UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

Civil Action No. 16-2476 (TJK) 

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION et al., 

Plaintiffs,

v. 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF 

EDUCATION et al., 

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

Plaintiff Jamie Rudert seeks relief from the Court’s decision to grant summary judgment 

against him and in favor of Defendants on his claims that the Department of Education violated 

the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause when 

it determined that loan payments he made while employed at Vietnam Veterans of America 

(VVA) did not qualify for loan forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) 

Program. Rudert has moved to alter or amend the Court’s judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 59(e) after obtaining new evidence—a letter issued by the Department to another 

former VVA employee—that he contends justifies this extraordinary remedy. However, he has 

not met the stringent requirements of Rule 59(e) because the new evidence would not have 

altered the Court’s summary judgment decision. Accordingly, and for the reasons explained 

below, the Court will deny his motion. 

Background 

The Court’s Memorandum Opinion, ECF No. 49 (“Mem. Op.”), fully sets forth the 

factual background underlying Rudert’s claims. Accordingly, only some relevant facts are 

recounted here. 
2 

Rudert began working at VVA, a 501(c)(19) not-for-profit organization that provides 

advocacy and support services to Vietnam veterans, in April 2012. ECF No. 17-2 ¶ 4; AR 315. 

While employed there, Rudert represented veterans with service-connected disability claims 

before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. ECF No. 17-2 ¶ 6. In July 2012, Rudert sought 

confirmation from the Department of Education (the “Department”) that he would be eligible to 

participate in the PSLF Program while employed at VVA by submitting an Employment 

Certification Form (ECF). Id. ¶ 8. In response, he received a letter from FedLoan Servicing, 

which manages ECF submissions on behalf of the Department, indicating that his payments 

made while employed at VVA from April to June 2012 qualified for the PSLF Program. Id. 

About two years later, in October 2014, he received another letter confirming the same. Id. ¶ 10. 

Rudert departed VVA as Deputy Director in September 2015. Id. ¶ 11. Subsequently, FedLoan 

Servicing informed Rudert that, as of January 2015, he had made 30 qualifying payments while 

employed at VVA. Id. ¶ 10. 

In early 2016, Rudert submitted another ECF, which covered the remainder of his loan 

payments while at VVA. Id. ¶ 12. He received a denial letter from FedLoan Servicing in April 

2016 stating that, based on its “further research and after consulting with the Department,” it 

“reversed [his] previously approved employment period” because VVA “does not provide a 

qualifying service.” AR 282–83. After receiving that letter, Rudert sent a letter to the 

Department contesting the denial, AR 289, along with additional documentation that, he alleged, 

established that VVA “provides public service[s] for individuals with disabilities,” AR 286. 

Subsequently, in June 2016, a congresswoman wrote to the Department on Rudert’s behalf, 

inquiring about his eligibility for the PSLF Program. AR 320. In August 2016, the Department 

replied to the congresswoman in a letter confirming that VVA did not provide a qualifying 
3 

service because “while they facilitate the provision of disability-related services to Vietnam 

Veterans, they do not provide the services outright.” AR 331. The Department also clarified 

that, although Rudert’s initial ECF was “approved in error,” the payments he made while 

employed at VVA did not qualify for the PSLF Program. Id. 

Rudert, along with the American Bar Association and three other individual borrowers 

(collectively, “Plaintiffs”), then sued the Department and the Secretary of Education 

(“Defendants”). ECF No. 1. In their Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiffs argued that the 

Department illegally changed its interpretation of the PSLF regulation by adopting three new 

standards for assessing whether non-501(c)(3) not-for-profit organizations qualify as public 

service organizations under the PSLF Program. See generally ECF No. 17. According to 

Plaintiffs, the Department determined that loan payments made by Rudert while employed at 

VVA were ineligible for the PSLF Program based on its application of a new interpretation of its 

regulation—described as the Outright Provision of Services standard—under which the 

Department required qualifying organizations to provide disability-related services directly to the 

recipient or “outright.” Id. at 32–33. Similarly, Plaintiffs alleged that payments made by the 

other three individual borrowers were wrongfully denied by operation of two other newlyapplied interpretations: the Primary Purpose and School-Like Setting standards. Id. at 31–32. 

