IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-30640

IN RE: TAXOTERE (DOCETAXEL) PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION

--------------------------------------------------------

DOROTHY KUYKENDALL, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

ACCORD HEALTHCARE, INCORPORATED; HOSPIRA, INCORPORATED; 

SANDOZ, INCORPORATED; SANOFI-AVENTIS, U.S., L.L.C.; SUN 

PHARMA GLOBAL FZE; SUN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES, 

INCORPORATED, agent of Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Limited; 

MCKESSON CORPORATION, doing business as McKesson Packaging; 

HOSPIRA WORLDWIDE, L.L.C., formerly known as Hospira Worldwide, 

Incorporated; SANOFI U.S. SERVICES, INCORPORATED, formerly known 

as Sanofi-Aventis U.S., Incorporated, 

 Defendants - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Louisiana

Before CLEMENT, SOUTHWICK, and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.

STEPHEN A. HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge:

Dorothy Kuykendall alleges that she used defendants’ prescription 

chemotherapy drug from 2011 to 2012 and now suffers from permanent hair 

loss. As a plaintiff in this multidistrict litigation (“MDL”), she was required to 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

July 16, 2020

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

2

serve defendants with a completed fact sheet disclosing details of her personal 

and medical history soon after filing her short form complaint. When she failed 

to do so, the district court dismissed her case with prejudice. For the following 

reasons, we AFFIRM.

I.

Defendants are manufacturers of Taxotere, a prescription chemotherapy 

drug commonly prescribed to patients diagnosed with breast cancer, and 

Docetaxel, the generic version of Taxotere. According to plaintiffs, defendants

were aware that their drugs caused hair loss yet failed to warn potential users 

of this negative side effect. See In re Taxotere (Docetaxel) Prods. Liab. Litig., 

220 F. Supp. 3d 1360, 1361 (J.P.M.L. 2016). In 2016, the Judicial Panel on 

Multidistrict Litigation consolidated all cases with similar claims and 

transferred them to the Eastern District of Louisiana. Id. As of December 2019, 

there were 11,971 individual actions pending in this MDL.1

Soon after the cases were consolidated, the district court issued several

pretrial orders intended to streamline the discovery process and ensure the 

efficient management of plaintiffs’ claims. In Amended Pretrial Order No. 22, 

the court ordered each plaintiff to complete a Plaintiff Fact Sheet (“PFS”) 

within seventy-five days of the date that her case was docketed in the MDL. 

The PFS required each plaintiff to answer detailed questions about her race, 

family, medical history, cancer diagnosis, and treatment regimen. In addition 

to the PFS, plaintiffs were required to provide defendants with authorizations 

for the release of medical records.

1 U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, MDL Statistics and Report: 

Distribution of Pending MDL Dockets by District (Dec. 16, 2019), available at

https://www.jpml.uscourts.gov/sites/jpml/files/Pending_MDLs_by_District-December-16-

2019.pdf.

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

3

If a plaintiff failed to complete and serve the necessary disclosures by the 

deadline, defendants were directed to file a notice of deficiency on MDL 

Centrality, an electronic database. After receiving a notice of deficiency, 

plaintiffs had thirty days to submit a compliant PFS. If they failed to do so, 

defendants were permitted to serve a notice of non-compliance upon Plaintiffs’ 

Liaison Counsel.2 Plaintiffs were then given an additional thirty days to cure 

the deficiencies. If a plaintiff still failed to provide the “complete and verified

disclosures” by that deadline, defendants could add the plaintiff to the court’s

“call docket” for the next scheduled hearing. The district court’s pretrial order 

explicitly warned plaintiffs that their cases could be dismissed if they failed to 

establish good cause during the hearing for their continued discovery 

deficiencies.

Dorothy Kuykendall filed a short form complaint on November 29, 2018.

Accordingly, her PFS was due seventy-five days later, on February 12, 2019. 

After she failed to file the required form by the deadline, defendants served her 

with a notice of non-compliance on March 26, 2019.3 Under Pretrial Order No. 

22A, the notice of non-compliance gave Kuykendall an additional thirty days, 

or until April 25, 2019, to serve defendants with the necessary information. 

