[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-10206

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

JAMES LESTER WILLIAMS, JR., 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

POLK COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cv-02842-WFJ-SPF

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10206

Before ROSENBAUM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In this employment discrimination case, the district court 

granted the Polk County Board of County Commissioners’ motion 

for summary judgment on James Lester Williams’s claims of race

discrimination and retaliation under Title VII and age 

discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act 

(“ADEA”). Williams then moved for reconsideration, pointing to 

allegedly newly discovered evidence. The district court denied the 

motion, finding that Williams had not exercised reasonable 

diligence.

On appeal, Williams offers no argument for why summary 

judgment was improper, and he fails to show that the district court 

abused its discretion in denying his motion for reconsideration.

We therefore affirm.

I. Background

Williams was hired as a Veterans Services Officer in Polk 

County’s Health and Human Services Division in 2016. Williams 

is a black male and was around 40 years old at the time. In 2019, 

Williams successfully applied for a promotion to Veterans 

Supervisor. 

Not long after Williams was promoted, Williams’s 

subordinates began complaining about his managerial style to his 

supervisor, Director of the County Health and Human Services 

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23-10206 Opinion of the Court 3

Division Marcia Andresen. They described him as “authoritarian, 

demeaning, and disrespectful.” Williams does not dispute that 

these complaints “were in no way related to or based on his race or 

age.” 

Williams argued below, however, that these poor reviews 

and institutional corrections were unfair. For example, according 

to Williams, one employee refused to accept any direction from 

Williams and would go over his head to discuss work matters with 

Andresen. Another was chronically late and would not accept 

coaching. Williams sought support from Andresen, but he claims 

she took the employees’ side and refused to intervene. Over time, 

Williams received a series of written evaluations in which he was 

praised for good performance in some areas, but was criticized for 

his performance as a manager and team builder. 

Williams’s issues with his subordinates, and their

complaints, “escalated,” with employees “expressing desires to quit 

their jobs because the supervision was so authoritarian and 

demeaning.” Williams went to Andresen to tell her that he could 

not be an effective supervisor if she undermined his authority with 

subordinates and refused to support him. 

Around this time, two of Williams’s subordinates allegedly

asked two black employees to help get Williams fired so that 

Williams’s termination would not appear discriminatory. 

After receiving the last of the critical evaluations, Williams 

took the matter to the Employee Relations Manager. Williams was 

told that his concerns were legitimate and that Andresen should 

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not have been intervening as she was, but the Employee Relations 

Manager “[did] not have any authority to tell [Andresen] what to 

do,” and so he would have to ask the Director of Human Resources 

to talk to Andresen. There is no indication in the record of whether 

the Director of Human Resources did so.

Williams was fired on December 11, 2019, a little more than 

a month after the last critical evaluation. Williams appealed the 

termination, arguing that his subordinates “teamed up” against 

him to get rid of him. Williams never claimed that his firing had 

anything to do with race or age. The Appeals Council upheld the 

termination. 

Williams sued the County in December 2020. Williams 

alleged that the County had discriminated against him because of 

his race, and age, and in retaliation for protected activity under 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(a), 

3(a), and the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1).1

During discovery, Williams acknowledged that he never 

complained to human resources or risk management about age or 

race discrimination. He explained that he believed that he was the 

victim of age and race discrimination because the County hired 

someone younger than he to replace him, and the refusal to 

support him in his management style showed that “they allowed a 

. . . [white] supervisor to enforce [County] policies to [blacks], but 

1 Williams also alleged a hostile work environment claim, but the district court 

dismissed that claim and Williams does not challenge the dismissal on appeal.

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when [blacks] enforced [County] policies to [whites], then there’s 

a problem.” 

In a thorough order, the district court granted the County’s 

motion for summary judgment. As to Williams’s claim of racial 

discrimination, the district court found no direct evidence of 

discrimination, it rejected all of Williams’s proposed comparators,

and it concluded that even if Williams had shown a prima facie case 

of race discrimination, Williams could not show that the reason the 

County gave for his firing was pretextual. The district court 

acknowledged that Williams had shown a prima facie case of age 

discrimination, but it rejected his ADEA claim because he had no 

evidence to show that age was the but-for cause of his termination, 

rather than his poor subordinate management. Finally, as to the 

retaliation claim, the district court found that even if Williams 

believed he had been discriminated against, the record did not show 

that he challenged any practice as discriminatory or showed a link 

between such protected activity and his termination. The district 

court therefore granted summary judgment. The court entered 

judgment on November 21, 2022. 

On December 19, 2022, Williams moved to alter or amend 

the court’s judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 and

for relief from the judgment under Rule 60. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 

59(e), 60(b).2 He asked the court to consider four new affidavits,

2 We note that Williams’s motion was filed 28 days after the entry of 

judgment, which is timely under Rule 59(e). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) (allowing 

a party to move to alter or amend a judgment “no later than 28 days after the 

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arguing that the affidavits demonstrated there was “a plan to keep 

[black employees] out of leadership.” In particular, one of the 

affiants claimed to have overheard a conversation in which an 

unidentified woman in professional attire, believed to be Andresen,

said that she was working on getting a black employee “out of 

here” and ensuring that there would be “no more blacks in 

leadership roles.”

The district court treated Williams’s motion as a motion for 

reconsideration and denied it. The district court found (among

other things) that Williams had not shown he could not have 

obtained and submitted the evidence before the summary 

judgment ruling issued. 

Williams, proceeding pro se, appealed.3 

II. Discussion

A. Williams abandoned any argument that the district 

court erred in granting summary judgment. 

