Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-03076/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-03076-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 446
Nature of Suit: Americans with Disabilities Act - Other
Cause of Action: 42:12101 Americans w/ Disabilities Act (ADA)

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1 The procedural history of this case is fully

summarized in my Order Granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary

Judgment.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KATHLEEN EDWARDS,

Plaintiff(s),

v.

PRINCESS CRUISE LINES, LTD.,

Defendant(s).

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No. C 05-3076 BZ

ORDER DENYING MOTIONS UNDER

RULES 59 AND 60

Before me is plaintiff’s motion for a new trial and/or

for clarification or, in the alternative, motion for relief

from the judgment. The parties have fully briefed the issues. 

I find no need for argument and vacate the hearing presently

scheduled for January 10, 2007. For the reasons discussed

below, plaintiff’s motion is DENIED.1

As a threshold issue, I conclude that, because the matter

was disposed of by summary judgment and not by trial, Rule

59(a) is inapplicable. See School Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah

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County, Or. v. ACandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1262 (9th Cir.

1993); Ericsson, Inc. v. Continental Promotion Group, Inc.,

2006 WL 1794750, at *2 (D. Ariz. June 27, 2006); Lyon v.

Estrella Foothills High School, 2006 WL 2640396, at *1 (D.

Ariz. Sept. 13, 2006); see also, e.g., Ioane v. Stein, 1998 WL

812251, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 5, 1998) (rejecting use of the

Rule 59(a) standard where the case was adjudicated on a motion

to dismiss). Rather, I will consider plaintiff’s arguments as

a Rule 59(e) motion for alteration or amendment of judgment. 

See, e.g., School Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah County, Or., 5 F.3d

at 1262; Ericsson, Inc., 2006 WL 1794750, at *2; Yazdchi, 2006

WL 2456495, at *2. 

“Rule 59(e) reconsideration is appropriate where: the

district court is presented with newly-discovered evidence or

committed clear error; the initial decision was manifestly

unjust; or if there is an intervening change in controlling

law.” U.S. v. Westlands Water Dist., 134 F. Supp. 2d 1111,

1130 (E.D. Cal. 2001) (citing 389 Orange St. Partners v.

Arnold, 179 F.3d 656, 665 (9th Cir. 1999)). Plaintiff

presents no newly-discovered evidence. No intervening change

in law has occurred. For the reasons discussed below, I

conclude that granting summary judgment was not manifestly

unjust and did not constitute clear error. 

Plaintiff first argues incorrectly that she never

received procedural notice of defendant’s time-bar argument. 

In its summary judgment motion, defendant argued at length

that plaintiff’s claims were contractually time-barred. In

her Opposition, plaintiff cited Pickern v. Holiday Quality

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2 Plaintiff argues that the declaration of Karl Danz

provides evidence of ongoing injury. Although that declaration

may provide evidence of knowledge of continuing conditions, it

says nothing of how those conditions have impacted or injured

plaintiff herself. Pickern requires evidence of both.

3 Plaintiff also moves under Rule 59(e) for

clarification as to two issues: 1) whether and to what extent

plaintiff’s claims of ongoing violations “arise out of” the

initial cruise, and 2) whether I read the contractual

limitations period as barring all claims a passenger might ever

have against defendant, whether related to the cruise or not. 

Because my Order adequately addressed both issues, I decline to

clarify or modify it. 

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Foods, Inc., 293 F.3d 1133 (9th Cir. 2002), for the

proposition that continuing violation claims cannot be barred

by statutes of limitations. Clearly plaintiff understood that

the timeliness of her claims was in issue. Yet she failed to

introduce any evidence to support her Pickern argument,2

relying entirely on the allegations of her complaint.3

Plaintiff also argues incorrectly that the Court inverted

the burdens on summary judgment and failed to require that

defendants meet their burden of going forward. To the extent

plaintiff relies on Adickes v. S.H. Kress, 398 U.S. 144

(1970), for the proposition that a movant must “disprove” an

essential element of the non-movant’s case, that case has been

superseded in pertinent part by Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477

U.S. 317, 325 (1986). The proposition, at any rate, is beside

the point. Here, defendant had the burden of proffering

admissible facts sufficient to entitle it to obtain a directed

verdict on its affirmative defense, if the evidence was

uncontroverted at trial. Once met, the burden shifted to

plaintiff. The burdens were correctly stated and applied. 

See Order pages 5-7. 

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4 Plaintiff’s argument under Rule 60 was not well

developed in her papers. I have, however, construed her papers

broadly so as to reach the merits of contentions arguably

raised therein.

5 In her papers, plaintiff suggests that my ruling was

actually based on her lack of standing to bring suit. As

explained repeatedly, my Order was based on the contractual

limitations period and plaintiff’s failure to meet her burden

on summary judgment. I made no findings as to plaintiff’s

standing to bring suit.

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Finally, plaintiff moves for relief under Rule 60(b) by

recapitulating the notice arguments, claiming surprise, and

arguing that I erred in excluding the declaration submitted in

support of her evidentiary objections to defendant’s Reply.4

As already discussed, plaintiff cannot rightly claim to have

been surprised by my applying Pickern to the facts of her

case. Plaintiff herself raised the issues by citing Pickern

in response to defendant’s time-bar argument. 

Insofar as clear error may constitute “any other reason

justifying relief from the operation of the judgment,” Fed. R.

Civ. P. 60(b)(6), my exclusion of her declaration was proper. 