When Kuykendall again failed to cure the deficiencies, the defendants 

placed her name on the call docket for the next court hearing, scheduled for 

2 The court appointed liaison counsel for plaintiffs and defendants. 

3 There is no record that defendants served Kuykendall with a notice of deficiency 

before they served her with the notice of non-compliance. However, at the May 29, 2019 

hearing, Kuykendall did not object to the fact that she did not receive a notice of deficiency 

before the notice of non-compliance, and instead admitted that she had failed to provide any 

PFS prior to a few days before the hearing. On appeal, she likewise does not object to the fact 

that she was not provided with an initial notice of deficiency before the hearing. 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 3 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

4

May 21, 2019. Next to Kuykendall’s name, the defendants included a notation 

stating “No PFS submitted.” 

The court was unable to address Kuykendall’s case during the May 21 

conference, so it scheduled a follow-up conference for May 29, 2019. On May 

21, Kuykendall uploaded a few documents to MDL Centrality, including a 

signed declaration and two photographs, but she did not file a PFS. Five days 

later, Kuykendall finally submitted a PFS, though the document was missing 

responses to several important questions, including spousal information, 

weight and height information, and information regarding her prescribing

doctor.

At the May 29 hearing, the defendants acknowledged that Kuykendall 

had submitted a PFS after the original hearing date but before the rescheduled 

hearing. However, defense counsel informed the court that Kuykendall’s PFS 

contained “a significant number of blanks,” including “the date of cancer 

diagnosis, the cancer markers that go to staging, the dates of chemotherapy 

treatment, the name of the prescribing oncologist, prior medication history, 

and a list of other medical providers.” Kuykendall’s counsel acknowledged that 

her PFS was incomplete, but reported that it was his belief that “[a]ll of the 

appropriate boxes have been checked.” He further explained that any 

remaining blanks were caused by the “difficulty” of obtaining information from 

clients, including “health insurance information [and] identifying each 

pharmacy drugstore.”

The court gave Kuykendall an additional thirty days to cure the 

deficiencies identified by defendants during the hearing. On July 1, 2019, after 

the court’s extension had expired and Kuykendall had not provided an updated 

PFS, the defendants sent Kuykendall a notice of deficiency that identified the 

continued omissions and deficiencies in her PFS. Two days later, on July 3, 

defendants included Kuykendall on a list of plaintiffs whose cases were subject 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 4 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

5

to immediate dismissal. In a short order without analysis, the district court 

dismissed Kuykendall’s case with prejudice on July 11, 2019.

That same day, Kuykendall filed a letter in which she claimed to be 

“blindsided” by the list of deficiencies alleged by the defendants during the May 

29 hearing. The letter faulted the defendants for seeking immediate dismissal, 

rather than giving Kuykendall an additional thirty days to respond to the most 

recent notice of deficiency. Though the letter was dated July 9, it was not filed 

on the docket until July 11. Just a few days before filing the letter, but several 

days after the court’s thirty-day extension had expired, Kuykendall submitted 

a first and second amended PFS on MDL Centrality. Those forms included 

some previously missing information, but they continued to omit certain 

information, including her children’s addresses and her height.

Construing Kuykendall’s letter as a motion for reconsideration, the court 

issued a decision supplementing its dismissal order. The court explained that 

Kuykendall’s counsel was provided with ample notice of the deficiencies in her 

PFS, and concluded that Kuykendall’s failure to upload new documents to 

MDL Centrality during the thirty-day extension period demonstrated that she 

“made no effort to comply with the Court’s order.” Kuykendall filed a timely 

notice of appeal on August 8, 2019. 

II.

We review a district court’s imposition of sanctions, including the 

dismissal of a case with prejudice, for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Law 

Funder, L.L.C. v. Munoz, 924 F.3d 753, 758 (5th Cir. 2019) (per curiam); 

McCullough v. Lynaugh, 835 F.2d 1126, 1127 (5th Cir. 1988) (per curiam). “A 

trial court abuses its discretion when its ruling is based on an erroneous view 

of the law or a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence.” In re Deepwater 

Horizon (Barrera), 907 F.3d 232, 234 (5th Cir. 2018) (per curiam) (quoting 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 5 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

6

Elementis Chromium L.P. v. Coastal States Petroleum Co., 450 F.3d 607, 610 

(5th Cir. 2006)).4

III.

