Opinion ID: 582746
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Should the district court have reconsidered its summary

Text: 25 judgment order in light of subsequently produced evidence? 26 As noted, Plaintiffs were unable to persuade the district court to defer its summary judgment ruling pending discovery. A related issue is whether the district court should have considered summary judgment materials subsequently produced by the Plaintiffs in their postjudgment motion to reconsider. The district court declined to undertake such reconsideration. 27 We treat Plaintiffs motion to reconsider as a motion to alter or amend the judgment because the motion was filed within ten days after the district court's order granting summary judgment and dismissing the case was entered on the docket. See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 180-81, 83 S.Ct. 227, 229, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962); Van Skiver v. United States, 952 F.2d 1241, 1243 (10th Cir.1991). The purpose for such a motion is to correct manifest errors of law or to present newly discovered evidence. Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d 906, 909 (3rd Cir.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1171, 106 S.Ct. 2895, 90 L.Ed.2d 982 (1986). In these circumstances, we evaluate the district court's ruling on the Rule 59(e) motion for an abuse of discretion. Pasternak, 790 F.2d at 833. 28 When supplementing a Rule 59(e) motion with additional evidence, the movant must show either that the evidence is newly discovered [and] if the evidence was available at the time of the decision being challenged, that counsel made a diligent yet unsuccessful effort to discover the evidence. 29 Chery v. Bowman, 901 F.2d 1053, 1057-58 n. 6 (11th Cir.1990). See also Russ v. Int'l Paper Co., 943 F.2d 589, 593 (5th Cir.1991). 30 The district court evaluated the motion for reconsideration under a similar standard applied to a new trial motion based on newly discovered evidence. As we understand the district court's order, the proffered evidence did not warrant reconsideration because it had not been discovered subsequent to the order granting summary judgment, the Plaintiffs had not demonstrated reasonable diligence and the evidence would not produce a different result. 31 We recognize that the district court considered Plaintiffs' response in opposition to summary judgment without the later evidentiary attachments concerning alleged historical censorship. The two affidavits originally submitted in the response concern only the present film. Absent in this record, however, is an explanation of why Plaintiffs waited three months to submit additional evidence, and then as part of a Rule 59(e) motion. When one considers that Plaintiffs submitted largely historical evidence and that the affidavits submitted were not dated until March 25, 1990, it is evident that the Plaintiffs have not met their burden of showing diligence. They have not demonstrated that the evidence was newly discovered or unavailable in a more timely fashion through the exercise of diligence. 9 Plainly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. 32