As I explained at the hearing and in my Order, once I

sustained plaintiff’s objection to my consideration of her

standing to bring suit,5

 the appended exhibits could not be

accepted into evidence on that issue. Because the exhibits

were not timely filed and because plaintiff had not moved for

relief to file additional evidence, the exhibits were properly

excluded. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b). Although I emphasized at

the hearing that those exhibits were not before me and that

plaintiff lacked evidence of an ongoing violation, she never

properly moved to submit the evidence. My ruling was not

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6 In Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v. Brunswick Assoc. Ltd.

P’ship, 507 U.S. 380, 395 (1993), the Supreme Court supplied a

non-exclusive list of factors for courts to consider when the

issue of excusable neglect is raised. Those factors include

“the danger of prejudice to the adverse party, the length of

the delay and its potential impact on judicial proceedings, the

reason for the delay, including whether it was within the

reasonable control of the movant, and whether the movant acted

in good faith.” In re Warrick, 278 B.R. 182, 185 (9th Cir. BAP

2002) (citing id.). Courts, however, tend not to apply these

equitable factors when the neglect at issue is of a certain

inexcusable nature. See, e.g., In re Warrick, 278 B.R. at 187

(refusing to apply the Pioneer factors where the neglect

resulted from a failure to follow unambiguous rules); In re

Exodus Commc’ns, Inc., 2006 WL 3050829, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct.

26, 2006) (finding Pioneer and its progeny inapplicable where

the neglect resulted partly from conscious litigation strategy

and did not result in losing all opportunity to be heard). 

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clearly in error, and plaintiff was put on notice of the

infirmities of her case.

Plaintiff is left to argue that her failure to submit

admissible evidence of an ongoing violation constituted

excusable neglect under Rule 60(b). A determination as to

what constitutes excusable neglect “is at bottom an equitable

one.” Pioneer Inv. Servs. Co. v. Brunswick Assoc. Ltd.

P’ship, 507 U.S. 380, 395 (1993).6 By the same token, “‘Rule

60(b)(1) is not intended to remedy the effects of a litigation

decision that a party later comes to regret[.]’” In re Exodus

Commc’ns, Inc., 2006 WL 3050829, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 26,

2006) (quoting Latshaw v. Trainer Wortham & Co., Inc., 452

F.3d 1097, 1101 (9th Cir. 2006). “[I]nadvertence, ignorance

of the rules, or mistakes construing the rules do no usually

constitute ‘excusable’ neglect.” Pioneer, 507 U.S. at 392. 

Courts have consistently refused to excuse failures to

supply evidence known to a party facing summary adjudication. 

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See In re Exodus Commc’ns, Inc., 2006 WL 3050829, at 2

(failure to supply adequate evidence to rebut a motion to

dismiss); Hilton v. City & County of San Francisco, 1998 WL

738000, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 14, 1998) (failure to address

issues raised by defendant in its motion for summary

judgment); see also Satterlee v. Allen Press, Inc., 455 F.

Supp. 2d 1236, 1243 (failure to provide supporting documents

with a summary judgment response) (citing Wright v. Hickman,

36 Fed. Appx. 395, 400 (10th Cir. 2002); Thomas v. Timko, 2006

WL 229045, at *3 (N.D. Ind. Jan. 30, 2006) (failure of pro se

plaintiff to attach admissible evidence to its summary

judgment opposition); Richardson v. Nat’l Rifle Ass’n, 879 F.

Supp. 1, 2 (D. D.C. 1995) (failure to present evidence known

to plaintiff at time of motion). 

I conclude that neither plaintiff’s failure to submit

evidence known to her at the time of her opposition to summary

judgment, nor her subsequent failure to seek relief from her

evidentiary default prior to adjudication of the summary

judgment motion, constitute excusable neglect. Plaintiff’s

counsel has failed to adequately explain why he did not

provide the pertinent evidence at the time of the filing of

the Opposition; or why, after being alerted to this problem,

he did not properly and timely seek relief. The movant under

Rule 60 bears the burden of demonstrating that relief from the

judgment is warranted. See Watson v. Montana, 2006 WL

2850583, at *3 (D. Mont. Oct. 3, 2006) (citing McCurry ex rel.

Turner v. Adventist Health Sys./Sunbelt, Inc., 298 F.3d 586,

592 (6th Cir. 2002)). The reasons for counsel’s neglect

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remain largely unarticulated.

At any rate, the sequence of events demonstrate that

plaintiff’s counsel’s neglect was not excusable. Plaintiff

cited Pickern in her Opposition, but did not supply admissible

evidence known to support the underlying theory. Plaintiff

was alerted to this fact in the court’s tentative ruling, and

again at the hearing. Still, plaintiff never sought leave to

submit the evidence. Plaintiff’s counsel is an experienced

litigator in this field and was certainly capable of

consulting the Federal and Local Rules for the appropriate

course of action. 

Indeed, plaintiff’s counsel maintained at the hearing and

again in plaintiff’s papers that certain of my rulings were

incorrect and that plaintiff simply had no burden to produce

the evidence at issue. Thus, the evidentiary default appears

in part to have constituted a conscious decision pertaining to

plaintiff’s chosen legal theories. Such decisions are made at

the party’s peril and do not constitute excusable neglect. 

See In re Exodus Commc’ns, Inc., 2006 WL 3050829, at *2. 

Counsel’s acts may have amounted to neglect, but they are not

excusable.

For the reasons stated herein, plaintiff’s motion for a

new trial and for clarification or, in the alternative, for 

relief from judgment are hereby DENIED. 

DATED: January 5, 2007

 

 Bernard Zimmerman

United States Magistrate Judge

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