District courts are vested with the power to “manage their own affairs so 

as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases.” Woodson v. 

Surgitek, Inc., 57 F.3d 1406, 1417 (5th Cir. 1995) (quoting Link v. Wabash R.R. 

Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630–31 (1962)). This power necessarily includes the “power 

. . . to control [the court’s] docket by dismissing a case as a sanction for a party’s 

failure to obey court orders.” Id. Because of the severity of such a sanction, 

however, we have “limited the district court’s discretion in dismissing cases 

with prejudice.” Berry v. CIGNA/RSI-CIGNA, 975 F.2d 1188, 1191 (5th Cir. 

1992). “[W]e have previously deemed dismissal with prejudice to be a 

‘draconian remedy’ and a ‘remedy of last resort.’” F.D.I.C. v. Conner, 20 F.3d 

1376, 1380 (5th Cir. 1994) (quoting Batson v. Neal Spelce Assocs., 765 F.2d 511, 

515 (5th Cir. 1985)). 

4 Defendants argue that we should review Kuykendall’s arguments on appeal for plain 

error because she failed to raise them in the district court. We reject this argument. 

Kuykendall preserved her objection to the dismissal of her case when she appeared at the 

district court’s show-cause hearing and filed a letter challenging the defendants’ request for 

a dismissal. These actions distinguish Kuykendall’s case from Law Funder, 924 F.3d at 759, 

where we reviewed a dismissal for plain error because the dismissed party “fail[ed] to oppose 

[plaintiff’s] motion to sanction.” We also review Kuykendall’s argument about the appropriate 

legal test governing a dismissal with prejudice for an abuse of discretion. Although 

Kuykendall did not make this argument to the district court, it is unclear when she could 

have done so. See Topalian v. Ehrman, 3 F.3d 931, 936 (5th Cir. 1993) (explaining that a 

district court need not make specific factual findings or articulate a specific legal test before 

issuing sanctions); Oprex Surgery (Baytown), L.P. v. Sonic Auto. Emp. Welfare Benefit Plan, 

704 F. App’x 376, 378 (5th Cir. 2017) (per curiam); see also In re Phenylpropanolamine (PPA) 

Prods. Liab. Litig., 460 F.3d 1217, 1226 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Although it is preferred, it is not 

required that the district court make explicit findings in order to show that it has considered 

[the applicable] factors.” (quoting Ferdik v. Bonzelet, 963 F.2d 1258, 1261 (9th Cir. 1992))). 

In similar cases, we have reviewed the entirety of a plaintiff’s challenge to a dismissal for an 

abuse of discretion, including the determination of the appropriate legal standard. See, e.g., 

Barrera, 907 F.3d at 234–35; In re Deepwater Horizon (Cepeda), 765 F. App’x 980, 981–82 

(5th Cir. 2019) (per curiam). In any case, as we explain, Kuykendall’s challenge to her 

dismissal fails under any standard of review.

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 6 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

7

Here, the parties have two primary disagreements: (1) which of two legal 

standards governs a district court’s involuntary dismissal in the context of an 

MDL, and (2) whether the district court erred in applying the applicable legal 

standard to Kuykendall’s case. 

A.

Kuykendall argues that the district court’s dismissal order can be 

affirmed only if it satisfies the fact-intensive six-factor test articulated in Law 

Funder. Under Law Funder, a dismissal with prejudice will be affirmed if (1) 

it is “just”; (2) it is “related to the particular ‘claim’ which was at issue in the 

order”; (3) the violation was willful or in bad faith; (4) “the client, rather than 

counsel, is responsible for the violation”; (5) the violation caused substantial 

prejudice to the opposing party; and (6) “a lesser sanction would not 

‘substantially achieve the desired deterrent effect.’” 924 F.3d at 758–59 (first 

quoting Compaq Comput. Corp. v. Ergonome Inc., 387 F.3d 403, 413 (5th Cir. 

2004); then quoting Conner, 20 F.3d at 1380–81). In contrast, defendants argue

that the district court’s dismissal order need only meet the two-factor test 

articulated by this court in the context of the Deepwater Horizon MDL. See, 

e.g., Barrera, 907 F.3d at 235.

