United States v. Edwards

241 F.R.D. 146, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22375, 2007 WL 915165
District Court, E.D. New York·Decided March 28, 2007·No. No. 02-CV-3571·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

GLASSER, Senior District Judge.

The United States commenced this action against defendant Ishan Edwards in July 2002, stating a claim in breach of contract and seeking to recover damages in the amount of $3,845.39 in unpaid student loan debt and interest. The defendant failed to file an answer or otherwise respond, and default judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff on September 4, 2002. On August 29, 2006, the plaintiff filed an Application for a Writ of Garnishment, naming “United Federation of Teachers Education Foundation, Inc.” as the garnishee. The application was granted and a Writ of Garnishment was issued on September 26, 2006. On March 23, 2007, the plaintiff filed this motion, seeking an order: 1) amending the case caption to reflect the correct legal name of the garnishee, and 2) ordering the garnishee to respond to the writ by filing an Answer of the Garnishee within ten days. For the reasons stated below, the plaintiffs motion is granted in part and denied in part.

DISCUSSION

Amendment to the Case Caption

The plaintiff purports to move pursuant to Rule 6-0 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to amend the case caption, which currently identifies the garnishee as “United Federation of Teachers Education Foundation, Inc.,” so as to change that identification to “United Federation of Teachers,” which the plaintiff asserts is the correct legal name of that entity. The plaintiffs letter informs the Court that the garnishee’s counsel requested that the plaintiff make this request, see Letter from Liberatore J. Iannarone, dated March 19, 2007, and the plaintiffs affirmation in support of the motion to amend states that “no prejudice will result from the granting of this application as the proper entity was served and their counsel is aware of the pending Writ served upon the Garnishee.”1 Affidavit of Liberatore J. Iannarone in Support of Order Amending the Caption for Garnishee 117.2

The Court notes at the outset that Rule 60 is not the appropriate authority pursuant to which the plaintiffs request should be evaluated. Rule 60(a) states, in relevant part, that “[cjlerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other parts of the record and errors therein arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party.” Though the plaintiff does not elaborate upon its theory of the applicability of Rule 60 to the present motion beyond a bare citation, the Court surmises that the plaintiff views the incorrect identification of the garnishee as a “clerical error” in “[anjother part[ ] of the record,” namely the Application for a Writ of Garnishment, that may be corrected by invocation of Rule 60. Although a literal reading of the phrase “other parts of the record” might support this view, the Court notes that the specific items listed [148] in Rule 60(a)—-judgments and orders—-are documents prepared and issued by the Court itself, rather than by any party, and therefore concludes, by application of the well-established canon of ejusdem generis, that the phrase “other parts of the record,” as used in Rule 60, refers to other documents issued by the Court, and not to documents submitted by a party.3 This conclusion is consistent with Second Circuit authority, which holds that Rule 60(a) provides a method by which to correct “judicial oversight,” rather than one by which to correct similar errors committed by a party. Dudley ex rel. Estate of Patton v. Penn-America Ins. Co., 313 F.3d 662, 665 (2d Cir.2002); see also In re Frigitemp Corp., 781 F.2d 324, 326-327 (goal of Rule 60 is “that the court’s judgment reflect an appropriate adjudication of the rights and obligations of the parties.”). The plaintiff has cited no authority in support of the proposition that Rule 60(a) may be invoked to correct a clerical error contained in a pleading submitted by a party, nor is the Court aware of any such authority.

Although Rule 60 is not an appropriate method by which to grant the correction of the case caption sought by the plaintiff, it is beyond question that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do provide for such corrections in appropriate circumstances. Indeed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit often makes similar corrections sua sponte, and without citation to any specific Rule or other authority. See, e.g., Chen v. Gonzales, 218 Fed.Appx. 82, 84 n. *, 2007 WL 642957, at *1 n. * (2d Cir.2007) (“The official caption is hereby amended to reflect the correct spelling of Respondent’s name.”)4; United States v. White, 200 Fed. Appx. 35, 35 n. * (2d Cir.2006) (“The Clerk of the Court is requested to modify the official caption to reflect the defendant-appellant’s correct name.”); Bhatti v. Bd. of Immigration Appeals, 210 Fed.Appx. 134, at 135, 2006 WL 3826633, at *1 n. * (2d Cir.2006) (“The Clerk of the Court is directed to correct the spelling of Bhatti’s first name in the official caption to accord with the spelling in this order.”); Singh v. Gonzales, 191 Fed.Appx. 24, 24 n. * (2d Cir.2006) (“The Clerk is requested to modify the official caption to reflect the correct spelling of petitioner’s name, which we give here.”); Li. v. Immigration & Naturalization Serv., 453 F.3d 129, 129 n. 1 (2d Cir.2006) (“The Clerk is requested to modify the official caption to reflect the correct order of Li’s name.”). A case caption that erroneously misidentifies a party “may of course be amended with the permission of the court,” but the plaintiffs request seeking that permission is appropriately construed as a motion to amend the erroneous pleading pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 15 (“Rule 15”), rather than as a motion pursuant to Rule 60. Hernandez-Avila v. Averill, 725 F.2d 25, 27 n. 4 (2d Cir.1984) (citing Rule 15). Thus, the Court shall construe the plaintiffs motion as one to amend the Application for a Writ of Garnishment pursuant to Rule 15.

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United States v. Edwards, 241 F.R.D. 146, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22375, 2007 WL 915165 (E.D.N.Y. 2007).

241 F.R.D. 146 (United States v. Edwards) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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