UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

TRAVIS CRACRAFT, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY; JARED 

LESSER, d/b/a JL Home Design, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 22-4034 

(D.C. No. 2:19-CV-00397-TC-DBP) 

(D. Utah) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before PHILLIPS, MURPHY, and EID, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Pro se Appellant Travis Cracraft is back again, seeking review of the district 

court’s denial of another round of post-judgment motions. In those, he asks us to 

consider whether his procedural missteps permit the extraordinary remedy of relief 

from the district court’s judgment. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 

we conclude they do not and affirm. 

We need not dwell on the facts or procedural posture. A former student of 

Utah Valley University and former employee of Jared Lesser’s company, Cracraft 

asserts that the University and Lesser conspired to steal an algorithm he developed in 

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines 

of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for 

its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

November 30, 2022

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

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2003. Sixteen years later, Cracraft sued the pair, alleging $300 million in damages 

from this conspiracy and asserting claims under the Racketeer Influenced and 

Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962, 1964(c). After Cracraft 

amended, the district court dismissed his amended complaint as time-barred and 

inadequately pled; we affirmed. Cracraft v. Utah Valley Univ., No. 21-4031, 2021 

WL 5500604, at *1 (10th Cir. Nov. 24, 2021). We agreed with the district court that 

Cracraft’s injury accrued in 2012, causing his complaint to be three years too late 

under RICO’s four-year statute of limitations. Id. at *3-4. We also discarded 

Cracraft’s argument that Lesser and the University fraudulently concealed their 

conspiracy, reasoning that Cracraft did not make that argument below. Id. at *4. Even 

if he did, we concluded that “Cracraft’s fraudulent concealment theory is just a 

repackaged challenge to the district court’s inquiry-notice determination, which we 

have already rejected.” Id.

We also affirmed the district court’s denial of Cracraft’s motion to reopen and 

post-judgment motion to amend. We recited the oft-quoted standard for Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 60(b) that “such relief is extraordinary and may only be granted in 

exceptional circumstances.” Id. at *5 (quoting Servants of the Paraclete v. Does, 204 

F.3d 1005, 1009 (10th Cir. 2000)). And we specified that post-judgment motions are 

not places to “revisit issues already addressed or advance arguments that could have 

been raised in prior briefing.” Id. (citation omitted). Applying that standard, we 

affirmed the district court’s ruling that Cracraft’s motions were “based on facts that 

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were available when he filed the original complaint” and failed to address the 

exceptional circumstances mandated by the Federal Rules. Id. at *5-6. 

Four months later, Cracraft filed another pair of post-judgment motions with 

the district court. The first is an “Amended Motion for Retrial,” which supplanted an 

earlier-filed “Motion for Retrial due to Inadequate Representation.” The second is a 

derivative “Motion to Amend Motion for Retrial.” Both motions press that Rule 

60(b)(6) warrants a “retrial” because the district court “did not consider extenuating 

circumstances due to [his] procedural missteps.” R. vol. II, at 34. In other words, the 

district court got it wrong because Cracraft didn’t know what he was doing. Broadly, 

Cracraft’s motions go on to dredge up arguments about inquiry notice and fraudulent 

concealment. The district court summarily denied both motions. 

We review the denial of a Rule 60(b) motion for abuse of discretion. Johnson 

v. Spencer, 950 F.3d 680, 701 (10th Cir. 2020) (quoting Kile v. United States, 915 

F.3d 682, 688 (10th Cir. 2019)). “The denial of a 60(b)(6) motion will be reversed 

only if we find a complete absence of a reasonable basis and are certain that the 

decision is wrong.” Davis v. Kan. Dep’t of Corr., 507 F.3d 1246, 1248 (10th Cir. 

2007) (quoting Zurich N. Am. v. Matrix Serv., Inc., 426 F.3d 1281, 1293 (10th Cir. 

2005)). Here, we are certain the district court’s decision is right. Cracraft’s Rule 

60(b)(6) motion identifies no grounds for relief that qualify as extraordinary or 

exceptional. See Bud Brooks Trucking, Inc. v. Bill Hodges Trucking Co., 909 F.2d 

1437, 1440 (10th Cir. 1990) (noting that “exceptional circumstances” typically 

include “compelling circumstances beyond [the parties’] control”). Cracraft’s 

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Opening Brief before us confirms as much, arguing that he “later discovered” 

precedent helpful to his argument. Cf. Collins v. City of Wichita, 254 F.2d 837, 839 

(10th Cir. 1958) (“A change in the law or in the judicial view of an established rule 

of law is not . . . an extraordinary circumstance which justifies such relief.” (citation 

omitted)). And to be sure, Cracraft’s motion does little more than unearth arguments 

about tolling that we have already rejected or that he could have raised earlier.1

Nor are we persuaded that the district court interpreted Cracraft’s motions too 

harshly. True, as Cracraft points out, we liberally construe pro se filings. But equally 

true is that “pro se status does not relieve [Cracraft] of the obligation to comply with 

procedural rules.” Murray v. City of Tahlequah, 312 F.3d 1196, 1199 n.3 (10th Cir. 

2002) (citing Ogden v. San Juan County, 32 F.3d 452, 455 (10th Cir. 1994)). Nor will 

we “‘assume the role of advocate’ and make [Cracraft’s] arguments for him.” Walters 

v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 703 F.3d 1167, 1173 (10th Cir. 2013) (quoting Yang v. 

Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008)). On these precepts, we affirm the 

district court. Cracraft’s retrial motion is foreign to the Federal Rules but can be 

liberally construed as one for post-judgment relief under Rule 60(b)(6). So construed, 

Cracraft’s “procedural missteps” are not reason enough to justify extraordinary relief 

under Rule 60(b)(6). And because Cracraft’s Rule 60(b) motion is meritless, his 

1

 Cracraft contends that we never considered his tolling arguments on the 

merits. Our prior decision belies that reading. There, we noted that Cracraft failed to 

properly preserve his tolling arguments. Cracraft, 2021 WL 5500604, at *4 & n.3. But 

we also noted that Cracraft’s tolling theory lacked merit because it “repackaged [his] 

challenge to the district court’s inquiry-notice determination, which we have already 

rejected.” Id. at *4 (citing Dummar v. Lummis, 543 F.3d 614, 621 (10th Cir. 2008)).

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derivative (and unnecessary) motion to amend is moot. See Chihuahuan Grasslands 

All. v. Kempthorne, 545 F.3d 884, 891 (10th Cir. 2008) (“[A] case or controversy no 

longer exists when it is impossible to grant any effectual relief.” (citations omitted)). 

We discern no abuse of discretion with the district court’s conclusions that echoed 

this reasoning.2

We affirm. 

Entered for the Court 

Gregory A. Phillips 

Circuit Judge 

2

 We are also troubled that Cracraft has used this appeal to reargue the merits 

of our prior decision. The place for that argument is a petition for panel rehearing, 

not recursive appeals. See Fed. R. App. P. 40(a)(1) (noting that litigants have 

fourteen days after entry of judgment to file petition for panel rehearing). 

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