Huffman v. Anderson

118 F.R.D. 97, 10 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 238, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12861, 1987 WL 28896
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Indiana
DecidedNovember 10, 1987
DocketCiv. No. H86-29
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 118 F.R.D. 97 (Huffman v. Anderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Huffman v. Anderson, 118 F.R.D. 97, 10 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 238, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12861, 1987 WL 28896 (N.D. Ind. 1987).

Opinion

ORDER

MOODY, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on plaintiff Kirk Huffman’s “Motion to Reconsid[98]*98er” filed October 15, 1987. Defendant Gene Hains filed in opposition on October 28,1987. For the reasons discussed below, plaintiff’s motion is DENIED.

I.

Plaintiff Huffman filed a ten-count complaint against defendant Hains and others on January 9, 1986. The complaint alleged various federal and state causes of action against Hains in connection with certain stock-valuation services Hains performed for plaintiff. Six of the original ten counts named Hains: Count I (violation of federal securities law, 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b) and 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-6); Count II (same federal claim as Count I); Count V (breach of state-law fiduciary duty); Count VI (state common-law fraud); Count VII (state common-law negligence); and Count VIII (violation of state-securities law, Ind.Code § 23-2-1-19 (West 1979)). Because there was not complete diversity between defendant Hains and plaintiff Huffman, the court’s jurisdiction over the state law claims was necessarily pendent in nature. See United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1139, 16 L.Ed. 2d 218 (1966).

On August 18, 1986, the court granted plaintiff’s own motion amending his complaint to delete defendant Hains from all counts except Count VII which was based on a state-law theory of common-law negligence. Nearly eight months later, on April 9, 1987, Hains moved to dismiss Count VII for lack of jurisdiction because all federal claims, relative to Hains, had been dismissed and there was no independent jurisdictional ground for the remaining state claim of Count VII. Plaintiff filed in response, on April 16, 1987, and argued that the court had discretion, under Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130 (1966), to exercise pendent jurisdiction over Hains on the state claim.1 In his motion, plaintiff Huffman raised several arguments which he thought counseled in favor of this court’s exercise of pendent jurisdiction over Hains; those arguments included: comity between state and federal courts; fairness to the litigants; judicial economy; lack of a compelling state interest; and lack of a congressional policy against pendent jurisdiction in this case. Most significant, for purposes here, is that plaintiff did not mention the running of the statute of limitations on the state-law claim in Count VII in his motion opposing dismissal.

The court took the dismissal motion under advisement and on August 25, 1986, plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment against three other defendants. Despite extensive briefing by the parties on the summary judgment motion, the court, on April 14, 1987, directed the parties to submit additional memoranda of law concerning a recent Seventh Circuit opinion dealing with the relationship between federal-security and state-fiduciary laws. Before completing the additional briefing, the parties, through plaintiff’s May 28, 1987 motion for extension of time, informed the court that they had reached an agreement and were finalizing the terms of a settlement. On July 21, 1987, plaintiff and defendants Anderson, Clifford and Huffman reached a settlement and filed a stipulation of dismissal that was accepted by the court on July 22, 1987. As a result of that stipulation, only four defendants remained in the action: Hains, under a state-law claim, and a newspaper and two banks which were named in two separate counts seeking injunctive relief.

Finally, on September 22, 1987, the court ruled on Hains’ pending dismissal motion by refusing to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claim. Plaintiff filed his present motion asking the court to reevaluate its dismissal order on the ground that the statute of limitations has run on the state-law claim against Hains, thus precluding him from filing a separate state lawsuit.

II.

The parties do not contest the general rule, established in United Mine Workers [99]*99v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966), that when a court dismisses the federal claim before trial, it also should dismiss any pendent state claim without prejudice. Id. at 726-27, 86 S.Ct. at 1139-40. As this court noted in its dismissal order, “[w]hen, as here, the federal claim is dismissed before trial, the district court should relinquish jurisdiction of any pendent state law claim unless there is some independent basis of federal jurisdiction, such as diversity of citizenship.” Maguire v. Marquette University, 814 F.2d 1213, 1215 (7th Cir.1987) (emphasis added) (citing Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 726, 86 S.Ct. at 1139); see also Hemmings v. Barian, 822 F.2d 688, 690-91 (7th Cir.1987); Marshall & Ilsley Trust Co. v. Pate, 819 F.2d 806, 810-11 (7th Cir.1987). There are exceptions to this general rule and one such exception “occurs where the statute of limitations has run on the pendent claim, precluding the filing of a separate state lawsuit.” Moses v. Kenosha County, 826 F.2d 708, 711 (7th Cir.1987) (citing O’Brien v. Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust, 593 F.2d 54, 65 (7th Cir.1979)). Plaintiff argues that he falls within this exception because the statute of limitations has run on his state claim against Hains. Normally, the court would agree, however, in this case, plaintiff failed to raise his limitations problem in a timely manner.

Plaintiff Huffman does not cite to any federal rule in support of his motion for reconsideration, and there is no mention of a “motion to reconsider” in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See National Union Five Insurance v. Continental Illinois Corp., 116 F.R.D. 252, 253 (N.D.Ill. 1987) (citing Settino v. City of Chicago, 642 F.Supp. 755 (N.D.Ill.1986)). As Judge Shadur commented in Settino, “Plaintiff['s] counsel betray[s] an all-too-prevalent misconception of the litigation process, in which the knocked-out combatant seeks to portray what has taken place as a mere warmup rather than the main event.” Settino, 642 F.Supp. at 759. In the present case, the main event commenced on April 9, 1987, when defendant Hains filed his motion to dismiss. Plaintiff responded but did not raise the statute-of-limitations problem; in fact, plaintiff did not address the statute of limitations until his most recent filing on October 15, 1987. “[A] trial judge may properly depend upon counsel to apprise him of the issues for decision.

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Bluebook (online)
118 F.R.D. 97, 10 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 238, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12861, 1987 WL 28896, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huffman-v-anderson-innd-1987.