Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-87-01947/USCOURTS-ca10-87-01947-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 861
Nature of Suit: Social Security - HIA (1395 ff)
Cause of Action: 

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.. ·::;. c.PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

FILED 

87-1947 Unit.eel Stat.ea Court of Appeals ~nth c;rcoit 

JOSE R. E. MARTINEZ, ) 

ESQUIPULA BACA, ) 

TRANQUILINO MANZANARES and ) 

HILARIO AGUILAR, on their own) 

behalf and on behalf of all ) 

others similarly situated, ) 

Plaintiffs, 

JAMES LANNOM, JULIAN GARCIA, 

LILLIE HOGUE, DANNY 

CARPENTER and NANCY cox, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

LEWIS SULLIVAN, M.D., 

individually, and as 

Secretary of the 

United States Department of 

Health and Human Services, 

and BLUE CROSS ASSOCIATION 

OF NEW MEXICO, 

Defendants-Appellants. 

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MAY 1 ·2 '1989i 

On Appeal From The 

United States District Court 

For The District Of New Mexico 

(D. c. Civil No. 8990-M) 

Johns. Koppel, Attorney, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, 

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Richard K. Willard, 

Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, 

D.C., William L. Lutz, United States Attorney, Albuquerque, 

New Mexico, and Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Attorney, Appellate Staff, 

Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., with him 

on the briefs), for Defendants-Appellants. 

Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 1 
-- ~- ~--: -r1c·Pe.ter:-~KomJ.os".":'HJJ.obsky '"'·NationaL.:Senior Ci tize.ns -.Law Center, 

( 

Los Angeles, California (Sally Hart Wilson, National Senior 

Citizens Law Center, Los Angeles, California, Roger A. Schwartz 

and Judith G. Waxman, National Health Law Project, Washington, 

D.C., John Vail, New Mexico Legal Services Support Project, 

Albuquerque, New Mexico, and E. c. Gomez, Southern New Mexico 

Legal Services, Inc., Las Cruces, New Mexico, with him on the 

brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees. 

Before TACHA and SETH', Circuit Judges, and SAFFELS, District 

Judge* •. 

SETH, Circuit Judge. 

The parties have been advised that this court was considering 

summary dismissal of this appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. 

This case began in 1971 when the original plaintiffs sought 

an injunction requiring appellants to provide nearings to Medicare 

home health patients before cutting off their benefits. On remand 

from this court, the district court issued an order in 1973 

enjoining appellants from terminating home health care benefits to 

the individual plaintiffs and "to all those Medicare beneficiaries 

similarly situated without first providing an evidentiary hearing 

on the merits of their terminations." Order of April 23, 1973, at 

4. 

*Honorabie Dale E. Saffels, United States· District Judge for the 

District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

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Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 2 
I-n:.,L986.;:.,;~appellees,,-init,iated".the ,-pres.ent enf,orcement 

proceedings, asking the district court to require appellants to 

comply with the 1973 order or be held in contempt. In response, 

appellants argued that because of an intervening change in the law 

they should be relieved of any obligations under the 1973 injunetion. on October 14, 1986, the district court found that 

appellants had failed to comply with the 1973 order and that no 

change of law requiring relief from the order had occurred. · The 

court ordered appellants to submit a plan for implementing the 

1973 order. 

On May 1, 1987, after considering proposals from the parties, 

the district court issued an order setting forth a detailed 

implementation plan (hereinafter referred to as the Remedial 

Order). Appellees, citing Rule 59(e), filed a "Motion to Clarify, 

Alter or Amend" the Remedial Order on May 15, 1987. On June 25, 

1987, appellants filed a notice of appeal with this court seeking 

review of the Remedial Order. Appellees' Rule 59(e) motion was 

still pending when this notice of appeal was filed. 

On August 6, 1987, this court notified the parties that it 

was considering sua sponte dismissal of appellants' appeal for 

lack of jurisdiction. On September 16, 1987, the district court 

denied appellees' Rule 59(e) motion. Appellants notified this 

court of the denial by letter dated September 24, 1987 but did not 

file a new notice of appeal following the district court's 

resolution of appellees' motion. We now dismiss the present 

appeal because the only notice of appeal reflected in the record 

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Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 3 
·,.,, .. ,~ .. is a,,nu:llity ··under Fed. ·R •. :.App. P-.-i-4(·a) (4) since,.·it was .filed 

before the disposition of a timely motion brought under Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 59(e). 

Appellants argue first that Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4) does not 

apply to the district court's Remedial Order. They argue that the 

Remedial Order is properly characterized as an interlocutory· order 

a~peaiable under 28 u.s.c. § 1292(a)(l) and that the mandates of · 

Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4) apply only to final district court 

decisions appealable under 28 u.s.c. § 1291. We disagiee with 

this characterization of the order. The Remedial Order granted 

appellees the relief they requested and did not contemplate any 

further action by the court. It was an end in itself, a point 

acknowledged by appellants in their brief. Appellants' Rep1y 

Brief at 4 ("[s]pecific, final relief was imposed by the distri.ct 

court's ••• Remedial Order"). The Remedial Order is thus 

properly characterized as a "final decision" of the district 

court, appealable under 28 u.s.c. § 1291. Virginia v. Tenneco, 

Inc., 538 F.2d 1026, 1030 (4th Cir.). 