As relevant here, Plaintiffs alleged that, under the Primary Purpose standard, the Department 

required that a qualifying organization provide an otherwise qualifying public service as part of 

that organization’s primary purpose. 

On February 22, 2019, the Court entered summary judgment on behalf of Defendants as 

to Rudert’s claims. ECF No. 48. In its accompanying Memorandum Opinion, the Court 

concluded Plaintiffs had not established that the Outright Provision of Services standard reflected 
4 

a new interpretation; rather, the record showed that the Department engaged in “a 

straightforward application of the regulation” when it issued the denial letter to Rudert. Mem. 

Op. at 39. In contrast, the Court concluded that the other two standards reflected new 

interpretations by the Department that it adopted in violation of certain APA requirements. On 

that basis, it entered summary judgment on behalf of the other three individual borrowers and 

vacated those standards. See id. at 39–44, 53. 

In the instant motion, Rudert seeks to alter or amend the Court’s judgment based on new 

evidence purportedly showing that the Department relied upon the now-vacated Primary Purpose 

standard when it determined that the payments he made while employed at VVA did not qualify 

for the PSLF Program. See ECF No. 50 (“Pl.’s Mot.”). 

Legal Standard 

“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) provides a limited exception to the rule that 

judgments are to remain final.” Leidos, Inc. v. Hellenic Republic, 881 F.3d 213, 217 (D.C. Cir. 

2018). Rule 59(e) motions to alter or amend a judgment are “discretionary and need not be 

granted unless the district court finds that there is an intervening change of controlling law, the 

availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” 

Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C. Cir. 1996). “Rule 59(e) motions on the basis of 

new evidence are restricted to evidence that is ‘newly discovered or previously unavailable 

despite the exercise of due diligence.’” Johnson v. District of Columbia, 266 F. Supp. 3d 206, 

211 (D.D.C. 2017) (quoting Niedermeier, 153 F. Supp. 2d at 29). And a party moving for relief 

under Rule 59(e) has not met its burden if the new evidence “would not have changed [the 

Court’s] outcome.” Roane v. Gonzales, 832 F. Supp. 2d 61, 65 (D.D.C. 2011); see Odhiambo v. 

Republic of Kenya, 947 F. Supp. 2d 30, 36 (D.D.C. 2013) (denying Rule 59(e) motion because 

the new proffered evidence would not have altered the court’s decision). 
5 

Rule 59(e) motions “are disfavored and relief from judgment is granted only when the 

moving party establishes extraordinary circumstances.” Niedermeier v. Office of Baucus, 153 F. 

Supp. 2d 23, 28 (D.D.C. 2001). “The strictness with which such motions are viewed is justified 

by the need to protect both the integrity of the adversarial process in which parties are expected 

to bring all arguments before the court, and the ability of the parties and others to rely on the 

finality of judgments.” U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. McGraw-Hill Cos., 403 F. 

Supp. 2d 34, 36 (D.D.C. 2005). 

Analysis 

Rudert argues that the Court should alter or amend its judgment based on a March 2018 

denial letter sent to another borrower, Amanda Radke, who was employed at VVA around the 

same time.1 ECF No. 50-3. He contends that this “critical piece of evidence . . . would have 

been outcome determinative for [his claims] had it been discovered prior to the Court’s entry of 

judgment.” Pl.’s Mot. at 6. In the letter to Radke, the Department reversed its prior position and 

determined that loan payments made by her while employed at VVA did not qualify for the 