Our cases have used variable language to describe the appropriate test 

for evaluating a district court’s order dismissing a case with prejudice. In one 

line of cases involving dismissals for discovery order violations, we have

suggested that litigation-ending sanctions must meet a multi-factor, factintensive test. See, e.g., Conner, 20 F.3d at 1380–81; see also Oprex Surgery, 

704 F. App’x at 377; Law Funder, 924 F.3d at 758. In another group of cases 

involving dismissals for “docket management” purposes, we have articulated a 

two-factor test, affirming dismissals with prejudice as long as (1) there is a 

“clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the plaintiff,” and (2) “lesser 

sanctions would not serve the best interests of justice.” See Price v. McGlathery, 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

8

792 F.2d 472, 474 (5th Cir. 1986) (per curiam) (quoting Rogers v. Kroger Co., 

669 F.2d 317, 320 (5th Cir. 1982)); see also Sealed Appellant v. Sealed Appellee, 

452 F.3d 415, 417 (5th Cir. 2006). Even when evaluating these two factors, 

however, we have explained that other “aggravating” factors—such as “the 

extent to which the plaintiff, as distinguished from his counsel, was personally 

responsible for the delay, the degree of actual prejudice to the defendant, and 

whether the delay was the result of intentional conduct”—may also be relevant 

to the analysis. Rogers, 669 F.2d at 320 (collecting cases). In Sealed Appellant, 

we clarified the distinction between “requisite” factors and additional, or 

aggravating, factors. 452 F.3d at 418 & n.4. While “aggravating factors must 

‘usually’ be found” to support a dismissal with prejudice, “we have not said that 

they must ‘always’ be found.” Id.

We need not completely reconcile these competing standards here. See 

Barrera, 907 F.3d at 235 n.1 (observing that there have been “variations in the 

standard’s precise language” but that “[w]e need not decide the exact 

parameters”). Several of our recent decisions stemming from the Deepwater 

Horizon MDL have clarified that the two-factor test articulated in Rogers

applies to a district court’s dismissal with prejudice in the unique context of an 

MDL. In Barrera, we affirmed the district court’s dismissal of several plaintiffs 

in the Deepwater Horizon MDL for failure to comply with a pretrial order 

mandating that each individual plaintiff file a “wet-ink signature.” Id. at 234. 

We upheld the district court’s dismissal order after we observed that the 

plaintiffs had exhibited a “clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the 

plaintiff” and that “lesser sanctions would not service the best interests of 

justice.” Id. Citing our decision in Sealed Appellant, we declined to consider 

any “aggravating factors,” such as the willfulness of the violation or the party

responsible for the violation. Id. at 235 n.1.

Since Barrera, we have repeatedly applied this same two-factor test to 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 8 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

9

evaluate dismissal orders that resulted from plaintiffs’ failure to comply with 

the district court’s discovery orders in the Deepwater Horizon MDL. See, e.g., 

In re Deepwater Horizon (Park Nat’l Corp.), 805 F. App’x 262, 265 (5th Cir. 

2020) (per curiam) (using two-factor test to affirm dismissal of several 

plaintiffs who failed to comply with a pretrial order mandating the submission 

of discovery responses); Cepeda, 765 F. App’x at 981–82 (same). We have 

explained that the complexity of managing an MDL necessitates a standard 

that gives district courts greater flexibility to dismiss a plaintiff for a discovery 

violation. See Barrera, 907 F.3d at 235 (“[T]here is a special deference required 

in the context of an MDL.”); see also In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig. (No. VI), 

718 F.3d 236, 248 (3d Cir. 2013) (observing that “the very purpose of the 

centralization before the transferee judge is the efficient progress of the cases 

in preparation for trial”); In re Fannie Mae Sec. Litig., 552 F.3d 814, 822 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009) (“District judges must have authority to manage their dockets, 

especially during massive litigation such as [an MDL], and we owe deference 

to their decisions whether and how to enforce the deadlines they impose.”).

Other circuits have echoed these principles in evaluating similar MDL 

dismissals in the context of missing Plaintiff Fact Sheets. See In re PPA Prods. 

