UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-7384

STEVEN WAYNE GOODMAN,

Plaintiff – Appellant,

v.

D. B. EVERETT, Warden, SIISP; D. ROBINSON, Regional 

Director, Eastern District of the DOC; GENE JOHNSON, 

Director of the DOC; K. BASSETT, Warden, Keen Mountain 

Correctional Center; PIXLEY, Assistant Warden, SIISP; MR. 

PHELPS, Correctional Officer, KMCC; R. SANDIFER, 

Institutional Ombudsman, KMCC; JOHN/JANE DOE, Regional 

Ombudsman, Western Region of the DOC; K. PICKEREL, 

Assistant Warden, KMCC; L. HUFFMAN, Regional Director, 

Western Region of the DOC; G. ROBINSON, Manager, Ombudsman 

Services United for the DOC; JOHN JABE, Deputy Director of 

the DOC; HAYES, Institutional Investigator, SIISP; C. 

HARRIS, Housing Unit Manager and Institutional 

Classification Authority-Special Housing Unit; J. HARRIS, 

Treatment Programs Supervisor; OFFICER GILMORE, Chief 

Security, SIISP; JOHN/JANE DOE, #2, Central Classification 

Services for the DOC; G. BASS, Manager, Offender Management 

Services; OFFICER BARBOUR, Office Service Specialist, 

SIISP; MASSENBURG, Institutional Ombudsman, SIISP; W. 

ROLLINS, Operations Officer, SIISP; G. SIVELS, Regional 

Ombudsman Eastern Region of the DOC; NICHOLS, Psychologist, 

SIISP; RIVERS, Psychologist, SIISP; GENERAL, Psychiatrist, 

SIISP; L. STANDFORD, Employee of Prison Health Services and 

Health Service Administrator at SIISP; S. TAYLOR, Employee 

of Prison Health Services and Director of Nursing at SIISP; 

K. WATSON, Director of Audits and Regulation Compliance for 

Prison Health Services; C. COUTHER, Regional Nurse 

Administrator, Eastern Region of the DOC,

Defendants - Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Richmond. Richard L. Williams, Senior

District Judge. (3:06-cv-00849-RLW)

Submitted: June 24, 2010 Decided: July 16, 2010

Before KING, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Steven Wayne Goodman, Appellant Pro Se. Mark R. Davis, Assistant

Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Steven Wayne Goodman seeks to appeal various orders of 

the district court entered in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2006) suit. 

The district court entered its final order on May 1, 2009. On 

May 21, Goodman filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e)*

Under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(iv), a timely motion 

to alter or amend the judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) tolls 

the time for filing a notice of appeal of the underlying 

judgment. In order to be timely, a motion to alter or amend 

must be filed within ten days of the entry of judgment in 

question, and the district court is without jurisdiction to 

motion for 

reconsideration dated May 14. The certificate of service was 

neither notarized nor sworn to under penalty of perjury, and it 

stated that the motion was mailed “first class mail, postage 

prepaid.” The district court denied the Rule 59(e) motion on 

June 18. On July 16, Goodman filed a notice of appeal, dated 

July 15, and seeking to appeal inter alia the denial of his 

motion for reconsideration and the district court’s May 1 order. 

 * The citations in this opinion to the Federal Rules of 

Appellate Procedure and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are 

to the Rules in effect at the time the relevant documents were 

filed in district court. The Rules were amended effective 

December 1, 2009, to provide different appeal periods and 

different methods of calculating dates. These amendments do not 

affect the timeliness of Goodman’s appeal because the appeal 

period expired before the effective date of the amendments.
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extend this time period. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(2), 59(e). In 

this case, due to intervening weekends that are excluded from 

time computation under Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a), Goodman had until 

May 15, 2009, to file a timely Rule 59(e) motion. While 

Goodman’s motion was dated May 14, it was not filed until 

May 21.

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(c)(1) states 

that an incarcerated inmate’s notice of appeal is deemed filed 

when deposited into the institution’s mail system. However, the 

Rule further notes that “[i]f an institution has a system 

designed for legal mail, the inmate must use that system to 

receive the benefit of this rule.” For institutions without 

legal mail systems, an inmate may submit a declaration or 

notarized statement consistent with Rule 4(c). See United 

States v. Ceballos-Martinez, 387 F.3d 1140, 1144-45 (10th Cir. 

2004); see also Porchia v. Norris, 251 F.3d 1196, 1198 (8th Cir. 

2001) (holding that, even in institutions with legal mail 

systems, declaration or notarized statement is still required).

Although the district court apparently considered 

Goodman’s Rule 59(e) motion timely, we find that the record is 

insufficient to determine when Goodman delivered his Rule 59(e) 

motion to prison officials for filing and whether he 

appropriately followed proper channels for legal mail. 

Resolution of these questions is determinative of the issues 
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properly before this court on appeal. If the Rule 59(e) motion 

was not timely filed, the time to appeal the underlying judgment 

was not tolled, thus rendering untimely Goodman’s appeal of all 

orders prior to June 14, 2009. 

Accordingly, we remand to the district court for a 

determination of whether Goodman’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion 

was timely filed. The record, as supplemented, will then be 

returned to this court for further consideration. We deny 

Goodman’s motion to recuse.

REMANDED