Opinion ID: 201052
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of Abuse of Discretion Standard

Text: 46 That conclusion only brings us back to the initial question of whether the second district judge abused his discretion in granting the Rule 59(e) motion. As already noted, the touchstone of Rule 59(e) relief is limited discretion that honors both the need for finality and the need for justice. 47 Here, the record provides no reason to think that the first district judge was even aware that there was an issue as to the interpretation of work in § 504(c). Had he been aware, we doubt he would have calculated damages as he did. Indeed, no circuit court had ever upheld that method of calculation, and the plain language of the statute reads otherwise. At most, one treatise had suggested, for policy-based reasons, that the statute could be read differently (while another treatise had rejected the suggestion). Given that the issue was never fairly presented to the first district judge, and given the default context in which the original damages award was calculated, the second district judge's decision to grant the Rule 59(e) motion was within the allowable scope of his discretion under the rule. The second judge's determination that Congress's policy choice, reflected in the plain language of § 504(c), should be honored even in the default context of this case seems to us to strike the proper balance between the need for finality of judgments and the need for justice. It was within the district court's province to conclude that amendment of the amount of the damages award was warranted in order to reach a just judgment in accord with congressional intent. 48 It may seem odd that we would uphold the second judge's determination that the original damages award was in violation of the statute when this Court had never before ruled on the issue. The second district judge, after all, characterized the original damages award as a manifest error of law. See Black's Law Dictionary 563 (7th ed.1999) (a manifest error is [a]n error that is plain and indisputable, and that amounts to a complete disregard of the controlling law.). But for the reasons stated earlier, in the peculiar context of this case, we do not find an abuse of discretion. After all, the situation developed not only because Sonolux defaulted, but also because plaintiffs utterly failed in their obligation to inform the first judge of contrary authority, and should not be rewarded for that lapse.