Opinion ID: 58599
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In February 2005, the parties in the underlying class action suit reached a settlement. The district court approved the notice of settlement on March 8, 2005, and pursuant to the Settlement Agreement (“Agreement”), established April 11, _____________________ The Honorable Robert L. Vining, Jr., United States Senior District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, sitting by designation. 2 2005 as the deadline for receipt of opt-out forms from Third Party Payer class members, including Appellants. The district court’s order stated: “TPP members of the IPP classes to submit any Notices of Exclusion for receipt on or before April 11, 2005.” The document sent to class members expressed the deadline in two different ways. The Request for Exclusion form stated that Third Party Payers wishing to be excluded from the settlement must complete the form and send it “by first-class mail in time to be received on or before April 11, 2005 . . . .” The Notice of Proposed Settlement expressed the opt-out deadline as “[i]n order to be considered timely, it [the opt-out form] must be received on or before April 11, 2005, and mailed by first-class mail . . . .” The claims administrator’s deadline for informing defendants of those plaintiffs electing to opt-out was 10:00am on April 12, 2005. Fifteen plaintiffs who were pursuing similar claims in Illinois state court wished to opt out of the federal settlement. These plaintiffs mailed their opt-out forms and payment data on April 7, 2005. All fifteen forms were mailed at the same time from the same post office. The claims administrator picked up eight forms at 6:00am on April 12, 2005, and marked them as timely received. Seven of those eight forms marked by the administrator as timely belonged to the seven plaintiffs who are the Appellants in this appeal. The other seven opt-out forms 3 arrived later and were marked untimely. When these latter seven plaintiffs (not appellants in this appeal) learned in June 2005 that their opt-outs were untimely, they filed a motion for relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b). The district court denied the motion and this Court affirmed that decision on appeal in Valley Drug Co. v. Geneva Pharmaceuticals, 179 Fed. Appx. 600 (11th Cir. 2006) (unpublished).1 The final settlement was approved on July 8, 2005, and included Appellants in the list of opt-outs. In October 2005, defendants learned that Appellants’ opt-out forms had arrived at the post office in West Palm Beach at 4:11am on April 12, 2005. The claims administrator had assumed that any mail picked up early in the morning had been placed in the P.O. box the night before. After reviewing the postal records, the administrator stated that the Appellants’ seven opt-out forms were marked timely as a result of this mistaken assumption, but the forms were, in fact, untimely. On the basis of this new information and the administrator’s mistake, defendants filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion with the district court on October 1 Appellees suggest that Appellants here should be bound by the judgment which was affirmed in this prior appeal. We disagree. These Appellants were not parties to that appeal, and the evaluation of the factors from Pioneer Investment Services v. Brunswick Associates, 507 U.S. 380, 395, 113 S. Ct. 1489, 1498 (1993), will be somewhat different in this case. We express no opinion on the extent to which the evaluation of the Pioneer factors in this case will differ from or mirror that in the prior appeal, except to note that the prejudice to Appellees is different. 4 27, 2005. Defendants asked the court to add Appellants to the list of plaintiffs included in the settlement, based on the mistake regarding the timeliness of receipt of their opt-out forms. Appellants filed a cross-motion, asking for an enlargement of the deadline under Rule 6(b). The court denied Appellants’ motion and ruled that the Rule 60(b) motion had merit, but held off on entering an order until this Court had ruled on the initial seven plaintiffs’ Rule 6(b) appeal. Once this Court upheld the district court on that appeal, the district court entered an order granting Defendants’ motion and withdrew Appellants from the list of opt-outs. Appellants argue on appeal that the district court abused its discretion in denying their Rule 6(b) motion and including them in the settlement. The district court denied Appellants’ Rule 6(b) motion and granted Defendants’ Rule 60(b) motion because the court believed that it did not have the authority to modify the parties’ negotiated settlement. In the alternative, the court held that even if it did have the authority to extend the opt-out deadline, Appellants had failed to demonstrate excusable neglect. The district court did not elaborate on its conclusion that Appellants had not demonstrated excusable neglect, except to reference the court’s order in regard to the earlier group of plaintiffs. This Court reviews decisions under Rule 6(b) and Rule 60(b) for abuse of discretion. Grilli v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 78 F.3d 1533, 1538 (11th Cir. 1996) (Rule 6(b)); Cheney v. 5 Anchor Glass Container Corp., 71 F.3d 848, 849 n.2 (11th Cir. 1996) (Rule 60(b)).