Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alnd-2_19-cv-00598/USCOURTS-alnd-2_19-cv-00598-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

DONNA FALKNER,

Plaintiff,

v.

DOLGENCORP, LLC, d/b/a 

DOLLAR GENERAL,

Defendant.

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Case No. 2:19-cv-598-GMB

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before the court is the Motion to Reconsider (Doc. 24), in which Plaintiff 

Donna Falkner asks the court to revisit its previous order compelling arbitration.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), the parties have consented to the jurisdiction of a 

United States Magistrate Judge. After careful consideration of the parties’ 

submissions, the applicable law, and the record as a whole, the court finds that the 

motion is due to be denied.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff began work with Dollar General in December 2017 at its store in 

Calera, Alabama. Doc. 10-1 at 1. According to the allegations in the complaint, 

Dollar General and its agents committed a variety of tortious acts against Plaintiff. 

Doc. 1. She decided to pursue her grievances in court, but Defendant notified her 

that she had entered into an arbitration agreement. Doc. 1 at 11. The arbitration 

FILED

 2020 Mar-23 PM 03:01

U.S. DISTRICT COURT

N.D. OF ALABAMA

Case 2:19-cv-00598-GMB Document 27 Filed 03/23/20 Page 1 of 5
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agreement is electronically signed with the initials “DKF,” completed with a check 

inside the box indicating that the signer agrees to arbitrate any employment disputes, 

and dated “12/12/2017.” Doc. 6-2. 

On May 16, 2019, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss or to compel 

arbitration. Doc. 6. Defendant asserted that the arbitration agreement is valid and 

binding, and therefore that Plaintiff should be required to submit her claims to 

arbitration. Doc. 6. Plaintiff claimed that she never signed the arbitration agreement.

Doc. 10. After reviewing the parties’ briefs and the evidence in the record, the court 

concluded that no genuine dispute of material fact existed as to whether Plaintiff 

signed the arbitration agreement. Doc. 23. Accordingly, the court granted the motion 

to compel arbitration. Doc. 23. Plaintiff now has filed a motion to reconsider the 

order compelling arbitration. Doc. 24. For the reasons set forth below, the court 

concludes that reconsideration is unwarranted.

II. DISCUSSION

A motion to reconsider should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances. 

It is not an avenue for relitigating old matters. Wilchombe v. TeeVee Toons, Inc., 555 

F.3d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 2009). And it is not a vehicle for advancing new legal 

theories or presenting previously available evidence. Mays v. U.S. Postal Serv., 122 

F.3d 43, 46 (11th Cir. 1997). In fact, this narrow remedy “is only available when a 

party presents the court with evidence of an intervening change in controlling law, 

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the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct clear error or manifest 

injustice.” Summit Med. Ctr. of Ala., Inc. v. Riley, 284 F. Supp. 2d 1350, 1355 (M.D. 

Ala. 2003) (citing Groover v. Michelin N. Am., Inc., 90 F. Supp. 2d. 1236, 1256 

(M.D. Ala. 2000)). 

Here, Plaintiff asserts that reconsideration is necessary to correct clear error 

and manifest injustice. Doc. 24 at 1. “An error is not clear and obvious if the legal 

issues are at least arguable.” Reid v. BMW of N. Am., 464 F. Supp. 2d 1267, 1270 

(N.D. Ga. 2006) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). A party cannot 

show clear error or manifest injustice by “merely reargu[ing] points previously 

considered and rejected by the Court.” Colomar v. Mercy Hosp., Inc., 242 F.R.D. 

671, 684 (S.D. Fla. 2007). And “to the extent [a party] . . . tries to raise new 

arguments and point to new evidence that could have been raised earlier, this is 

insufficient grounds to satisfy the clear error or manifest injustice standard for 

granting a motion for reconsideration.” Campero USA Corp. v. ADS Foodservice, 

LLC, 916 F. Supp. 2d 1284, 1292 (S.D. Fla. 2012) (internal citation omitted).

“[C]lear error or manifest injustice occurs where the Court has patently 

misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues 

presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of 

apprehension.” Id. at 1292–93.

Although Plaintiff argues clear error and manifest injustice, her motion largely 

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rehashes her arguments in opposition to the motion to compel arbitration. 

Specifically, Plaintiff argues that the court must construe all disputed facts in her 

favor, and reiterates that she stated in her sworn affidavit that she neversaw orsigned 

an arbitration agreement. She again asserts that Defendant has offered no evidence 

beyond speculation that she signed the arbitration agreement. 

Consistent with the Eleventh Circuit’s summary judgment-like standard for 

compelling arbitration, the court must construe all genuine disputes of fact in 

Plaintiff’s favor. See Bazemore v. Jefferson Capital Sys., LLC, 827 F.3d 1325, 1333 

(11th Cir. 2016). But a dispute must be genuine, and here there are no disputes of 

fact that qualify as genuine, as the court previously found. Doc. 23 at 3. Neither 

party disputes that someone signed the arbitration agreement under Plaintiff’s name 

on December 12, 2017. In her motion for reconsideration, Plaintiff maintains that 

she was working at the Dollar General store that day, that her manager agreed to

take care of her paperwork, and that she did not see or sign the arbitration agreement. 

Doc. 24 at 3. However, as the court highlighted in its memorandum opinion, 

Defendant presented undisputed evidence that Plaintiff did not begin her 

employment with Dollar General until after December 12, 2017, flatly contradicting

Plaintiff’s timeline. This is the same evidence the court considered initially, and 

Plaintiff’s arguments on reconsideration do not change the court’s calculus. 

Plaintiff further contends that manifest injustice will occur if she is compelled 

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to arbitrate her claims because this forum is “expensive” and “employer-friendly.”

Doc. 24 at 2. “[M]anifest injustice occurs where the Court has patently 

misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial issues 

presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning but of 

apprehension.” Campero USA Corp., 916 F. Supp. 2d at 1292–93. Plaintiff’s 

complaints about the arbitration process do not meet this standard. Accordingly, this 

argument does not warrant reconsideration.

Plaintiff cannot justify reconsideration on the basis of clear error or manifest 

injustice simply by repackaging old arguments. Plaintiff’s motion does not

demonstrate that the court committed clear error or manifest injustice, that there has 

been a change in intervening caselaw, or that she has discovered evidence previously 

unavailable. Accordingly, Plaintiff has not satisfied her burden to demonstrate that 

reconsideration is appropriate, and her motion is due to be denied.

III. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, it is ORDERED that the Motion to Reconsider (Doc. 24) is 

DENIED.

DONE and ORDERED on March 23, 2020.

 _________________________________

 GRAY M. BORDEN

 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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