3SM Realty & Development, Inc. v. Federal Deposit Insurance

393 F. App'x 381
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 13, 2010
DocketNo. 08-1741
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 393 F. App'x 381 (3SM Realty & Development, Inc. v. Federal Deposit Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
3SM Realty & Development, Inc. v. Federal Deposit Insurance, 393 F. App'x 381 (7th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

ORDER

This court is once again called upon to rule in the 16-year litigation saga between Mahendra Mehta and Baqar Shah. The facts relevant to this appeal are below— the full factual background can be found in our 2004 decision, Mehta v. Shah, 113 Fed. Appx. 165, 166-67 (7th Cir.2004). In 1999, appellant Mehta obtained a substantial money judgment in the Cook County (Illinois) Circuit Court against his former business partner Baqar Shah. Post-judgment proceedings were removed to federal district court (Northern District of Illinois), where the district court adopted the judgment. Dist. Ct. Dkt. 1,14.

Mehta has not been able to collect. He alleges that Baqar Shah has made several fraudulent transfers in an attempt to hide his assets to avoid paying the judgment. The present chapter of this lengthy litigation began in October 2006, when Mehta filed citations to discover assets in the district court against certain third parties that purportedly possessed Baqar Shah’s assets. The targets of these citations included Devon Bank Trusts Nos. 6284, 6611, and 6659; appellee Zakir Shah, Ba-qar’s brother, is the beneficiary of these trusts. Zakir filed motions to quash the citations against the trusts, alleging that he and the trusts had been dismissed by the initial Illinois state court judgment and released from Baqar’s federal bankruptcy proceedings.

On February 13, 2007, the district court granted the motions to quash as to all three Devon Bank trusts, finding that documentary evidence supported Zakir’s contentions. Dist. Ct. Dkt. 50. Mehta, appearing pro se, filed a “motion to vacate” that judgment on March 12, 2007. The heading of this motion specifically stated that it sought relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). The motion made no reference to any other federal procedural rule. The district court denied this motion on February 21, 2008. Mehta filed a notice of appeal on March 24, 2008.

This court has already ruled in an interim order that this appeal is limited to review of the district court’s February 21, 2008 order denying Mehta’s Rule 60(b) motion to vacate. See 3SM Realty and Development, Inc. v. Federal Deposit Ins. Co., No. 08-1741 (7th Cir. Jan. 26, 2009) (interim order); App. Dkt. 10. We decline to revisit this ruling. As we pointed out [383]*383then, Mehta did not file a timely notice of appeal of the judgment quashing the citations, and the district court did not grant an extension of the appeal period. See Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), 4(a)(5).

In issuing the interim order, we rejected Mehta’s contention that his motion to vacate should be treated as a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) rather than under Rule 60(b). The motion explicitly stated that it sought relief under Rule 60(b), and it mentioned no other type of federal relief. See Dist. Ct. Dkt. 51. More important than the label on the motion was its timing. Even if the motion had said that it sought Rule 59(e) relief, it was not filed within 10 days of judgment as Rule 59(e) required then, and thus it still would have been construed as a motion under Rule 60(b). See, e.g., United States v. Shaaban, 602 F.3d 877, 879 (7th Cir.2010) (construing post-judgment motion as filed under Rule 60(b) and not Rule 59(e) where movant failed to file within 10 days of judgment, and limiting review to denial of the Rule 60(b) motion); Easley v. Kirmsee, 382 F.3d 693, 696 n. 2 (7th Cir. 2004) (where appellant filed motion to reconsider more than ten days after the court entered final judgment against her, district court correctly treated her post-judgment motion as one under Rule 60(b) instead of Rule 59(e)). Thus, we construed Mehta’s post-judgment motion to vacate as a Rule 60(b) motion and limited our review to the district court’s denial of that motion. App. Dkt. 10.1

Mehta asserts in his brief and at oral argument that these deficiencies should be excused because he was appearing pro se and he purportedly confused the Rule 59(e) deadline with a parallel Illinois deadline. The claim of confusion is dubious because the motion to vacate so clearly asked for relief under Rule 60(b), not Rule 59(e). In any event, Mehta’s status as a pro se litigant does not excuse his failure to meet the mandatory deadline for filing a Rule 59(e) motion. See Jones v. Phipps, 39 F.3d 158, 163 (7th Cir.1994) (“the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding neither her incarceration nor lack of an attorney — alone or combined — a sufficient basis” to excuse appellant’s failure to meet a filing deadline; although pro se litigants “benefit from various procedural protections not otherwise afforded to the ordinary attorney-represented litigant, pro se litigants are not entitled to a general dispensation from the rules of procedure or court imposed deadlines”) (internal citations omitted). Mehta’s failure here is even less excusable; he has been an Illinois attorney for many years. Cf. Jones v. Phipps, 39 F.3d at 163 (pro se litigant’s “access to some legal counsel made her task of showing ‘good cause’ or ‘excusable neglect’ more difficult”). We stand by our interim order and limit our review to the district court’s February 21, 2008 order denying Mehta’s Rule 60(b) motion to vacate. We will not review the district court’s February 13, 2007 order quashing Mehta’s citations to discover assets against the Devon Bank trusts.

We review a district court’s denial of a Rule 60(b) motion under an “extremely deferential” abuse of discretion standard. [384]*384Eskridge v. Cook County, 577 F.3d 806, 808-09 (7th Cir.2009). In doing so, “we eschew any ability (or desire) to investigate the merits” of the underlying judgment targeted by the Rule 60(b) motion. Jones v. Phipps, 39 F.3d at 164; accord, McCormick v. City of Chicago, 230 F.3d 319, 326-27 (7th Cir.2000) (applying deferential standard to affirm denial of Rule 60(b) relief). We will not disturb the district court’s decision to deny Mehta’s Rule 60(b) motion unless we find that there was a substantial danger that the result was “fundamentally unjust.” See id. at 327.

Rule 60(b) is an extraordinary remedy “designed to address mistakes attributable . to special circumstances and not merely to erroneous applications of law.” Eskridge, 577 F.3d at 809 (affirming denial of Rule 60(b) motion), quoting Russell v. Delco Remy Division of General Motors Corp., 51 F.3d 746, 749 (7th Cir.1995) (quotation marks omitted). The district court may grant Rule 60(b) relief only “under the particular circumstances listed in the text of the rule.” See Russell, 51 F.3d at 749. Rule 60(b) motions are' not meant to correct legal errors made by the district court. See Marques v.

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Bluebook (online)
393 F. App'x 381, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/3sm-realty-development-inc-v-federal-deposit-insurance-ca7-2010.