PSLF Program because the VVA “d[id] not provide a qualifying service for the PSLF program 

as its primary purpose.” Id. The letter also noted that the Department “could find no evidence 

that [VVA] provide[d] services directly to individuals with disabilities as part of its primary 

purpose.” Id. Rudert points to those statements as evidence that the Department, contrary to its 

representations, relied on the Primary Purpose standard in determining that VVA was not a 

 

1

 The Court assumes that Radke’s denial letter is new evidence that was “previously unavailable 

[to Rudert] despite the exercise of due diligence.” Johnson, 266 F. Supp. 3d at 211. Rudert sets 

forth an extensive account of his efforts to obtain records related to the Department’s denial of 

his ECF submission, Pl.’s Mot. at 8–15, and Defendants make no effort to contest his assertion 

that the letter was previously unavailable to him despite his exercise of due diligence; see ECF 

No. 53 (“Defs.’ Opp’n”). Rather, Defendants argue, primarily, that the Radke denial letter “does 

not contradict the basis for the Court’s decision” regarding Rudert’s claims and thus does not 

require that the Court disturb its judgment. Id. at 9. 
6 

qualifying public service organization. Pl.’s Mot. at 5–6. And because the Department reaches 

PSLF-eligibility determinations based on the nature of a borrower’s employer, rather than each 

borrower’s specific duties while employed there, Rudert argues that the Department must have 

relied on that now-vacated standard when it denied the eligibility of Rudert’s payments, as well. 

See ECF No. 54 (“Pl.’s Reply”) at 5–6. For this reason, Rudert contends, the Court should treat 

his claims as it did the other individual borrowers and alter its prior judgment on Count I in favor 

of Defendants.2

The problem for Rudert, however, is that this new evidence would not have changed the 

Court’s determination that Defendants were entitled to summary judgment on his claims, for 

three reasons. 

First, Radke’s letter can say little, on its own, about whether the Primary Purpose 

standard played a role in the Department’s handling of Rudert’s case two years earlier. It is true 

that in evaluating the parties’ motions for summary judgment, the Court considered extra-record 

evidence that shed light on whether the Department, contrary to its representations, had always 

applied the standards at issue, or had adopted them in a way that violated the APA. But the 

language contained in one denial letter, even to a borrower employed by the same organization, 

is scant evidence from which the Court can divine the Department’s reasoning in another case 

two years earlier. 

Second, Radke’s letter is not even clear about how the Department reached its 

determination in her case. Some of the language in it is consistent with what the Department told 

Rudert. For example, Radke was effectively told that VVA “d[id] not provide a qualifying 

 

2

 Because granting judgment in Rudert’s favor on Count I would dispose of his remaining 

claims, he also seeks that the Court amend its judgment in favor of Defendants on Counts II–V 

and, instead, withhold judgment on those Counts. Pl.’s Mot. at 18. 
7 

service for the PSLF program” because it did not “provide[] services directly to individuals with 

disabilities . . . .” See ECF 50-3. The references to the Primary Purpose standard in the letter to 

Radke, awkwardly tacked onto two sentences, could well reflect the Department’s decision to 

identify that standard in all denial letters following its incorporation of the standard into public 

guidance to borrowers. See Pl.’s Mot. at 7; Mem. Op. at 34. In short, the letter hardly elucidates 

precisely how the Department reached its decision in her case. 

Third, and most importantly, even assuming that Radke’s letter could, in theory, say 

something about Rudert’s case, and the Department did determine that Radke’s payments did not 

qualify for the reasons Rudert alleges, on this entire record, Radke’s letter would still not show 

that Rudert’s eligibility determination turned on the application of the Primary Purpose standard. 

