Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_05-cv-00645/USCOURTS-azd-2_05-cv-00645-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Abbott Laboratories
Defendant
Cynthia Gastelum
Plaintiff

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Plaintiff’s untimely Notice of Appeal to the 9th Circuit, Doc. # 69, was erroneously

docketed by the clerk on October 25, 2006, Doc. # 70. This ministerial act cannot be equated

with an implicit grant of an extension of time by the district court, which requires the

approbation of the trial judge under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A). United States v. Long, 905

F.2d 1572, 1574 (D.C. Cir. 1990). 

WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Cynthia Gastelum, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Abbott Laboratories, 

Defendant. 

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No. CV05-00645-PHX-NVW

ORDER

The court has before it Plaintiff’s Motion for Extension of Time to File Appeal, Doc.

# 67; the Response, Doc. # 71; and the Reply, Doc. # 73.1

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A) instructs litigants to file a notice of

appeal in a civil case within 30 days after the judgment or order appealed from is entered by

the district clerk. Intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays are not excluded from

this computation because the applicable time period is more than 11 days. Fed. R. Civ. P.

6(a). An attorney who fails to file a notice of appeal within the prescribed time period may

not take an appeal as of right. Fed. R. App. P. 3(a)(1). However, Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A)

Case 2:05-cv-00645-NVW Document 75 Filed 11/22/06 Page 1 of 10
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provides a 30 day grace period within which a litigant who is not entitled to appeal as of right

may nevertheless ask the court for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal. 

The ameliorative Rule provides in relevant part: “The district court may extend the

time to file a notice of appeal if: (i) a party so moves no later than 30 days after the time

prescribed by this Rule 4(a) expires; and (ii) . . . that party shows excusable neglect or good

cause.” Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A). A district court’s decision to grant or deny a motion

under this Rule is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Pincay v. Andrews, 389 F.3d 853, 858

(9th Cir. 2004) (en banc), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 961 (2005). Plaintiff’s Motion is denied for

the reasons set forth below.

I. Facts

 Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), Plaintiff could have taken an appeal as of

right from this court’s August 22, 2006 dispositive Order until September 21, 2006. Plaintiff

did not file a notice of appeal within the applicable 30 day time period. Plaintiff’s counsel

discovered that the time for taking an appeal as of right had lapsed on October 4, 2006.

(Doc. #67 at 2.) Plaintiff’s counsel met with Plaintiff to discuss the possibility of an appeal

on October 12, 2006, at which time Plaintiff requested that the appeal be pursued. (Id. at 3.)

Plaintiff then filed this Motion under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A) on October 20, 2006, just

before the 30 day grace period for requesting an extension of time to file a notice of appeal

was set to expire. 

Plaintiff’s counsel avers that his failure to file a timely notice of appeal should be

excused under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A) by (1) his extensive involvement in other litigation

matters during the applicable time period; and (2) his secretary’s miscalendering of the

expiration of the 30 day deadline as October 4, 2006, rather than September 21, 2006, “due

to the mistaken belief that intervening weekends and holidays were not included in

calculating the thirty day period.” (Doc. # 67 at 2.) 

Plaintiff’s counsel expands upon the first of his two excuses by noting that he “had

just started a lengthy complex civil jury trial” when the court’s August, 22, 2006 Order was

filed. (Id. at 1-2.) Plaintiff’s counsel, a sole practitioner, worked “full time” on this case

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until September 15, 2006, at which date he directed his attention to a variety of other pending

matters. (Aff. Richard M. Martinez.) Mr. Martinez generally avers that his trial

“commitment[s] became all consuming and demanded 100% of counsel’s attention,” leaving

no time for him to consider taking an appeal as of right in this case before the expiration of

the 30 day deadline . (Doc. # 67 at 4.) “But for trial,” he contends, “the mistake on the part

of counsel would not have occurred and an appeal would have been timely filed by

September 21, 2006.” (Id.) 

The second excuse proffered by Plaintiff’s counsel turns upon Mr. Martinez’s

delegation of calendering duties to his secretary, Anzorena Fuentes. In her affidavit, Ms.

Fuentes states that while Mr. Martinez was in trial on other matters, he “relied on me to tickle

(calendar) the appeal deadline in the Gastelum case and specifically asked if such had

occurred to which I responded yes.” (Aff. Anzorena Fuentes.) Plaintiff’s counsel

“discovered that the deadline to file the appeal in Gastelum had been incorrectly entered in

to the office calendering system” on October 4, 2006, the very day in which the deadline to

file a notice of appeal as calendared by Ms. Fuentes was to lapse. (Id.) Plaintiff’s counsel

urges that the system that he has devised to avoid missing important court deadlines broke

down in this isolated case. Although Mr. Martinez “and his secretary routinely double check

and independently enter all calendar deadlines in the system,” his trial engagements and his

secretary’s reduced office hours together caused the system to fail. (Doc. # 67 at 2-3.)

