Opinion ID: 484640
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: nti's appeal

Text: 30 In connection with its successful appeal in Wakefield I, NTI was awarded costs. Our mandate and order awarding costs were docketed in the district court on September 10, 1985. Rule 11(a) of the Rules for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York (Local Rule 11(a)) provides, in pertinent part that 31 within thirty (30) days after the disposition of the appeal, the party recovering costs shall file with the clerk a request to tax costs.... Any party failing to file a bill within this thirty (30) day period will be deemed to have waived costs.... 32 NTI did not file a request to tax costs in the district court until October 25, 1985, when it moved for permission to file its bill of costs out of time. 33 After hearing oral argument, the district court denied the motion. Rejecting NTI's excuses that the clerk of the district court had not notified it of the entry of the order from this Court and that its counsel was unaware of the then-current version of Rule 11(a), adopted in 1984, the court found that NTI had had ample opportunity and reason to anticipate the issuance of the mandate following the decision of the Court of Appeals. While noting that it had the power to extend NTI's time, it declined to do so, stating that [t]he alternative ... to a reasonably rigid adherence to the deadlines and the rules is to ... nullify the rule.... 34 After summary judgment had been granted in its favor, NTI sought unsuccessfully to recover the costs denied it in 1985. The court allowed only costs relating to the post-remand proceedings. 35 NTI has appealed these decisions, arguing principally that the court abused its discretion in refusing to allow the untimely request for costs because (1) NTI's time to file its bill of costs could not start running until the clerk of the district court, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 77(d), notified NTI of the filing of the order from this Court, (2) Rule 11(a) created only a rebuttable presumption that NTI had waived its right to seek costs, and (3) NTI had shown excusable neglect for its failure to comply with the Rule. Most of NTI's contentions are frivolous. 36 Although Fed.R.Civ.P. 77(d) provides that upon the entry of an order or judgment the clerk shall serve a notice of the entry by mail ... upon each party who is not in default for failure to appear, nothing in that Rule or in Local Rule 11(a) suggests that the failure of the clerk to serve such notice suspends the obligation of a party to meet any deadline that is measured from the time of the order itself. See Frito-Lay of Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Canas, 92 F.R.D. 384, 389-90 n. 2 (D.P.R.1981). NTI points to other language in Rule 77(d) stating that the failure of the clerk to give notice of entry of a judgment does not enlarge a litigant's time to appeal from the judgment, and it argues that the proper inference from this language is that all other deadlines dating from entry of a judgment or order are automatically extended by the clerk's failure to give notice. We disagree. The sentence relied on by NTI reads, in pertinent part, as follows: 37 Lack of notice of the entry by the clerk does not affect the time to appeal or relieve or authorize the court to relieve a party for failure to appeal within the time allowed.... 38 The negative implication in this sentence is that the court retains its power to relieve a party of the consequences of his failure to observe time requirements other than the time for appeal; the proper interpretation is neither that the court is required to grant such relief, cf. Radack v. Norwegian America Line Agency, Inc., 318 F.2d 538, 542 (2d Cir.1963) (lack of notice of entry of judgment does not ipso facto mean that relief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) must, can or should be granted), nor that those other deadlines are extended automatically. 39 NTI's rebuttable presumption argument is nonsense. Rule 11(a) sets a deadline for the filing of a bill of costs. It is not a provision that deals with factfinding or the shifting of burdens of proof. 40 Nor is there any merit to NTI's contention that the district court's denial of leave to file the bill of costs out of time was an abuse of discretion. Notwithstanding its plaint that the district court clerk did not mail it notice of entry of the orders received from this Court, NTI concedes that it knew of the decision in Wakefield I and that it received from this Court by mail a copy of the order denying NTI's petition for rehearing. The district court properly concluded that NTI had no excuse for not realizing that, within the meaning of Local Rule 11(a), the appeal had been dispos[ed] of. Certainly NTI's ignorance of the requirement of Local Rule 11(a) was no reason to disregard the deadline imposed by the Rule. NTI's explanation was that in late 1985 NTI's counsel used his 1983 edition of the Local Rules, which did not contain the 1984 amendment that introduced the 30-day requirement into Rule 11(a). We concur in the district court's view that the granting of relief on such a basis could all but nullify the time constraint imposed by the Rule.