United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued November 13, 2019 

Decided November 27, 2019 

Before 

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge 

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge 

No. 18-2284 

RAYMOND A. SEASE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

LAWRENCE DARKO, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 15-cv-877 

John Z. Lee, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Raymond Sease sued two Chicago police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for 

falsely arresting and unreasonably searching him eight years earlier. The district court 

found Sease’s claims untimely and entered summary judgment in favor of the officers. 

The court also denied Sease’s motion to reconsider. Sease’s appeal is timely only with 

regard to the denial of his postjudgment motion, which the district court appropriately 

denied, so we affirm. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 18-2284 Page 2 

I 

A little past midnight on July 24, 2007, Officers Anthony Lewis and Lawrence 

Darko were on patrol when, as Lewis testified at his deposition, a “concerned citizen” 

flagged them down and said he believed “some guys” were selling drugs behind a 

nearby restaurant on Chicago’s south side. The officers drove to the restaurant. Upon 

seeing Sease and two others, the officers got out of their car. As Lewis approached, 

Sease walked toward him but then started running away. Lewis pursued on foot. 

Lewis testified that he saw Sease tear open a plastic bag and toss out white 

powder. Sease denies carrying this bag. Suspecting that the powder was cocaine, Lewis 

ordered Sease to the ground and handcuffed him. (The substance was, in fact, cocaine.) 

Lewis searched Sease’s coat pocket and found 10 to 30 grams of cannabis and a few 

unprescribed Viagra pills. The parties dispute whether Sease also had heroin, ecstasy, 

and Xanax. Sease was charged in state court with felonies for possession with intent to 

deliver cocaine, cannabis, heroin, and Viagra. In February 2012, Sease moved to quash 

his arrest and suppress the seized evidence because the officers had no reasonable 

suspicion to stop him. His motion was eventually granted after the judge determined 

that the law was unsettled over whether police may chase after suspects who flee in 

high-crime areas. The state dismissed the charges. 

In 2015, nearly eight years after his arrest, Sease brought this § 1983 suit against 

Officers Lewis and Darko and the City of Chicago for false arrest and an unreasonable 

search. After the court dismissed the City of Chicago from the suit because of Sease’s 

failure to state a Monell claim, the officers moved for summary judgment. The officers 

argued that when Sease filed suit in 2015, his claims were barred by the two-year statute 

of limitations applicable to § 1983 claims. 735 ILCS 5/13-202; Brooks v. City of Chicago, 

564 F.3d 830, 832 (7th Cir. 2009). 

At Sease’s deposition, he agreed that he “knew” in July 2007 that he had been 

arrested and searched “for no reason.” Sease countered that his claims were not timebarred because they did not arise until the suppression hearing in February 2012—

when, he argued, he learned that the officers had “fabricated” the “concerned citizen.” 

Sease reasoned that the officers must have fabricated the tipster’s identity because 

neither officer could identify the “concerned citizen” or describe the person in terms 

other than race. Given this fabrication, Sease invoked Illinois’s fraudulent concealment 

statute, 735 ILCS 5/13-215, and argued that the statute of limitations had tolled for five 

years, until February 2017, rendering his claims timely. 
No. 18-2284 Page 3 

On September 26, 2017, the district court granted the officers’ motion and entered 

summary judgment in their favor, concluding that Sease’s claims were untimely 

because he knew or should have known that he had been wrongfully arrested as early 

as 2007. In the court’s view, Sease’s belief that the officers had concocted the story was 

sheer speculation and thus could not defeat a summary judgment motion. 

On October 26, 30 days after the entry of judgment, Sease sought an extension of 

time to file a motion to reconsider. The district court granted him a month’s extension 

until November 27. 

On November 27, Sease filed a motion to reconsider, arguing that the 

defendants’ inconsistencies and improbabilities at the suppression hearing in his 

criminal case had created a credibility contest over whether the officers fraudulently 

concealed the fabrication of the “concerned citizen.” 

On May 18, 2018, the district court denied the motion to reconsider, finding 

Sease’s arguments inappropriate because he did not identify “newly discovered 

evidence” or any “manifest errors of law or fact.” See Hicks v. Midwest Transit, Inc., 531 

F.3d 467, 474 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[M]otions for reconsideration serve a limited function; to 

correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.” (quoting 

Rothwell Cotton Co. v. Rosenthal & Co., 827 F.2d 246, 251 (7th Cir. 1987)). 

Twenty-one days later, on June 8, 2018, Sease filed a notice of appeal. This court, 

noting that Sease’s notice appeared to be untimely as to the underlying judgment, see

FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(4), ordered him to explain why appellate review should not be 

limited to the district court’s May 18 order denying his motion to reconsider. After both 

parties submitted statements, we limited the appeal to a review of the May 18 order. 

We explained that the district court entered judgment on September 27, 2017, 

and Sease filed his notice of appeal on June 8, 2018, far exceeding the 30-day time limit 

imposed by FED R. APP. P. 4(a)(1)(A). If Sease had filed his motion to reconsider 

earlier—within 28 days of entry of the judgment—then the rules would have allowed 

for tolling of the deadline to appeal. See FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(v) (permitting tolling 

if a FED. R. CIV. P. 59 motion is filed 28 days from entry of judgment); FED. R. APP. P. 