Plaintiff’s counsel has submitted no evidence that he actually trained his secretary to

calculate appellate deadlines properly. Finally, Plaintiff states that she “and her counsel have

acted in good faith.” (Id. at 4.)

II. Legal Analysis

A. Plaintiff Must Show “Excusable Neglect,” Not “Good Cause”

The text of Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A) offers relief to a putative appellant who can

show either “excusable neglect” or “good cause.” However, the arguments made by Plaintiff

and Defendant hinge exclusively upon that most elastic of legal phrases, “excusable neglect.”

This is appropriate because the Advisory Committee has said that “the excusable neglect

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standard applies in situation in which there is fault,” while the “good cause standard applies

in situations in which there is no fault . . . [and] the need for an extension is usually

occasioned by something that is not within the control of the movant.” Advisory Committee

Note to 2002 amendment to Rule 4(a)(5). See Mirpuri v. ACT Mfg., 212 F.3d 625, 630 (1st

Cir. 2000) (noting that fault on the part of the movant takes the case out of “the isthmian

confines of the ‘good cause’ rubric”). The Supreme Court had occasion to parse the meaning

of “excusable neglect” in the context of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure in

Pioneer Inv. Serv. Co. v. Brunswick Assocs. Ltd. Partnership, 507 U.S. 380 (1993). The

Court’s analysis in that case is controlling here. 

B. Pioneer and the Existence of Excusable Neglect

 The Court in Pioneer began its deconstruction of the term “excusable neglect” by

noting that “[t]here is, of course, a range of possible explanations for a party’s failure to

comply with a . . . filing deadline,” ranging from unforeseeable force majeure to the

deliberate flouting of a procedural rule. 507 U.S. at 387. Justice White noted a split among

the Courts of Appeal: some circuits had concluded that any showing of fault on the part of

the late filer would defeat a claim of “excusable neglect,” while others employed a more

flexible approach. The Pioneer Court determined that requiring a neglectful movant to show

that his failure to comply with a court deadline was caused by circumstances beyond his

reasonable control “is not consonant with either the language of the Rule or the evident

purposes underlying it.” Id. at 388. Fealty to the ordinary meaning of the term “neglect”

drove the Court to conclude that “by empowering the courts to accept late filings where the

failure to act was the result of excusable neglect, Congress plainly contemplated that the

courts would be permitted, where appropriate, to accept late filings caused by inadvertence,

mistake, or carelessness, as well as by intervening circumstances beyond the party's control.”

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Under this wide standard, Plaintiff’s counsel’s negligent failure to comply with the

30 day filing deadline prescribed by Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A) is excusable. But more is

needed. The court does not interpret Rule 4(a)(5)(A)’s 30 day grace period so as to

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effectively transform the 30 day default rule for filing a notice of appeal into a 60 day time

period. “[T]he legal system would groan under the weight of a regimen of uncertainty in

which time limitations were not rigorously enforced–where every missed deadline was the

occasion for the embarkation on extensive trial and appellate litigation to determine the

equities of enforcing the bar.” Silivanch v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 333 F.3d 355, 368 (2d

Cir. 2003). 

 C. Is the Neglect Excused? The Four Pioneer Factors

Merely establishing that excusable neglect exists does not automatically entitle a

putative appellant to relief under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A). The decision to grant or deny

a request for enlargement of time under the Rule is committed to the sole discretion of district

court. As Justice O’Connor noted in Pioneer, “the court may withhold relief if it believes

forbearance inappropriate; the statute does not require the court to forgive every omission

caused by excusable neglect, but states that the court ‘may’ grant relief.” 507 U.S. at 399

(O’Connor, J. dissenting). The Court in Pioneer intended the lower courts’ discretional

inquiry to be far-reaching: “Because Congress has provided no other guideposts for

determining what sorts of neglect will be considered ‘excusable,’ we conclude that the

determination is at bottom an equitable one, taking account of all relevant circumstances

surrounding the party’s omission.” 507 U.S. at 395. 

The Supreme Court then established a four-part balancing test to guide the lower

courts as they consider whether a claim of “excusable neglect” will lie: (1) the danger of

prejudice to the non-moving party; (2) the length of the delay and its potential impact on

judicial proceedings; (3) the reason for the delay, including whether it was within the

reasonable control of the movant; and (4) whether the moving party’s conduct was in good

faith. Id. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has determined that the “excusable

neglect” inquiry under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A) should be undertaken within the Pioneer

framework. Pincay, 389 F.3d at 855. It is to this four-factor test that the court now turns.

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1. Danger of Prejudice to the Non-Moving Party

The first factor, the danger of prejudice to the non-moving party, directs the court to

consider the impact on the Defendant, and on the “interests of efficient judicial

administration” more generally, if Plaintiff is allowed to file a notice of appeal after the 30

day time period to take an appeal as of right has lapsed. Pioneer, 507 U.S. at 398.

Defendant has not offered any specific evidence, such as detrimental reliance upon the

court’s August 22, 2006 Order granting summary judgment against all of Plaintiff’s claims,

that would militate in favor of a finding of prejudice in this case. This is common in the Rule

4(a)(5) context. As the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has noted, “[t]here is

unlikely ever to be harm in the Rule 4(a)(5) setting, because the neglectful appellant has only

30 days after the expiration of his time for appealing in which to request relief.” Prizevoits

v. Indianan Bell Tel. Co., 76 F.d 132, 134 (7th Cir. 1996). Judge Posner went on to state,

however, that “[t]he word ‘excusable’ would be read out of the rule if inexcusable neglect

were transmuted into excusable neglect by a mere absence of harm.” Id. 

2. Length and Impact of Delay

The second factor, which instructs the court to consider the length of the delay and its

potential impact on judicial proceedings, need not detain the court for long. The length of

the delay is minimal in this case because, although Plaintiff failed to file a notice of appeal

as of right within the 30 day period prescribed by Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), Plaintiff filed

her Motion for an extension of time within the 30 day grace period provided by Fed. R. App.

P. 4(a)(5)(A). An additional delay of 30 days, even when combined with the time required

for responsive pleadings to be filed and for the court to render this decision, is not significant

in actual or relative terms. This factor therefore weighs in favor of granting Plaintiff’s

request for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal.

3. Good Faith

 Plaintiff avers that “Plaintiff and her counsel have acted in good faith.” (Doc. # 67

at 4.) Defendant does not argue otherwise. Plaintiff’s good faith does favor her motion.

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4. The Reason for the Delay

The third Pioneer factor directs the court to weigh the reason for the delay, including

whether it was within the reasonable control of the movant. As was the case in Pincay, the

parties seem to agree that this is the most important factor for the court to consider. 

Plaintiff’s counsel’s first ground for excusable neglect is that he was too busy with

other litigation matters to calculate and calender the appeal date, or double-check his

secretary’s calendering, as his system normally requires. But Plaintiff’s counsel’s trial

calendar is entirely within his control. In fact, Plaintiff’s counsel has an ethical obligation

to ensure that he “shall provide competent representation to a client,” an obligation which

requires him to arrange his schedule such that each client receives all the attention

“reasonably necessary for the representation.” Ariz. R. Sup. Ct. Rule 42, E.R. 1.1. Counsel

points to no authority for the proposition that his neglect of the 30 day deadline to file a

notice of appeal in this case should be excused simply because his trial “commitment[s]

became all consuming and demanded 100% of counsel’s attention.” (Doc. # 67 at 4.) The

Court in Pioneer gave “little weight to the fact that counsel was experiencing upheaval in his

law practice at the time of the [due] date.” 507 U.S. at 398. Therefore, this ground weighs

against Plaintiff’s Motion. 

The second excuse proffered by Plaintiff’s counsel–that the system he designed to

avoid missing important court deadlines broke down in this isolated case–must be considered

in light of the Supreme Court’s statement in Pioneer that “inadvertence, ignorance of the

rules, or mistakes construing the rules do not usually constitute ‘excusable’ neglect.” 507

U.S. at 392 (emphasis added). Plaintiff’s counsel’s neglectful reliance upon his secretary’s

misconstruction of Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A) is therefore not a presumptively compelling

reason to excuse late filing. See Meyer v. Qualex, Inc., 426 F. Supp. 2d 344, 345 (D.N.C.

2006) (holding pro se plaintiff’s neglectful exclusion of weekends and holidays in calculating

time period for filing notice of appeal not to be excused); United States v. Alvarez-Martinez,

286 F.3d 470, 473 (7th Cir. 2002) (noting that a "simple case of miscalculation" regarding

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deadlines is not a sufficient reason to extend time for a criminal appeal under Fed. R. App.

P. 4(b)(2)). 

In Pincay, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invoked Pioneer for the

proposition that lawyer reliance upon support staff for calculating the appeal date suffices

as “excusable neglect” under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A) so as to authorize the district court’s

exercise of discretion to extend the appeal time. To aid in determining whether the

qualifying neglect should, in the exercise of discretion, be excused, the en banc Court

directed district courts to consider four additional factors under Pioneer’s “reason for the

delay” rubric. They are whether the moving lawyer otherwise acted with diligence and

provided quality representation to his client, whether the opposing party has tried to

capitalize on petty mistakes, and the likelihood of injustice if an appeal is not allowed.

Pincay, 389 F.3d at 859. Applying these factors, the court finds in its discretion that

Plaintiff’s counsel’s failure to file a timely notice of appeal does not warrant excuse. 

 Plaintiff’s counsel demonstrated a lack of diligence throughout his prosecution of this

case. For example, on June 2, 2006, the court granted Defendant’s Motion for Sanctions

against Plaintiff, Doc. # 32, noting that Plaintiff’s “failure to timely give the initial

disclosures under Rule 26(a)(1) was knowing and intentional and there was substantial

prejudice to the defendant in not receiving timely disclosure.” (Doc. # 56.) The court

sanctioned Plaintiff by precluding a substantial number of Plaintiff’s later-named witnesses,

and forbidding Plaintiff from offering documents listed in her belated disclosure statement

unless the documents had been disclosed by the defendant. (Id.) Plaintiff’s motion for an

enlargement of time to complete depositions was also denied in light of Plaintiff’s failure to

pursue discovery for six months. (Id.) In disposing of Plaintiff’s case in its August 22, 2006

Order, the court noted that Plaintiff “attempted to circumvent the court’s sanction–which held

that these witnesses could not be deposed because of untimely disclosures–by submitting

interview transcripts.” (Doc. # 63 at 5.) That history undercuts any characterization of

Plaintiff’s prosecution of this case as “diligent.” 

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Plaintiff’s counsel turned his attention back to this case on October 4, 2006, the last

day that he believed, in reliance upon his secretary, he could file a notice of appeal. Given

that it took Plaintiff’s counsel eight days to meet with Plaintiff and determine if she desired

to appeal this court’s Order, it is hard to see how counsel planned to obtain client approval

and file a timely notice of appeal even if October 4, 2006 were the correct deadline. It

therefore seems unlikely that, as Plaintiff’s counsel now avers, “[b]ut for trial, the mistake

on the part of counsel would not have occurred and an appeal would have been timely filed

by September 21, 2006.” (Doc. # 67 at 4.) 

The balance of the Pincay considerations can be disposed of readily. The quality of

Plaintiff’s counsel’s representation in this case is undermined by the same facts that cut

against a finding of diligence, set forth above. Furthermore, there is no evidence that

Defendant has evidenced a “propensity” to “capitalize on [Plaintiff’s] petty mistakes,” which

would weigh in favor of granting the prayed-for relief. Pincay, 389 F.3d at 859. 

Finally, the court puts principal weight on whether injustice would result if an appeal

is foreclosed. The court has reconsidered its August 22, 2006 dispositive Order, and remains

of the view that Plaintiff fell far short of the legal standard required to survive Defendant’s

Motion for Summary Judgment. There was an accumulation of substantive and procedural

insufficiencies that undermine Plaintiff’s case. See, e.g., Doc. # 63 at 3-5 (rejecting

Plaintiff’s exhibits 3-7 and 8-37 for failure to comply with the Federal Rules of Evidence

and violation of the court’s discovery orders); id. at 10 (disparate treatment claim fails

because Plaintiff did not submit admissible evidence creating a triable issue as to pretext);

id. at 15 (hostile environment claim raised by Plaintiff for the first time in responsive

pleading); id. at 3 n.2 (noting Plaintiff’s failure to comply with LRCiv. 56.1 by not linking

claims in opposition brief to factual allegations in her Statement of Facts). Viewing the case

as a whole, Plaintiff would be highly unlikely to obtain practical relief if a late appeal were

allowed. Defendant would be forced to incur additional substantial costs and legal expense.

The fourth Pincay factor cuts strongly against allowing a late appeal.

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In weighing its discretion, this court is also mindful of Judge Learned Hand’s

characterization of statutes of limitations generally:

They are often engines of injustice; their justification lies in furnishing an easy and

certain method of solving problems which are intrinsically insoluble, or soluble only

with so much uncertainty and after so much trouble that in the long run the game is

not worth the candle. Perhaps they are not justifiable at all; equity has always been

too sensitive to their possible harshness to accept them. But where they do exist one

must be prepared for hard cases, and it is no answer that this is one. 

Helvering v. Schine Chain Theatres, Inc., 121 F.2d 948, 950 (2nd Cir. 1941).

Weighing all the discretionary factors, the court concludes that Plaintiff should not

be allowed a late appeal, and her Motion will be denied.

 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Extension of Time to File

Appeal, Doc. # 67, is denied. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, in light of the court’s decision in its favor,

Defendant need not file a sur-reply and further evidence in opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion,

as originally permitted by this court’s November 14, 2006 Order, Doc. # 74.

DATED this 22nd day of November, 2006.

 

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