Ayala Rios v. Rios Hernandez

189 F.R.D. 38, 45 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 399, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15052, 1999 WL 787251
District Court, D. Puerto Rico·Decided September 28, 1999·No. No. 95-1376 HL·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

LAFFITTE, Chief Judge.

Before the Court is a motion by Plaintiffs Juan Carlos Ayala Rios, his wife María Milagros Nieves Cotto, and their conjugal partnership pursuant to Rules 59(e) and 60(b) to alter or amend the judgment entered in this case. Defendants are Angel Ríos Hernández, his wife Olga Rivera Vázquez, and their conjugal partnership. This case arises out of the sale of a restaurant by Defendants to Plaintiffs. Defendants had filed a motion for summary judgment. On November 4, 1998, Plaintiffs moved for an extension of time to oppose it. In a margin order dated November 5, 1998, the Court granted them until November 20, 1998, to file an opposition. The order also stated that “No further extensions shall be granted.”1 Plaintiffs did not file an opposition by this deadline. Instead, on November 30, 1998, after the deadline for filing an opposition had passed, they filed another motion for an additional extension of time.2 In ruling on the motion, the Court pointed out that motions for an extension of time to file an opposition must be filed within the time period for filing the opposition; that Plaintiffs had failed to explain why they waited until ten days after the deadline had passed to request an additional extension; and that the Court’s earlier order had stated that no additional extensions would be granted. The Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for an additional extension of time and deemed the motion for summary judgment to be unopposed.3 The Court then granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, ruling that there was no evidence that the trade name “Los Gorditos” was included in the sale of the restaurant.4

Plaintiffs responded with their present motion under Rules 59(e) and 60(b). Rule 60(b) is a motion for extraordinary relief and should be utilized only in exceptional circumstances, de la Torre v. Continental Ins., 15 F.3d 12, 14-15 (1st Cir.1994). In their motion, Plaintiffs do not specify which subsection of Rule 60(b) they are invoking, but because they argue that their delay in seeking a motion for extension of time was excusable neglect, the Court will treat this as a motion under Rule 60(b)(1). The determination of whether a party’s neglect has been excusable is an equitable one, and a court should consider all the relevant circum[40] stances involving the party’s omission. Pioneer Inv. Services v. Brunswick Associates, 507 U.S. 380, 395, 113 S.Ct. 1489, 1498, 123 L.Ed.2d 74 (1993); Pratt v. Philbrook, 109 F.3d 18, 19 (1st Cir.1997). A court should take into consideration such factors as (1) the danger of prejudice to the party opposing the claim of excusable neglect; (2) the length of the delay and any possible impact on the judicial proceeding; (3) the reason for the delay and whether it was within the movant’s reasonable control; and (4) whether the movant has acted in good faith. Pioneer, 507 U.S. at 395, 113 S.Ct. at 1498; Pratt, 109 F.3d at 19.

In the present case, there does not appear to be a risk of prejudice to Defendants. See Pratt, 109 F.3d at 22 (A party is not prejudiced merely by the fact that a case that it had already won would be reopened). And although the length of delay in this particular instance may not have been significant — Plaintiffs filed their opposition twelve days after the deadline — the record contains other examples of Plaintiffs’ less than diligent attitude towards complying with the Court’s deadlines. On four previous occasions, the Court was compelled to order Plaintiffs to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for failing to comply with orders to file informative motions with the Court. See docket nos. 11,13, 23, 28. When viewed in the context of the history of this case, therefore, Plaintiffs’ failure to timely file an opposition was one of a number of instances when they demonstrated a lackadaisical attitude towards the Court’s deadlines and orders.

The third factor is the reason for the delay and whether Plaintiffs had some control over it. In their untimely motion for an extension of time, Plaintiffs claimed that they were delayed by damages caused by Hurricane Georges. They stated, “we lacked any electrical power for more than 30 days and after the service was restored we faced outages for several days.” Docket no. 44. In their Rule 60(b) motion, they again claimed that they were suffering from sporadic power outages. The Court is fully cognizant of the damages caused by Hurricane Georges when it hit Puerto Rico in September 1998. The havoc it wreaked, however, did not give litigants carte blanche to disregard deadlines and orders. In their motions Plaintiffs do not claim that they were unaware of the Court’s deadline for opposing the motion for summary judgment. Nor do they expressly state that they were without electricity during the period when the opposition was due. If a force majeure prevents a party from complying with a deadline, then a finding of excusable neglect would certainly be justified. See Pioneer, 507 U.S. at 394, 113 S.Ct. at 1498. In this ease, however, the force majeure took place two months before the opposition was due. It may be that the office of Plaintiffs’ counsel was still suffering the effects of Georges’ devastation. Counsel does not explain why he did not communicate this problem with the Court via motion, facsimile, telephone, or in person. Any one of these relatively simple actions would have sufficed, had they been taken prior to the lapsing of the deadline. Instead, Plaintiffs chose to wait until after the deadline had passed to seek additional time. A party that chooses this course, does so at his own risk. Cf. United States v. Hernandez, 146 F.3d 30, 35 (1st Cir.1998) (A party disregards court-made restrictions at its own peril); Tyler v. Runyon, 70 F.3d 458, 466 n. 9 (7th Cir.1995) (A party that follows its own schedule may not complain when the court decides to enforce its deadlines). Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiffs’ delay was not justified. In making this ruling, the Court in no way seeks to minimize or disregard the effect that Georges had on this island. Rather, the Court holds only that Plaintiffs should have communicated their plight to the Court during the time set forth by the Court in its order of November 5,1998.

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Ayala Rios v. Rios Hernandez, 189 F.R.D. 38, 45 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 399, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15052, 1999 WL 787251 (prd 1999).

189 F.R.D. 38 (Ayala Rios v. Rios Hernandez) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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