United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted October 23, 2020*

Decided October 26, 2020 

Before 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 20-1338 

KEVIN E. CARTER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CVS PHARMACY, INC., 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States 

District Court for the Northern District 

of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 18 C 1482 

Virginia M. Kendall, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Kevin Carter moved for relief from a judgment dismissing his lawsuit against his 

former employer, CVS, for workplace sexual harassment and discrimination. The 

district court, which had granted the employer’s motion to compel arbitration of the 

claims, denied the motion. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 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. 20-1338 Page 2 

rejecting Carter’s allegations of a conspiracy to prevent him from pursuing arbitration, 

we affirm. 

Carter first pursued his claims by filing a charge with the Illinois Department of 

Human Rights in 2017. After withdrawing from mediation, and receiving a right-to-sue 

notice, he filed a federal complaint claiming a hostile work environment, 

discrimination, and retaliation based on his sex and sexual orientation, as well as 

underpayment of wages. The district court recruited counsel for Carter. CVS then 

moved to dismiss the complaint based on a mandatory arbitration agreement that 

Carter had agreed to when he was hired. The district court ruled that a binding and 

enforceable arbitration agreement existed; it dismissed the suit and entered final 

judgment on January 16, 2019. Seven months later, Carter appealed. We found his 

appeal untimely under FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(1)(A) and dismissed it for lack of 

jurisdiction. Carter v. CVS Pharmacy, No. 19-2511 (7th Cir. Sept. 17, 2019). 

In the meantime, Carter had turned to arbitration, but he waited two months 

after his lawsuit was dismissed to file a demand, though he had just eight days left on 

the clock. Carter blamed his lawyer and CVS for missing the arbitration deadline, and, 

in January 2020, he moved to present “new evidence” in his federal suit. He alleged that 

they had conspired to prevent him from pursuing arbitration by withholding a copy of 

the arbitration agreement until it was too late to file a demand. The district court 

construed this as a motion for relief from the judgment based on new evidence or fraud, 

FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b)(2)–(3), and determined that Carter’s own exhibits showed that his 

lawyer had received the agreement in August 2018, six months before he filed his 

untimely arbitration demand in March 2019. The agreement was also appended to 

CVS’s October 2018 reply brief in support of its motion to compel arbitration. The court 

ruled that Carter presented no evidence that his lawyer had colluded with CVS to keep 

the agreement from him, or that lacking a copy of the agreement prevented him from 

filing his demand. Deeming Carter’s allegations of a conspiracy “wild” and 

“outlandish,” the court denied Carter’s motion on February 3, 2020. 

Carter now appeals both the dismissal of his case and the denial of his 

post-judgment motion. The appeal is timely solely with respect to the latter ruling, 

however. We dismissed his first appeal because the August 5, 2019, notice of appeal 

came far too late to challenge the judgment of January 16, 2019. It follows that the notice 

of appeal of February 25, 2020, is also untimely to appeal that same judgment; the ruling 

on the Rule 60(b) motion, filed a year after the dismissal, did not restart the clock as to 

the underlying judgment. Bell v. McAdory, 820 F.3d 880, 883 (7th Cir. 2016) (“[A]n 
No. 20-1338 Page 3 

appeal from the denial of a motion under Rule 60(b) does not allow the court of appeals 

to address the propriety of the original judgment, for that would be equivalent to 

accepting a jurisdictionally untimely appeal.”). 

We therefore consider only whether the district court abused its discretion in 

denying Carter’s post-judgment motion. Banks v. Chicago Bd. of Educ., 750 F.3d 663, 667 

(7th Cir. 2014). Under this deferential standard, Carter must show that “no reasonable 

person could agree with the decision to deny relief.” Eskridge v. Cook Cty., 577 F.3d 806, 

808–809 (7th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Rule 60(b) allows relief from a judgment where the movant can show 

“compelling and extraordinary circumstances,” including newly discovered evidence or 

fraud. Dolin v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC, 951 F.3d 882, 891 (7th Cir. 2020); see also FED. R. CIV.

P. 60(b)(2)–(3). Here, the district court reasonably concluded that Carter had 

demonstrated neither. 

First, Carter’s motion provided no new facts that would justify revisiting the 

judgment. Rule 60(b)(2) requires “evidence that, with reasonable diligence, could not 

have been discovered in time” for a motion under Rule 59. As Carter’s evidence 

consisted entirely of correspondence between his lawyer and CVS that occurred before 

CVS moved to dismiss in September 2018, it added nothing to the record. Gleason v. 

Jansen, 888 F.3d 847, 853 (7th Cir. 2018) (“[E]vidence that was available at all times...is 

not ‘newly discovered’” under Rule 60(b)(2).). 

Second, as the district court concluded, Carter’s allegations of fraud on the court 

were based on an implausible, unsupported account of a conspiracy to prevent him 

from enforcing his rights. A party alleging fraud on the court “must demonstrate that 

the fraud prevented it from fully and fairly presenting a meritorious claim.” Philos 

Techs., Inc. v. Philos & D, Inc., 802 F.3d 905, 917 (7th Cir. 2015). Carter did not show that 

anyone “corrupt[ed] the judicial process” in his case. Kennedy v. Schneider Elec., 893 F.3d 

414, 419 (7th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). On appeal, 

he reiterates the same allegations he made in his Rule 60(b) motion with no more 

substantiation. In any case, his suggestion of interference with his ability to file a timely 

arbitration demand does not call into question the decision that federal court is not the 

proper forum for his claims, so it would not be grounds for vacating the order 

compelling arbitration. 

AFFIRMED