UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION

NA’IM ABDUL-MATEEN,

Plaintiff,

v.

THOMAS BELL and JANE DOE,

Defendants. 

 /

Case No. 09-CV-13710

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Plaintiff Na’im Abdul-Mateen, a Michigan prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks relief

from the court’s judgment dismissing his complaint, filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A

previous motion for relief from judgment has been denied; Plaintiff now seeks

reconsideration of that order. Because he fails to identify a palpable defect by which the

court has been misled, Plaintiff’s motion will be denied.

 Plaintiff filed a § 1983 complaint against the warden of Gus Harrison Correctional

Facility in Adrian, Michigan, and an unknown member of the nursing staff, alleging a

violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment. He alleges that Defendants were

deliberately indifferent to his medical needs when they assigned him to a top bunk,

despite his having an injured knee which required a bottom bunk assignment. He

claims that he suffered permanent injury to his knee when he fell while getting down

from the upper bunk. Plaintiff also filed a motion to compel Defendant Thomas Bell to

respond to interrogatories designed to assist Plaintiff in identifying the unknown nurse. 

The court referred the matter to United States Magistrate Judge Charles Binder, who

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issued a Report and Recommendation suggesting that Defendant’s motion to dismiss

should be granted and denying the motion to compel. On April 28, 2010, the court

issued an “Opinion and Order Denying Plaintiff’s Objections; Accepting and

Incorporating Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation; Denying Plaintiff’s

Motion to Compel and Granting Defendant Bell’s Motion to Dismiss.” Plaintiff appealed

the court’s decision. On January 5, 2011, the Court of Appeals affirmed. Abdul-Mateen

v. Bell, No. 10-1635 (6th Cir. Jan. 5, 2011). 

Thereafter, Plaintiff filed a “Motion for Relief from Judgment” under Fed. R. Civ.

P. 60(b)(1). The court denied the motion because Rule 60(b)(1) motions must be

brought “no more than a year after the entry of the judgment or order.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

60(c)(1). The court also denied the motion because, the law-of-the-case doctrine

“generally bars the district court from reconsidering those issues that the court of

appeals has already explicitly or implicitly resolved.” Keith v. Bobby, 618 F.3d 594, 599

(6th Cir. 2010). 

Plaintiff now brings a motion for reconsideration, in which he argues that he

meant to bring his previous motion under Rule 60(b)(6), which does not contain the one

year time limitation on such motions. While this is true, all motions brought under Rule

60(b) must still be brought within a “reasonable time,” and Plaintiff does not explain how

his motion, filed almost a year and a half after the judgment became final, and eight

months after the judgment was affirmed, was filed within a “reasonable time.” Nor does

Plaintiff explain how his motion can overcome the law of the case doctrine, the

alternative basis on which this court’s last order was decided.

 To prevail on a motion for reconsideration, Plaintiff “must not only demonstrate a

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palpable defect by which the court and the parties . . . have been misled but also show

that correcting the defect will result in a different disposition of the case.” E.D. Mich. LR

7.1(h)(3). The local rules provide that “[g]enerally, and without restricting the court's

discretion, the court will not grant motions for rehearing or reconsideration that merely

present the same issues ruled upon by the court, either expressly or by reasonable

implication.” Id. Here, Plaintiff does not identify any such palpable defect. His case is

over. This court’s judgment was affirmed by the Sixth Circuit, and Plaintiff is not entitled

to re-litigate it in perpetuity. Accordingly,

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration [Dkt. #

33] is DENIED. 

 S/Robert H. Cleland 

ROBERT H. CLELAND

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Dated: September 25, 2013

I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was mailed to counsel of record

on this date, September 25, 2013, by electronic and/or ordinary mail.

 S/Lisa Wagner 

Case Manager and Deputy Clerk

(313) 234-5522

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