4(a)(4)(A)(vi) (allowing for tolling if a FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b) motion is filed 28 days from 

entry of judgment). But Sease missed the 28-day window to file his postjudgment 

motion, and FED. R. CIV. P. 6(b) prohibited the district court from keeping the window 

open any longer. See Blue v. Int’l. Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 676 F.3d 579, 583 (7th Cir. 2012). 

So the clock had continued ticking on the underlying judgment, and Sease’s notice of 
No. 18-2284 Page 4 

appeal was too late. Sease’s appeal of the district court’s denial of his motion to 

reconsider, however, was timely. 

II 

A 

Sease now argues that because the defendants did not object to the district 

court’s extension of time for him to file his motion to reconsider, they forfeited any 

argument that this motion was untimely for purposes of FED. R. APP. P. 4’s tolling 

provision. Under Rule 4, the timely filing of one of the listed postjudgment motions 

tolls the time to appeal until an order is entered that disposes of the last remaining 

motion. See FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(i)–(vi). Sease argues that his motion to reconsider 

was one such postjudgment motion, tolling the time to appeal until the district court 

issued an order denying it. 

Blue covers Sease’s case. Sease did not file his motion to reconsider until two 

months after entry of judgment. In Blue, we confirmed that only “timely” postjudgment 

motions have tolling effect, and postjudgment motions are timely when filed within 28 

days of the judgment. See 676 F.3d at 582; FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(4)(A). Whether the district 

court granted an extension to file a postjudgment motion does not matter because FED.

R. CIV. P 6(b)(2) prohibits a court from extending the time to appeal such a motion. Blue, 

676 F.3d at 582. 

In so holding in Blue, we expressly rejected a contrary ruling by the Sixth Circuit, 

National Ecological Foundation v. Alexander, 496 F.3d 466, 476 (6th Cir. 2007), which held 

that a party’s forfeiture of an objection to an untimely Rule 59(e) motion “makes the 

motion ‘timely’ for purposes of Rule 4(a)(4)(A)(iv).” We explained that allowing 

untimely postjudgment motions to toll the appeal clock would “create[] a new 

opportunity for parties to extend the time to appeal,” undermining congressional 

“bounds on appellate jurisdiction.” Blue, 676 F.3d at 583. We have followed Blue since. 

See, e.g., Robinson v. Sweeny, 794 F.3d 782, 783 (7th Cir. 2015); Justice v. Town of Cicero, 

682 F.3d 662, 663–65 (7th Cir. 2012). 

The timely filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case is a jurisdictional 

requirement that cannot be forfeited by mere lack of objection. See Bowles v. Russell, 

551 U.S. 205, 213–14 (2007); see 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a). Therefore, we cannot toll the appeal 

clock simply because the defendants did not object to Sease’s extension of time. Further, 

28 U.S.C. § 2107(c) provides the reasons under which a district court may delay the 
No. 18-2284 Page 5 

appeal clock—a court may do so “upon a showing of excusable neglect or good cause.” 

Section 2107(c)’s requirement of a showing of excusable neglect or good cause to file an 

appeal outside of the original deadline is jurisdictional and cannot be waived. Nestorovic 

v. Metro. Water Reclamation Dist., 926 F.3d 927, 431 (7th Cir. 2019). The mere lack of 

objection to “[a] party’s choice to wait, without more, is not a proper reason for 

extending the time to appeal.” See id. at 432. 

We stand by our preliminary order limiting Sease’s appeal to the denial of his 

motion to reconsider. 

B 

On appeal Sease contends that his motion to reconsider—in which he questioned 

the credibility of the officers’ testimony—did identify a “manifest error of law.” We 

interpret this argument to mean that the district court erred in not finding that the 

alleged inconsistent testimony by the officers created a triable issue of fact over whether 

they had fraudulently concealed the fabrication of the “concerned citizen.” 

Although Sease did not clarify whether he brought his motion to reconsider 

under Rule 59(e) or 60(b), “the important question for characterizing these motions is 

their timing,” Carter v. City of Alton, 922 F.3d 824, 826 n.1 (7th Cir. 2019), and we have 

“long construed [untimely Rule 59(e) motions] as motions for relief under Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 60.” Blue, 676 F.3d at 583. We do the same here. 

The district court properly denied Sease’s motion to reconsider as inappropriate 

under Rule 60(b). Relief under Rule 60 is limited to “extraordinary situations” where 

the judgment is not merely the result of an error of law. Kennedy v. Schneider Elec., 

893 F.3d 414, 419 (7th Cir. 2018). Sease did not explain why the “inconsistencies and 

improbabilities” in the defendants’ testimony constituted such an “extraordinary 

situation.” Even if Sease’s motion could be construed under Rule 60(b)(3) to allege fraud 

by an opposing party, “the alleged fraud must go beyond mere discrepancies in the 

record evidence.” Id. at 420. Nor could Sease avail himself under the catch-all provision 

of Rule 60(b)(6) (“other reason that justifies relief”). Sease believes that the district court 

overlooked a fact question regarding whether the defendants fraudulently concealed 

the fabrication of the tipster, but arguments that the court “misinterpreted the evidence 

that was presented” cannot provide Rule 60(b) relief. Id. 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM.