the typical pro se litigant this Court sees on a routine basis. His excuse, simply,
is that he was not aware of the consequences of remaining silent in the face of the government’s
summary judgment motion.
2

Allowing such a generalized pleading of legal ignorance would undermine summary
judgment procedures and the rule that is designed to prevent this very circumstance from happening.
It is undisputed that the motion the government filed alerted Putman that the facts it proposed would
be taken as true if not responded to. This rule has routinely been enforced. Coleman v. Goodwill
Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin, Inc. 423 Fed. Appx. 642 (7th Cir. 2011); Stevo v. Frasor, 662
F.3d 880, 886–87 (7th Cir. 2011) (“Because of the high volume of summary judgment motions and
the benefits of clear presentation of relevant evidence and law, we have repeatedly held that district
judges are entitled to insist on strict compliance with local rules designed to promote the clarity of
summary judgment filings.”) Allowing a do-over now would waste judicial resources and would
not serve the interests of justice. Accordingly, the motion for reconsideration is DENIED. The
motion to vacate the judgment is also DENIED.
SO ORDERED this 3rd

day of July, 2012.

s/ William C. Griesbach
William C. Griesbach
United States District Judge

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