Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-02140/USCOURTS-ca10-91-02140-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Betty Brown
Appellant
Mescalero Apache Tribe
Appellee

Document Text:

't FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Unitm States Court of Ap;,e:i.ls Tenth Circuit 

TEN'l'H CIRCUIT OCT 13 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

BETTY BROWN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

MESCALERO APACHE TRIBE, dba 

Inn of the Mountain Gods, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

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No. 91-2140 

(D. N.M. No. CIV-90-0799-M) 

Before McKAY, Chief Judge, .and SEYMOUR and EBEL, Circuit Judges.** 

This is an appeal from dismissal of an action pursuant to 

District of New Mexico Local Rules 7.5 and 7.8, and from the 

denial of relief from that judgement under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 60. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. Therefore, the case is ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Appellate Case: 91-2140 Document: 010110091373 Date Filed: 10/18/1991 Page: 1 
D.N.M.LR-Cv 7.5 permits only ten days to respond to motions. 

D.N.M.LR-Cv 7.8 equates a failure to respond to a motion within 

this time period with consent to grant the motion. 

On April 5, 1991 the Defendant, an Indian tribe, moved to 

dismiss this personal injury action based on its alleged sovereign 

immunity. On May 13, 1991, thirteen days after the deadline for 

response had expired, the Plaintiff had still failed to respond 

and the court dismissed the complaint. 

The Plaintiff moved for relief from the dismissal under Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 60 on the grounds that she never received a copy of the 

motion, notwithstanding the fact that it was certified as mailed 

on the date of filing. The court denied her Rule 60 motion, 

emphasizing that even if the Plaintiff had not received a copy of 

the motion, she was undoubtedly aware that the motion was filed, 

and the date on which it was filed, as this information was 

recited in a pre-trial order which was signed by both parties. 

The Plaintiff appeals from the dismissal, arguing that the 

penalty for violation of the local rule, dismissal, is unduly 

harsh. Additionally, she appeals the district court's denial of 

her Rule 60 motion on the ground that the denial was an abuse of 

discretion. 

The record is insufficient to determine whether, given the 

circumstances, the local rule mandating dismissal was unduly 

harsh. However, the district court abused its discretion in both 

its order of dismissal and its denial of the Plaintiff's Rule 60 

motion by failing to apply the test for undue harshness set forth 

in Miller v. Department of the Treasucy, 934 F.2d 1161, 1162 (10th 

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Appellate Case: 91-2140 Document: 010110091373 Date Filed: 10/18/1991 Page: 2 
Cir. 1991) (citing Hancock v. City of Oklahoma City, 857 F.2d 

1394, 1396 (10th Cir. 1988)). 

Before dismissing an action for untimely response pursuant to 

a local rule, a court must weigh three factors against "the 

judicial system's strong predisposition to resolve cases on their 

merits . II Miller, 934 F.2d at 1161 (citing Hancock, 857 

F.2d at 1396). These three factors are: (1) the degree of actual 

prejudice to the defendant; (2) the amount of interference with 

the judicial process; and (3) the culpability of the litigant. 

Id. 

Although the district court appears to have addressed the 

third factor, there is no discussion of the first two factors in 

either the order of dismissal or the denial of Rule 60 relief. 

Because the court was bound to address all three of these factors, 

these orders represent an abuse of discretion. 

Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court's dismissal REMAND 

for a consideration of whether the three Miller factors are 

sufficiently weighty to warrant dismissal. The mandate shall issue 

forthwith. 

Entered for the Court 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

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Appellate Case: 91-2140 Document: 010110091373 Date Filed: 10/18/1991 Page: 3