Opinion ID: 8407290
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The May 29, 2014 Final Order of Dismissal

Text: We exercise jurisdiction over Hoefer’s appeal from the district court’s May 29, 2014 opinion and order of dismissal according to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (conferring on the courts of appeals jurisdiction over “final decisions” of the district courts).' This order is a final, and therefore appealable, decision of the district court.
In dismissing Hoefer’s action for failure to request timely reinstatement, the district court did not rule on jurisdictional grounds, and we have no basis upon which to conclude that the district court divested itself of jurisdiction at any time prior to entering its final order of dismissal on May 29, 2014. The final dismissal, therefore, was an exercise of the-district court’s discretion. We review discretionary dismissals for, inter alia, failure to request ;reinstatement within a reasonable time, under an abuse of discretion standard. A district court abuses its discretion when it “bases its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on, a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence, or renders a decision that cannot be located within the range of permissible, decisions.” Kiobel v. Millson, 592 F.3d 78, 81 (2d Cir.2010) (citations and alterations omitted).
In Muze, Inc. v. Digital On Demand, Inc., 356 F.3d 492, 495 (2d Cir.2004), this Court vacated a district court’s dismissal of an action following an earlier order (an “Order of Discontinuance”) similar to the one at issue in this appeal, In Muze, the Order of Discontinuance provided, in pertinent. part, that the action “shall ■ be and hereby is discontinued with prejudice” and that “[s]hould settlement not be finalized by May-4, 2001, this case will be reinstated by application of any party.” Muze, 356 F.3d at 493. The district court allowed seven extensions of the May 4, 2001 date, the last extension providing a date of January 31, 2002 for finalizing the settlement. Id. Six days after January 31, 2002, plaintiff Muze, Inc. requested reinstatement of the case because a settlement agreement reached by the parties had not yet been signed. Id. After more than a year transpired without the district court’s acting on this request, Muze, Inc. repeated its request for reinstatement on March 27, 2003. Id. The district court denied the request ón the ground of' untimeliness and, after denying a motion for reconsideration, entered its final dismissal of the action. Id. Muze held that the district court misconstrued its own order in denying the plaintiffs application for reinstatement and in dismissing the action.. Id. at 494-95. The district court construed its initial Order of Discontinuance as having “ ‘plainly stated’ that the case would be reinstated if application was made ‘by any date prior to’ the deadline listed in the Order.” Id. at 493(quoting the district court’s denial of the motion for reconsideration). The Order of Discontinuance, however, “did not specify a time within which reinstatement had to be sought.” Id. Noting that the Order of Discontinuance omitted “the usual language specifying that the reinstatement request must be made within the time period for settlement,” the opinion in Muze concluded that “[a] district court’s discretion to interpret its own order does not extend to inserting, a new provision.” Id. at 494-95 (citation omitted). In Muze, this Court expressly disfavored dismissals made pursuant to orders of discontinuance that do not specify the time period within which a party must request reinstatement. “Just as we have always emphasized that ‘dismissals for .... ambiguities in pleadings are not favored,’ .,. we should similarly disfavor dismissals where the District Court’s order does not include the language customarily used to specify the time for reinstatement.” Id. at 495(quoting Arfons v. E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., 261 F.2d 434, 435 (2d Cir.1958)). In the instant appeal, the April 23, 2013 order conditionally discontinuing the case suffers from the same flaw as did the Order of Discontinuance in Muze, Orders such as these, when applied without prior warning to justify a dismissal over a party’s objection, fail in a critical respect: they do not provide the parties with notice of when action must be taken to avoid involuntary .dismissal, which is “a harsh remedy to be utilized only in extreme situations.” Jackson v. City of New York, 22 F.3d 71, 75 (2d Cir.1994) (quoting Alvarez v. Simmons Market Research Bureau, Inc., 839 F.2d 930, 932 (2d Cir.1988)). In this case, Hoefer was not put on notice of how long he had to request reinstatement and received no advance notice or warning that his opportunity to request reinstatement was about to expire absent immediate action to request reinstatement of the case to the active docket. The opinion in Muze cautioned that its holding vacating the dismissal was not to be interpreted to mean that a party could delay indefinitely in seeking reinstatement: “The omission of a time limit for a permitted or required task normally means that the task is to be performed- within a reasonable time,” a requirement the plaintiff in Muze unquestionably satisfied by requesting reinstatement a mere six days following the