The judge then informed counsel that he would issue a 60-day Order of Dismissal permitting them the opportunity to tie up any loose ends regarding the settlement. The precise nature of this information is unclear to us but appears to involve recalcitrance by an interested entity not present at the settlement conference, the insurer of the non-party potential claimant. The trial court deemed the letter a motion to vacate the Settlement Order of Dismissal and denied it as untimely and lacking any showing of good cause. There would be no reasoned way that the court could ever deny an untimely motion for reconsideration brought by any other party. No good cause has been offered for plaintiff's counsel's failure in this case to proceed in accordance with the Order's terms.
Settlement discussions offer no excuse . . . .
The unavoidable fact is that plaintiff's counsel, without any articulable excuse, simply ignored the contents of the January 18 Order . . . . On June 10, plaintiff's counsel filed a Motion for Relief pursuant to Fed. At no point in proceedings before the trial court was the decision of the Supreme Court in Pioneer cited or its implications argued. The open question is whether the neglect was excusable. The determination whether the neglect was excusable should be left in the first instance to the trial court, which was never afforded the opportunity to evaluate the question in light of Pioneer .