Opinion ID: 202017
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Waived Claims.

Text: 19 The inconsistent verdict claim is waived on at least two levels. First, that claim is presented as a supposed ground for a new trial. In a civil case, a motion for a new trial must be filed in the district court within ten days after the entry of judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(b). That time period is mandatory. Feinstein v. Moses, 951 F.2d 16, 19 (1st Cir.1991). The plaintiffs in this case did not file a new trial motion within that window of opportunity. That omission dooms their inconsistent verdict claim. 20 In an effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, the plaintiffs assert that their notice of appeal was, in effect, a motion for a new trial. 4 That assertion elevates hope over reason. 21 The plaintiffs correctly observe that district courts are not bound by labels but have discretion to reclassify mistitled motions filed within the prescribed ten-day period as Rule 59 motions. See, e.g., Vasapolli v. Rostoff, 39 F.3d 27, 36 (1st Cir. 1994) (If circumstances warrant, the [district] court may disregard the movant's taxonomy and reclassify the motion as its substance suggests.). The plaintiffs, however, did not file any motion within the prescribed ten-day period but, rather, filed a notice of appeal. This is an important distinction. Although filed in the district court, a notice of appeal is addressed to the court of appeals, not to the district court. In addition, a notice of appeal serves an entirely different purpose than a post-judgment motion. Thus, when a party files a notice of appeal, the district court is under no obligation to look at it or to consider its contents. We conclude, therefore, that just as a post-judgment motion cannot serve as a proxy for a timely notice of appeal, see Elias v. Ford Motor Co., 734 F.2d 463, 467 (1st Cir.1984), so too a notice of appeal cannot serve as a proxy for a timely Rule 59 motion. The bottom line is that the plaintiffs missed the Rule 59 deadline. 5 22 The plaintiffs' so-called amended motion for a new trial, filed over seventeen months after judgment had entered, does not begin to fill this void. As said, Rule 59 provides for filing a motion for a new trial within ten days of the entry of judgment — and the plaintiffs made no such submission. It is so plain as not to warrant citation of authority that a party is not entitled, nunc pro tunc, to amend a non-existent motion. 23 It may be that a timely objection to verdict inconsistency can be preserved in certain circumstances without a subsequent motion for a new trial. Here, however, the plaintiffs failed to object to the verdict after it was announced but before the court discharged the jury. Silence at that juncture constitutes a waiver. See Correia v. Fitzgerald, 354 F.3d 47, 57 (1st Cir.2003) (holding that a failure to object to an alleged inconsistency while the jury is still in the box waives a party's objection); Wennik v. Polygram Group Distrib., Inc., 304 F.3d 123, 130 (1st Cir.2002) (describing the rule that a party waives verdict inconsistency claims by failing to object before the jury is dismissed as iron-clad); Skillin v. Kimball, 643 F.2d 19, 19-20 (1st Cir.1981) (explaining that the only efficient time to cure . . . possible problems of [verdict] inconsistency would be after the jury announced the results of its deliberations and before it was excused). 24 The plaintiffs have waived their challenge to the district court's dismissal of their due process claims in a different, yet equally lethal, way. Their appellate brief thunders that this ruling should be reversed — but that remonstrance, twice repeated, is unaccompanied by any vestige of developed argumentation. Gauzy generalizations are manifestly insufficient to preserve an issue for appellate review. See Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co., 916 F.2d 731, 734 (1st Cir.1990) (holding that issues adverted to on appeal in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some developed argumentation, are deemed to have been abandoned); United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir.1990) (It is not enough merely to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to do counsel's work. . . .).