Liab. Litig., 460 F.3d at 1227 (observing that district courts must have the 

“‘power to manage their dockets’ without being subject to endless noncompliance with case management orders” (quoting Ferdik, 963 F.3d at 1261)); 

Nwatulegwu v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharm., Inc., 668 F. App’x 173, 175 (7th 

Cir. 2016) (“Strict adherence to case management orders is necessary to 

manage multidistrict litigation.”).5 The Deepwater Horizon two-factor test 

helps animate the goals of strict enforcement and efficient management by 

5 Though the Ninth Circuit and the Seventh Circuit each use slightly different 

standards than the Deepwater Horizon two-factor standard, both cited cases underscore the 

importance of giving greater flexibility to district courts to enforce their MDL pretrial orders.

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 9 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

10

making it easier for district courts to dismiss non-complying plaintiffs in 

MDLs. We therefore apply this two-factor test to the district court’s dismissal 

of Kuykendall’s case.

B. 

The district court was not required to make specific factual findings on 

each of the Deepwater Horizon prongs before dismissing Kuykendall’s case. See 

Topalian, 3 F.3d at 936; Oprex Surgery, 704 F. App’x at 378. Our independent 

review of the record confirms that both prongs are satisfied, and, as a result,

the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Kuykendall with 

prejudice.

i.

First, there is “a clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the 

plaintiff.” Barrera, 907 F.3d at 235. Despite numerous extensions and grace 

periods, Kuykendall consistently failed to submit a complete PFS. Her initial 

PFS was due on February 12, 2019, but she failed to submit any version of the 

required PFS—even an incomplete one—by that deadline. Under the terms of 

Amended Pretrial Order 22, she had until April 25, 2019 to submit a complete 

PFS after the defendants filed a notice of non-compliance, but she missed that 

deadline as well. The next deadline was May 21, 2019—the date of the original 

call docket hearing—but she also failed to submit a PFS to MDL Centrality 

before that date. Although Kuykendall eventually submitted a PFS before the 

rescheduled May 29 hearing, that document was incomplete, missing “readily 

ascertainable information like her place of birth, her current weight and 

height, and whether she has certain health conditions such as low iron.” Even 

when the district court gave her an additional thirty-day extension to cure 

those gaps, Kuykendall failed to submit a revised document before the new 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 10 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

11

deadline expired.6 Though she eventually submitted two amended PFSs soon

after that deadline, those documents also were missing information, including 

her height and her children’s addresses.

Altogether, Kuykendall failed to comply with the court’s order to submit 

a complete PFS for nearly five months. This is similar to the plaintiffs’ conduct 

in Barrera, where we held that there was a clear record of delay. See 907 F.3d 

at 234 (finding delay where plaintiffs failed to submit wet-ink signatures for 

several months after the deadline); see also Park Nat’l Corp., 805 F. App’x at 

265 (finding clear record of delay when plaintiffs were non-compliant for two 

months). As in Barrera, Kuykendall was given ample notice of the potential 

consequences of her failure to comply with the district court’s orders. Pretrial 

Order No. 22A warned plaintiffs that failure to comply with the PFS 

requirements could lead to “possible dismissal with prejudice or other 

appropriate relief.” Despite this warning, Kuykendall did not seek additional 

extensions or provide an explanation for her failure to submit a PFS. See 

Barrera, 907 F.3d at 234. And hundreds of other plaintiffs complied with the 

court’s orders, “demonstrating it was not logistically impossible” to do so within 

the timeline set forth in the court’s pretrial orders. Id. at 235.

Kuykendall argues that her delay was not nearly as long as the delay in 

6 We are not persuaded by Kuykendall’s argument that the district court erred when 

it deviated from the procedures set forth in its pretrial orders and imposed a thirty-day 

extension for Kuykendall’s PFS, rather than requiring the defendants to first provide

Kuykendall with a written deficiency notice. Kuykendall did not object to these procedures 

during the May 29 hearing, so we review her challenge for plain error only. See Law Funder, 

924 F.3d at 759. “We review a district court’s interpretation of its own orders with deference, 

particularly in the MDL context.” In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig., 718 F.3d at 243. It was 

not plainly erroneous for the district court to determine that the notice provided to 

Kuykendall during the May 29 hearing was sufficient to replace the notice typically provided 

in the form of a notice of deficiency. Furthermore, the procedures used by the district court 

here—specifically, addressing deficient cases during a monthly “call docket”—have been 

explicitly endorsed by the Federal Judicial Center. Margaret S. Williams et al., Plaintiff Fact 

Sheets in Multidistrict Litigation Proceedings, Federal Judicial Center and Judicial Panel on 

Multidistrict Litigation (2019).