To begin with, Defendants have never indicated that the Primary Purpose standard had anything 

to do with Rudert’s case. The Department informed Rudert that it had reversed its determination 

because VVA “d[id] not provide a qualifying service.”3 AR 282; see Mem. Op. at 38–39. More 

specifically, as it explained in a subsequent letter, VVA did not provide a “public service for 

individuals with disabilities” because it did not “provide the services outright.” AR 331 

(emphasis added). Therefore, unlike the claims of the other three individual Plaintiffs, the relief 

that Rudert seeks would require the Court to conclude that the Department denied his eligibility 

 

3

 Although Rudert correctly points out that Burkhart’s denial letter also stated that his employer, 

the ABA, “d[id] not provide a qualifying service,” ECF No. 54 at 9 n.4, the Department 

informed the ABA that its decision was based on its application of the Primary Purpose standard, 

AR 193. In contrast, the Department explained— and maintained throughout this litigation—

that Rudert’s case turned on its determination that VVA did not provide a qualifying public 

service because it did not provide direct public services for individuals with disabilities. See AR 

331; ECF No. 22 at 28. 
8 

based on a standard entirely different than the one it purported to apply.4 Moreover, there is no 

logical reason why the Primary Purpose standard need have played a role in Rudert’s case. In 

fact, if the Department determined that the VVA did not provide any qualifying services outright, 

it need not have considered whether those (non-existent) services were provided “as part of its 

primary purpose.” ECF No. 50-3. And that is precisely how the Department explains these 

standards interact. Defs.’ Opp’n at 9–11. 

Rudert also argues that the Court should grant him relief from its judgment because it is 

“manifestly unjust” in light of the newly available evidence.5 Pl.’s Mot. at 15 (quoting Good 

Luck Nursing Home, Inc. v. Harris, 636 F.2d 572, 577 (D.C. Cir. 1980)). The D.C. Circuit has 

ordered such relief “[w]hen a party timely presents a previously undisclosed fact so central to the 

litigation that it shows the initial judgment to have been manifestly unjust.” Good Luck Nursing 

Home, 636 F.2d at 577. However, for the reasons explained above, the new evidence submitted 

by Rudert does not meet this standard.6 Moreover, because the Department “is not currently 

applying the [P]rimary [P]urpose standard pursuant to the Court’s order,” Defendants note that 

 

4

 Indeed, because Defendants conceded that the challenged standards formed the basis of the 

Department’s denial of each individual Plaintiff’s eligibility, the Court never had to determine 

whether the Department, in fact, applied those standards to them. Mem. Op. at 31–32. Rather, 

the central inquiry in the Court’s analysis was when and by what process the Department adopted 

the standards. 

5

 Although Rudert raises this argument under Rule 60(b), courts in this Circuit also consider the 

“manifestly unjust” standard under Rule 59(e). See Leidos, 881 F.3d at 216. Under either rule, 

the Court’s analysis in this case is the same. 

6

 The parties also dispute whether Rudert’s argument that the Department applied the Primary 

Purpose standard to him constitutes a “new legal theory that was available prior to judgment” 

such that he would be prohibited from raising it through a Rule 59(e) motion. Defs.’ Opp’n 

at 14–16; Pl.’s Reply at 13–14; see Patton Boggs LLP v. Chevron Corp., 683 F.3d 397, 403 

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (“Rule 59(e) is not a vehicle to present a new legal theory that was available 

prior to judgment.”). Because the Court will deny Rudert’s motion for the reasons explained 

above, it need not address these arguments. 
9 

Rudert may seek reconsideration of his eligibility status by resubmitting an ECF Form for the 

payments at issue and showing that “VVA . . . directly provide[d] services to individuals with 

disabilities.” Defs.’ Opp’n at 13–14. Given the Court’s conclusion that the new evidence 

submitted would not change its decision, and the availability of this alterative avenue for relief, 

Rudert fails to establish that that Court’s prior judgment is “manifestly unjust.” 

Conclusion 

For the reasons set forth above, the Court will, in a separate Order, deny Rudert’s Motion 

to Alter or Amend the Judgment (ECF No. 50). 

/s/ Timothy J. Kelly 

TIMOTHY J. KELLY 

United States District Judge 

Date: May 22, 2019