Though Williams includes a section in his brief stating that 

the grant of summary judgment was error, he fails to offer any 

argument to that end on appeal. Instead, he merely recites the 

applicable law that governs summary judgment. While we 

entry of the judgment”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1) (explaining that, “[w]hen the 

period” under the rules “is stated in days” the count of days should “exclude 

the day of the event that triggers the period.”) 

3 We note that, although Williams is proceeding pro se on appeal, he had counsel 

throughout the district court proceedings. 

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liberally construe the filings of pro se parties, “issues not briefed on 

appeal by a pro se litigant are deemed abandoned.” Timson v. 

Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008). An appellant’s brief 

must include an argument containing “appellant’s contentions and 

the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the 

record on which the appellant relies[.]” Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A) 

(emphasis added). Indeed, to obtain reversal of a district court 

judgment that, like this one, “is based on multiple, independent 

grounds, an appellant must convince us that every stated ground 

for the judgment against him is incorrect.” Sapuppo v. Allstate 

Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir. 2014). An appellant’s 

failure to challenge even one of the grounds on which the district 

court based its judgment deems the challenge abandoned on 

appeal, “and it follows that the judgment is due to be affirmed.” Id.

Williams’s brief fails to present any basis for reversal of the 

summary judgment decision. Williams’s merits discussion begins 

on page 9 and ends on page 13 (the last three pages dealing with 

the motion for reconsideration)—and although he cites the general 

legal standards applicable to summary judgment motions, he 

provides no explanation or discussion of how the district court 

erred. Instead, the only substantive discussion in his brief focuses 

on the district court’s denial of his motion for reconsideration and 

its refusal to consider the newly submitted affidavits.4 Accordingly, 

4 Williams’s reply brief suffers from the same infirmities. But of course, even 

raising pertinent arguments for the first time in the reply brief would not be 

sufficient to preserve them. Timson, 518 F.3d at 874 (“we do not address 

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he has abandoned any challenge to the district court’s summary 

judgment ruling. 

B. The district court did not abuse its discretion in 

denying Williams’s motion for reconsideration.

Williams’s only real argument on appeal is that the district 

court abused its discretion in denying his motion for 

reconsideration because it erred in finding that he could have

submitted four new affidavits earlier in the proceedings. He 

maintains that he did not receive the affidavits until after the court 

granted summary judgment, and that his counsel promptly 

submitted them after that. We see no error. 

Williams moved for relief under Rules 59(e) and 60(b)(2).

Rule 59(e) provides that “[a] motion to alter or amend a judgment 

must be filed no later than 28 days after the entry of the judgment.” 

“The only grounds for granting a Rule 59 motion are newlydiscovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” Arthur v. 

King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007) (alteration adopted) 

(quotation omitted). Similarly, under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 60(b)(2), a party may move for relief from a final order 

if there is “newly discovered evidence that, with reasonable 

diligence, could not have been discovered in time to move for a 

new trial under Rule 59(b).” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(2). This rule 

requires the movant to show: (1) newly discovered evidence; 

arguments raise for the first time in a . . . reply brief” even if the litigant is pro 

se). 

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(2) due diligence by the movant to discover the new evidence; 

(3) that the evidence is “not . . . merely cumulative or impeaching”; 

(4) that the evidence is material; and (5) that the evidence “would 

probably produce a new result.” Toole v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 

235 F.3d 1307, 1316 (11th Cir. 2000). We review the denial of a 

motion under either rule only for abuse of discretion. Farris v. 

United States, 333 F.3d 1211, 1216 (11th Cir. 2003) (Rule 60(b); 

Sanderlin v. Seminole Tribe of Fla., 243 F.3d 1282, 1285 (11th Cir. 

2001) (Rule 59(e)).5

As we have said before, “[a] motion for reconsideration 

cannot be used to . . . raise argument or present evidence that could 

have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Cummings v. Dep’t 

of Corr., 757 F.3d 1228, 1234 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted). 

“Unexcused failure to produce the relevant evidence . . . can be 

sufficient, without more, to warrant the denial” of such a motion.

See Taylor v. Texgas Corp., 831 F.2d 255, 259 (11th Cir. 1987) 

(quoting Kentucky Fried Chicken Corp. v. Diversified Packaging Corp.,

549 F.2d 368, 391 (5th Cir. 1977)); see also Fisher v. Kadant, Inc., 589 

F.3d 505, 513 (1st Cir. 2009) (explaining that a party seeking relief 

5 Because orders on motions under both rules are reviewed for abuse of 

discretion, and both require newly discovered evidence to be introduced only 

on a showing of due diligence or timeliness, Toole v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 

235 F.3d 1307, 1316 (11th Cir. 2000) (Rule 60(b)); see Michael Linet, Inc.v. Village 

of Wellington, 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005) (Rule 59(e)), we do not parse 

the difference here. See Finch v. City of Vernon, 845 F.2d 256, 258 (11th Cir. 

1988) (explaining that courts have “recogniz[ed]” that Rules 59(e) and 60(b)

“appear to overlap somewhat”). 

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based on newly discovered evidence must “offer a convincing 

explanation as to why he could not have proffered the crucial 

evidence at an earlier stage of the proceedings” (quotation 

omitted)). 

Williams’s argument on appeal shows only that he did not 

receive the affidavits before judgment, not that he could not have, 

had he exercised due diligence. Williams has therefore failed to 

meet his burden, and the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in denying Williams’s motion for reconsideration based on new—

but not diligently discovered—evidence. See Grange Mut. Cas. Co. 

v. Slaughter, 958 F.3d 1050, 1059–60 (11th Cir. 2020) (concluding the 

district court “properly rejected” an attempt “to introduce new 

evidence” in a motion for reconsideration “that was available at the 

summary judgment stage”).

III. Conclusion

In sum, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment and its denial of Williams’s motion for reconsideration.

AFFIRMED.

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