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 11 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

12

many other cases where we have affirmed dismissal orders. Because this case 

involves an MDL, however, the district court was empowered to “establish [a] 

schedule[] with [a] firm cutoff date[].” In re PPA Prods. Liab. Litig., 460 F.3d 

at 1232 (emphasis added). Though a delay of five months might be 

“insignificant” in some contexts, “administering cases in multidistrict 

litigation is different from administering cases on a routine docket.” In re 

Guidant Corp. Implantable Defibrillators Prods. Liab. Litig., 496 F.3d 863, 867 

(8th Cir. 2007) (quoting In re PPA Prods. Liab. Litig., 460 F.3d at 1229). As a 

result, Kuykendall exhibited a clear record of delay sufficient to meet the first 

prong in the Deepwater Horizon test.

ii.

The record also demonstrates that lesser sanctions would not have 

“serve[d] the best interests of justice.” Barrera, 907 F.3d at 236. “Lesser 

sanctions include assessments of fines, costs, or damages against the 

plaintiff[,] . . . conditional dismissal, dismissal without prejudice, and explicit 

warnings.” Id. at 236 (quoting Thrasher v. City of Amarillo, 709 F.3d 509, 514 

(5th Cir. 2013) (cleaned up)). Kuykendall was given several extensions by the 

district court, but she continuously failed to file a complete PFS on MDL 

Centrality. “Providing plaintiff with a second or third chance” is itself “a lenient 

sanction, which, when met with further default, may justify imposition of the 

ultimate sanction of dismissal with prejudice.” Callip v. Harris Cty. Child 

Welfare Dep’t, 757 F.2d 1513, 1521 (5th Cir. 1985) (per curiam) (cleaned up). 

Though Kuykendall provided other forms of discovery and eventually 

submitted a partial PFS, she consistently failed to comply with the court’s 

initial order—to provide a complete PFS by the required deadline. Given this 

record, it is “unclear what lesser sanctions could have been appropriate 

following the district court’s warnings and second chances.” Barrera, 907 F.3d 

at 236. Therefore, the record also supports a showing on the second prong of 

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 12 Date Filed: 07/16/2020
No. 19-30640

13

the Deepwater Horizon test. See Park Nat’l Corp., 805 F. App’x at 266 (“Timely 

responses to PTOs are necessary for long-pending cases to move toward 

resolution, and counsel has not identified a lesser sanction that would have 

effectively served this aim.”).

C.

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying 

Kuykendall’s motion for reconsideration. Because Kuykendall’s letter was 

received by the court after the dismissal, the district court construed the July 

11 letter as a motion for reconsideration. Under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 59(e), a party may move to alter or amend a judgment “no later than 

28 days after the entry of the judgment.” The district court’s denial of a Rule 

59(e) motion is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See Midland W. Corp. v. 

F.D.I.C., 911 F.2d 1141, 1145 (5th Cir. 1990). 

Kuykendall’s motion did not comply with any of the requirements for a 

Rule 59(e) motion. She failed to identify “an intervening change in the 

controlling law,” “newly discovered evidence that was previously unavailable,” 

or “a manifest error of law or fact.” Demahy v. Schwarz Pharma, Inc., 702 F.3d 

177, 182 (5th Cir. 2012). Although Kuykendall uploaded a new PFS in between 

the end of the deadline and the date of the dismissal order, her late partial 

compliance with the court’s orders failed to change the fact that she had 

persistently ignored the previous deadlines. Kuykendall was on notice that 

dismissal with prejudice was a potential consequence of her inaction, and the 

court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to reconsider its decision to issue 

a litigation-ending sanction. See, e.g., In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig., 718 

F.3d at 248 (observing that “the very purpose of the centralization” of an MDL 

“is the efficient progress of the cases in preparation for trial”).

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s order is AFFIRMED.

 Case: 19-30640 Document: 00515492836 Page: 13 Date Filed: 07/16/2020