United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted August 26, 2020*

Decided August 28, 2020 

Before 

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 20-1579 

SABINA BURTON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

SYSTEM, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Western District of 

Wisconsin. 

No. 14-cv-274-jdp 

James D. Peterson, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R 

Sabina Burton, formerly a tenured professor at the University of WisconsinPlatteville, appeals the denial of her second post-judgment motion seeking to set aside 

the dismissal of her employment-discrimination suit against the school’s Board of 

Regents and three individual defendants. See Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 

*

 We have agreed to decide this appeal without oral argument because the briefs 

and the record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument 

would not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 20-1579 Page 2 

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a); Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 

et seq. The district court denied the motion as duplicative of an earlier motion it had 

denied and, in any case, inapplicable. We affirm. 

This is the second time that Burton has asked us to review the proceedings of her 

suit. In a prior appeal, we upheld the entry of summary judgment for the Board on both 

the Title VII and Title IX claims. See Burton v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Wis. Sys., 

851 F.3d 690, 696–97 (7th Cir. 2017). 

Nearly two and a half years later, Burton moved to set aside the judgment on 

grounds that the defendants, during discovery, had withheld documents that 

supported her theory of retaliation. The district court construed her motion under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(2)—as a request for relief based on newly 

discovered evidence—and denied it as untimely because she had not filed it within a 

year of entry of judgment. See FED. R. CIV. P. 60(c). Burton next sought reconsideration, 

which the court also denied, warning her that it would not consider any additional 

motions on the issue. 

Burton nevertheless moved again to reopen the case, reiterating her belief that 

the defendants had withheld documents improperly. Their misconduct, she now 

asserted, amounted to a “fraud on the court” under Rule 60(b)(3). Unlike other 

provisions under Rule 60(b), this provision sets no time limit on a court’s power to set 

aside a judgment. The court denied this motion too, however, pointing out that she was 

“raising the same issue yet again” and that in any event, the doctrine would not apply 

because it covers only extraordinary circumstances such as corruption of the judicial 

process—far from the civil discovery violations alleged here. 

 On appeal, Burton challenges this ruling and maintains that defendants 

committed fraud on the court by withholding evidence in bad faith. The three cases she 

cites in support, however, are all inapposite. See Matter of Met-L-Wood Corp., 861 F.2d 

1012, 1019 (7th Cir. 1988) (noting only that ex parte contact by a judge is not fraud on 

the court); Domanus v. Lewicki, 742 F.3d 290, 302 (7th Cir. 2014) (concluding that 

“mosaic” of discovery abuses warranted grant of default judgment but not mentioning 

“fraud on the court”); Oliver v. Gramley, 200 F.3d 465, 466 (7th Cir. 1999) (not 

mentioning discovery violations). As the defendants note, we previously have upheld a 

district court’s decision to “reasonably dr[a]w a line between an apparent discovery 

violation and fraud [on the court].” Wickens v. Shell Oil Co., 620 F.3d 747, 759 (7th Cir. 

2010); see also Kennedy v. Schneider Elec., 893 F.3d 414, 419 (7th Cir. 2018) (discovery 
No. 20-1579 Page 3 

violations do not corrupt the judicial process itself). The district court here acted well 

within its discretion by concluding that the alleged violations did not cross that line. 

 We have considered Burton’s other contentions and none has merit. 

AFFIRMED