Opinion ID: 204027
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Motion to Set Aside Default

Text: A hearing on damages was set for March 24, 2008. On Easter Sunday, the eve of trial, the Municipality moved in the district court to set aside the default judgment, arguing that the recent decision of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), mandated that result. In fact, Twombly had been decided in May 2007 ten months before the Municipality's motion to set aside default and two months before the entry of default judgment. In their motion, defendants once again argued that the complaint did not state a claim for relief. This time, they added the new twist that under Twombly, plaintiffs' complaint would never have survived defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion. On March 24, 2008, the district court rejected the eleventh hour motion as both untimely and without merit. The court characterized the motion as a misnamed motion for reconsideration of the defendants' earlier motion for judgment on the pleadings, because it only argued the sufficiency of the pleadings and did not otherwise argue that the default was an abuse of discretion. The court stated that: [U]nder the more stringent Twombly standard, Plaintiffs still plead a cause of action. They argue that they were entitled to some payments under a contract with the Municipality and that the new Mayor, a member of the PDP, refused to pay them only because of Plaintiffs' association with the former Mayor, a member of the NPP. Citing our earlier decision in this case, the court remarked that said discrimination is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect, and therefore, [plaintiffs] have plead enough to show plausible entitlement to relief under the First Amendment. After the damages hearing, the court entered judgments of $180,000, plus pre- and post-judgment interest, for both Remexcel and Kortright. This appeal followed.