Ouellette v. Heckler

102 F.R.D. 940, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 155, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23702
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maine
DecidedSeptember 11, 1984
DocketCiv. No. 84-0129 P
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 102 F.R.D. 940 (Ouellette v. Heckler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ouellette v. Heckler, 102 F.R.D. 940, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 155, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23702 (D. Me. 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

GENE CARTER, District Judge.

This case is before the Court on the Motion of the Defendant Secretary to Vacate Judgment entered on August 2, 1984. The motion was filed on August 23, 1984.

Plaintiff’s complaint in this action seeks to obtain judicial review of a final decision of the Defendant Secretary pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), § 1383(c)(3), and § 1395ff(b). The complaint was filed on April 12, 1984, and service of process was effected on the Defendant on April 20, 1984. On June 20, 1984, the Defendant Secretary moved to remand the case due to her inability to produce a record of the proceedings at the administrative level. On June 25, 1984, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings or, in the Alternative, for an Award of Interim Benefits Pending Completion of Remand Proceedings. Subsequently, the Secretary filed the certified record and her answer to the complaint on July 2, 1984. By its Order and Judgment of August 2, 1984, this Court granted Plaintiff’s Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, and judgment was entered for the Plaintiff on the same date. The Defendant Secretary now seeks to vacate that Order.

This is another in the long series of cases which graphically display the Defendant Secretary’s long-standing and presently continuing disobedience of this Court’s procedural rules with respect to litigation pending before it. In order that it not be thought that the Court is unfairly peevish with the Secretary’s conduct in this respect, see New York Times, September 9, 1984, § 1, at 1, col. 3, it seems appropriate to point out that in an opinion issued on February 1, 1984, by this Court, the Court displayed, for the future guidance of the Secretary, its displeasure with this conduct in the following words:

[942]*942This case is not the first, or even the most recent, occasion this Court has had to confront instances of substantial and prejudicial delay resulting from a pattern of procedural neglect or noncompliance by the Secretary, often of the most casual and unexplained nature. This case involves a situation in which there has occurred a delay of over six months in which the Secretary has failed to file an answer and copy of the administrative record for purposes of this Court’s review. It is not at all atypical ...
Such conduct is deserving of the severest condemnation in a case of this type which involves a claimant who is so penurious that he has qualified to have in forma pauperis status conferred upon him in order that he may pursue his claims to daily, material sustenance in this Court. Such conduct would assuredly result, strictly on the basis of considerations of fundamental fairness and of the interest of the Court in the expeditious progress of its docket, in the imposition of the severest of sanctions, including default, were an agency of the United States of America not the offending par,ty.

Montrose v. Heckler, 579 F.Supp. 240, at 242-43 (D.Me.1984).

Two weeks later the Court again had an opportunity to vent its displeasure in the case of Colasante v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Civil No. 82-0056-P (D.Me. February 14, 1984), wherein the Court stated:

[I]t is apparent that [this] case represents one more in a long series of continuing instances of the Defendant-Secretary’s casual or deliberate disregard of the obligations placed upon her as a litigant by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and by the Local Rules of this Court. The Court has repeatedly expressed in prior cases its concern at, and disapproval of, this pattern of litigating conduct. Such a continuing resistance to the timely performance of the Defendant-Secretary’s litigation responsibilities under the rules of procedure cannot help but unfairly hinder “the resolution of the claims of the most misery-ridden claimants.” Alameda v. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 622 F.2d 1044 (1st Cir.1980). Absent any justification of such conduct on a case-by-case basis by a fact-specific showing of some reasonable cause of the Secretary’s inability to respond in a timely manner, this conduct cannot be countenanced by this Court. [Omitting citations].

Colasante, at 2. As this and other recent cases demonstrate, there has been little, if any, improvement in the Secretary’s willingness or apparent ability to respond affirmatively and in a meaningful manner to the procedural requirements specified by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Local Rules of this Court.

In this case, the Secretary comes forward on the most specious of arguments to seek under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure the vacation of the Order entered on August 2, 1984, directing entry of judgment. That Order is based entirely upon the Defendant-Secretary’s failure to respond, pursuant to the provisions of Local Rule 19(c), to the Plaintiff’s Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings or in the Alternative for an Order of Interim Benefits. That motion was granted by the Clerk pursuant to Local Rule 19(c) on August 1, 1984.1

The motion is denied to the extent that it seeks relief under the provisions of Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(1) for the failure of the Secretary to make a fact-specific showing of any basis for the Court to conclude that there was excusable neglect on the part of the Secretary which occasioned the action of the Court on August 1 and August 2, 1984. Montrose, 579 F.Supp. at 242; Gaudin v. Heckler, Civil No. 83-0232-P (D.Me. Sept. 23, 1983); Smith v. Heckler, Civil No. 83-0117-B (D.Me. Aug. 30, 1983); see also [943]*943Gideon v. Adm., Small Business Administration, 102 F.R.D. 604 (D.Me.1984); Greene v. Union Mutual Life Insurance Co., Civil No. 84-0126-P (D.Me. August 7, 1984); Broussard v. CACI, INC.-FEDERAL, Civil No. 83-0170-P (D.Me. June 7, 1984); Gagne v. Carl Bauer Schraubenfabrick, GmbH, 101 F.R.D. 777 (D.Me.1984); Picucci v. Town of Kittery, 101 F.R.D. 767 (D.Me.1984); Barca v. Thompson Aircraft Service, Civil No. 82-0211-P (D.Me. February 1, 1984).

The Secretary raises a legal argument as a basis for the vacation of the Court’s August 2, 1984, Order which may be capable of being addressed under Fed.R. Civ.P. 60(b)(6) and the Court will so treat that argument. In this respect, the Defendant-Secretary contends that the Court’s action on the pertinent date is in substance a default within the meaning of Fed.R.Civ.P. 55 and, therefore, may not be entered against the Government because of the prohibition of the entry of defaults against the Government or any agency thereof, which is set out in Rule 55(e).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Gadoury v. United States (In Re Gadoury)
187 B.R. 816 (D. Rhode Island, 1995)
Nye County v. Washoe Medical Center, Inc.
839 P.2d 1312 (Nevada Supreme Court, 1992)
Sumler v. Bowen
656 F. Supp. 1322 (W.D. Arkansas, 1987)
Poliquin v. Heckler
597 F. Supp. 1004 (D. Maine, 1984)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 F.R.D. 940, 40 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 155, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23702, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ouellette-v-heckler-med-1984.