In any event, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(a), "any order from 

which an appeal lies" qualifies as a "judgment" as that term is 

used in Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Girard v. Drexel Burnham Lambert, 

Inc., 807 F.2d 490, 492 (5th Cir.); see also Derks v. Dugger, 835 

F.2d 778, 779 (11th Cir.) (motion to reconsider an order denying a 

preliminary injunction is properly characterized as motion brought 

under Rule 59(e)); Financial Services Corp. of the Midwest v. 

Weindruch, 764 F.2d 197, 198 (7th Cir.) (order granting a 

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Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 4 
, •• :. 0 :::-·,;-"l'.'°'·pre.ld.,nlinar'}',sin.j.uncti-on ,.is -as,.judgment,-w.i thin. -the"-meaning of .Rule 

• 

59(e)). Thus, even if the Remedial Order is classified as an 

interlocutory order appealable under 28 u.s.c. § 1292(a)(l), 

appellants were still required to comply with Fed. R. App. P. 

· 4(a)(4) if they wish-e-d to appeal the order. 

We must next determine whether appellees' motion is properly 

characterized as falling under Rule 59(e). The Supreme Court has 

held that Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4) applies to nullify a notice of 

appeal brought during the pendency of any motion deemed to have 

been made under Rule 59(e). Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 

U.S. I , 57 u.s.L.w. 4212, 4214-15 (U.S. February 21, 

1989). "[T]he decision whether a particular pending motion falls 

under Rule 59(e) will of necessity determine whether an otherwise 

final judgment is appealable." Id. 

A motion will be considered to fall under Fed. R. Civ. P. 

59(e), and thus trigger t~e requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 

4(a)(4), when it involves "reconsideration of matters properly 

encompassed in a decision on the merits." Id. at 4214 (quoting 

White v. New Hampshire Dep't of Employment Security, 455 U.S. 445, 

451). Only when a motion "raises issues wholly collateral to the 

judgment in the main cause of action" will it fall outside the 

ambit of Rule 59(e). Id. (quoting Buchanan v. Stanships, Inc., 

485 U.S. 265, __ , 108 S. Ct. 1130, 1132). 

In the same vein, this court "has consistently held that 

• a motion questioning the correctness of a judgment . . . 

will be treated under Rule 59(e)." Dalton v. First Interstate 

-sAppellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 5 
.. -... , .cs.Bank,... 863, F-.-2d.-.702-; ;.703 .. ( 10th ,Cir •. ) .,.,~·",·This is · t-r-ue even• when the 

change sought by the movant is "not major," so long as the 

"substantive" correctness of the judgment is challenged. Id. at 

704. Further, "post-judgment motions filed within ten days of the 

final judgment shouldi where ·possible, be-construed as Rule 59(e) 

motions to 'avoid otherwise endless hassles over proper 

characterization.'" Id. at 703-04 (quoting weste~n Indus., Inc. 

v. Newcor Canada, Ltd., 709 F.2d 16, 17 (7th Cir.)). 

Our review of the district court'~ Remedial Order and the 

appellees' motion reveals that, under the standard outlined above, 

the motion must be considered to fall under Rule 59(e). Under 

paragraph 5(e) of the Remedial Order, Medicare intermediaries are 

barred from recovering any payments made during the pendency of a 

termination appeal from a home health care agency possessing a 

favorable waiver presumption under applicable Medicare 

regulations. Under the amendment proposed by appellees in their 

motion, intermediaries would be barred from recovering any 

payments made during the pendency of a termination appeal from any 

home health care agency, regardless of whether an agency qualified 

for a favorable waiver presumption. 

The motion thus raised an issue that had important 

substantive ramifications for the implementation of the Remedial 

Order. The appellants argued before the district court that "the 

proposed amendment would deprive the remedial order of any meaning 

and distort the legislative scheme upon which the Medicare program 

is based." Had the district court approved the proposed 

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Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 6 
-•. ,,/-.. 1a-,~~amendment,., .. appellants,amost, cer:tain-1.y,.~would, -have ,raised -- the issue 

• 

in this appeal. Thus, the motion most certainly involved 

"reconsideration of matters properly encompassed in [the] decision 

on the merits," and is prbperly characterized as falling under 

Rule 59 ( e). Because appellants,- June 25, 1987 notice of appeal 

was filed while this motion was still before the trial court, it 

must be considered a nullity. 

Because the June 25, 1987 notice of appeal is a nullity, and 

because ~ppellants failed to file a separate notice of appeal 

after the district court denied appellees' Rule 59(e) motion, this 

appeal must be dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction. 

Appellants' September 24, 1987 letter to this court, notifying the 

court of the district court's denial of appellees' Rule 59(e) 

motion, cannot be construed as a notice of appeal. The letter 

followed this court's August 6, 1987 letter notifying the parties 

that we we_re considering dismissal of appellants' appeal for lack 

of jurisdiction. When appellants sent their letter to this court, 

they obviously believed they had effectively appealed from the 

Remedial Order and did not intend the letter to serve as a notice 

of appeal. See Century Laminat_ing, Ltd. v. Montgomery, 595 F.2d 

563, 569 (10th Cir.). Nor have appellants presented any "unique 

circumstances" excusing their failure to timely appeal the 

Remedial Order. See Thompson v. I.N.S., 375 U.S. 384. 

For the above reasons, the appeal is DISMISSED. 

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Appellate Case: 87-1947 Document: 01019963569 Date Filed: 05/12/1989 Page: 7