close of the period allowed for completion- of the settlement. Muze, 356 F.3d at 495. Defendants-appellees rely in part on this statement in Muze in arguing that the district court acted within its discretion in dismissing Hoefer’s action. Hoefer’s first submission to the district court following the April 23, 2013 order is dated August 30, 2013, which was 69 days after the close of the 60-day period for settlement. In that letter, Hoefer informed the district court that the settlement had not been approved and requested-that the district court set a date “by which the settlement will be approved and the proceeds paid or return this matter to .the trial calendar.” - Muze does not hold that.a plaintiff who waits 69 days before requesting reinstatement has not acted within a reasonable time. Although it may well have been- prudent for Hoefer to have acted sooner, we conclude that the passage of 69 days, standing alone, does not justify the extreme sanction of involuntary dismissal. Moreover, we see no prejudice to defendants that resulted- from Hoefer’s delay. To the contrary, defendants posed no obr jection baséd on this delay when, after Hoefer sent a second letter concerning reinstatement dated September 18, 2013, the district court acted on September 20, 2013 to schedule and hold a conference on October 24, 2013, resuming the litigation. Rather than object to the continuation of thé litigation,- Eastwood sought leave to file a second summary judgment motion. Eastwood did not raise the question of dismissal for Hoefer’s failure to request timely reinstatement until his letter of May 5, 2014, and even that submission did not allege that- the time Hoefer took--to request reinstatement caused him any prejudice. In addition to their reliance on Muze, defendants-appellees raise several other arguments in support of their view that the district court acted within its discretion in dismissing Hoefer’s action, none of which we find persuasive. They argue, first, that the facts of this case are analogous to those of Niederland v. Chase, 425 Fed.Appx. 10 (2d Cir.2011), a case upon which the district court relied in part in support of its dismissal. Niederland, an unpublished summary order, is not prece-dential. Moreover, the holding of Nieder-land is not on point. In Niederland, the district court had issued an October 26, 2009 order closing the case, after the parties had notified the court the previous June that.the case “had been settled.” Id. at 13-14. Sometime thereafter, plaintiff Margot Niederland made an informal letter request to reopen the action, which the district court denied in a February 2, 2010 order. Id. at 10-11. On March 5, 2010, Niederland filed a motion for reconsiderar tion of that order under Rule 60(b)(1). Id. at 12. The district court denied this motion as untimely, considering it, in effect, a motion for reconsideration of the October 26, 2009 closure order, and Niederland appealed the denial to this Court. Id. This Court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denial of the Rule 60(b)(1) motion, agreeing with the district court that the motion was an attempt to assert an otherwise time-barred appeal of the October 26, 2009 closure, order. Id. at 12-13. In dicta, the Niederland summary order cites Muze, 356 F.3d at 495, for the principle that a dismissal order that does not set “a time-frame for dismissal” does not' give parties unlimited time for submitting final settlement documentation or requesting further action on the part of the district court. Niederland, 425 Fed.Appx. at 13. But this discussion is in the larger context of rejecting Niederland’s argument that the October 26, 2009 closure order was not a final order of dismissal and therefore not appealable. Referring to the time period between the communication of a settlement and the October 26, 2009 entry of the final order closing the case, the summary order concludes that “when after five months no party had communicated to the district court any need to reactívate the case, the court reasonably entered a final order of closure.” Id. Citing Muze, the Niederland panel opined in dicta that the period of nearly five months during which no party contacted the court caused .it to doubt whether Niederland could have succeeded had she appealed the October 26, 2009 closure, but it then stated,, “that is not the issue before us.” Id. at 14-, . Defendants-appellees also argue that reinstatement would be largely futile as a state court judgment already has been entered finding that the allegedly protected speech, at least in part, .was defamatory. Similarly, they maintain that Hoefer is unable to' demonstrate prejudice in the absence ‘of reinstatement because any alleged violation of his constitutional rights has been remedied by his receipt of proceeds of the initially proposed global settlement. Because these arguments pertain to the merits of one or more of Hoefer’s claims or to details of . the incomplete settlement negotiations, they address issues not before us in this appeal. ■ Defendants-appellees suggest, finally, that dismissals such as the one ordered in this ease are “jurisdictional.” This argument is meritless because, as we discussed previously and as defendants-appellees acknowledge, the district court dismissed Hoefer’s action as an exercise of discretion.