Court Opinion

ID: 9704420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:34:55.140322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:02.297518
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the majority’s conclusion that Dr. Fischer’s Rule 59(e) motion was timely. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.1
I.
As my colleagues point out, the question whether the three-day mailing extension in Rule 6(e) refers to calendar days (as the plaintiff argues) or to business days (as the defendant maintains) is one of law, and we must consider it de novo. This precise issue has never been decided or directly addressed by this court. Each party in*142vites our attention to authorities in which, it claims, weekends were included in the three-day period (in cases cited by Ms. Faggins),2 or were not included (in decisions cited by Dr. Fischer),3 but the specific issue now before us was not explicitly contested or addressed in any of these cases. “The rule of stare decisis is never properly invoked unless in the decision put forward as precedent the judicial mind has been applied to and passed upon the precise question.” Fletcher v. Scott, 201 Minn. 609, 277 N.W. 270, 272 (1938), quoted in Murphy v. McCloud, 650 A.2d 202, 205 (D.C.1994).
Although there is no controlling District of Columbia precedent, it is undisputed, and my colleagues in the majority acknowledge, that the identical federal rule — Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — has been consistently construed as providing a mailing extension of three calendar days, not three business days. See, e.g., CNPq-Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico v. Inter-Trade, Inc., 311 U.S.App.D.C. 85, 87, 50 F.3d 56, 58 (1995) (per curiam) (hereinafter Conselho Nacional); Vaquillas Ranch Co. v. Texaco Exploration & Prod., Inc., 844 F.Supp. 1156, 1159 (S.D.Tex.1994); Nat’l Sav. Bank v. Jefferson Bank, 127 F.R.D. 218, 222 n. 7 (S.D.Fla.1989); Nalty v. Nalty Tree Farm, 654 F.Supp. 1315, 1318 (S.D.Ala.1987); see also Moore’s Federal Practice, § 6.05[2] at 6.32-33 (3d ed. 2001) (stating that the courts have declined to adopt the theory that the three-day extension for mailing in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 6(e) is itself a “period of time” within the meaning of Rule 6(a) from which weekends and holidays should be excluded); Bender’s Federal Practice Forms 6-8 to 6-9 (Lexis ed. 2001) (“The automatic three day extension is an extension of calendar days, not three business days.”). “We construe the rules of the Superior Court in light of the corresponding federal rules, unless such interpretation is contrary to binding precedent.” Lynch, 491 A.2d at 518 n. 4 (citations omitted). There is no binding precedent, contrary or otherwise, in this jurisdiction.
In Conselho Nacional, a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the court resolved the precise point here at issue as follows:
Rule 6(a) sets forth the method for “computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by these rules.” Rule 6(e) does not, we think, establish a “period of time” within the meaning of Rule 6(a). The latter apparently contemplates periods of time bounded by specific acts or occurrences — such as the period of time between service of a magistrate’s judgment and the filing of objections. Rule 6(e) does not, in our view, establish a “period of time” in this sense. It provides for a three-day extension to a “prescribed period,” and that extension is not in itself a period governed by Rule 6(a)’s counting instructions for periods under eleven days. See Tushner v. United States District Court, 829 F.2d 853, 855-56 (9th Cir. 1987); National Savings Bank of Albany v. Jefferson Bank, 127 F.R.D. 218, 222 n. 7 (S.D.Fla.1989); Natty v. Natty Tree Farm, 654 F.Supp. 1315, 1316-17 (S.D.Ala.1987); 4A Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1171, at 516-20 (2d ed. 1987). In computing *143time under both 6(a) and 6(e), the three-day addition for mailing should have no effect in determining the run of the prescribed period, such as the ten-day period for objection under Rule 72. When the Rules provide for a period of less than eleven days, its run should be computed excluding weekends and holidays, pursuant to Rule 6(a), and the three-day extension — counting weekends and holidays — should then be added at the end [4]
311 U.S.App.D.C. at 87, 50 F.3d at 58 (emphasis added). Dr. Fischer makes no attempt, nor can he, to distinguish Consel-ho Nacional, but argues that the decision is not binding on us and is not persuasive. My colleagues in the majority likewise decline to follow Conselho Nacional.
Although it is true, as Dr. Fischer maintains, that opinions of the local United States Court of Appeals are no longer binding on this court, see M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C.1971), we treat them as highly persuasive. I would do so here, in part, because we should not, in the absence of a compelling reason, create the kind of confusion that would arise if identical language in the federal and Superior Court rules were treated as meaning something quite different by courts located across the street from one another, so that, notwithstanding their textual identity, the Superior Court rule would accept as timely a motion which would be denied as untimely by the United States District Court. Cf. Hornstein v. Barry, 560 A.2d 530, 536 n. 15 (D.C.1989) (en banc) (emphasizing desirability of “harmony between court systems and uniformity of result in the same geographic area”).5
In Nat’l Sav. Bank, the court concisely addressed the precise issue presented here:
The [cjourt notes that Rule 6(e)’s 3-day extension is not subject to Rule 6(a)’s exclusion of intermediate weekends and holidays. Rule 6(a) speaks in terms of computing times allowed or prescribed by rules, while Rule 6(e) speaks of adding to prescribed periods. It is fairly obvious that one cannot add to a period not yet defined or prescribed. Hence, it would be unreasonable to conclude that a party may exclude intermediate weekends and holidays when computing the separate 3-day mailing period. Allen v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 1987 WL 7365, 1987 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1158 (S.D.N.Y. February 20,1987).
127 F.R.D. at 222 n. 7 (emphasis in original).
The majority has not cited any authority, and I have found none, in which the three-day mailing period of Rule 6(e)— either the federal rule or the local rule— has been held to refer to business days. The majority relies primarily on Wallace v. Warehouse Employees Union No. 730, 482 A.2d 801, 802 (D.C.1984), in which the court stated that “each period of time ... is to be considered separately.” In my colleagues’ view, the three-day mailing extension is therefore a “period of time” *144from which Saturdays and Sundays are to be excluded pursuant to Rule 6(a). In my view, however, the court reads Wallace as standing for a proposition which the court had no occasion to, and did not, address. In Wallace, as the court noted, the court was presented with “basically two methods of computing time.” Id. at 808. Under one method, the ten-day prescribed period and three-day extensions were combined to form a single thirteen-day period (thus including weekends and holidays). Id. at 808-10. Under the other method, which the court adopted, the ten-day “prescribed period” was calculated first (excluding weekends and holidays), and the three-day mailing extension was then added. Id. The court’s instruction to consider each period “separately” was, therefore, an instruction not to combine the periods into a single period of thirteen days, as was urged by the appellant in that case, but instead to calculate the prescribed period of ten days first, followed by “three additional days to the period already provided.” Id. Indeed, the plaintiff asserts, and Dr. Fischer does not deny, that all of the mailing days before the court in Wallace were weekdays, so that the issue whether the three-day mailing extension excludes Saturdays and Sundays, as Dr. Fischer insists, simply was not presented or addressed. Indeed, my colleagues acknowledge, maj. op. at 137, that in Wallace, “nothing turned on the distinction” between business days and calendar days, whereas that distinction is dispositive of the present appeal.
The majority also cites Singer v. Singer, 588 A.2d 689 (D.C.1990) (per curiam). The court held in Singer, citing Wallace, that the additional five-day period then provided by former D.C.App. R. 4(a)(3)6 for filing a notice of appeal from an order entered outside the presence of the court should be considered separately from the thirty-day period for filing a notice of appeal, and that Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays should be excluded from the five-day period. The court held, in other words, that the five-day period should be construed as meaning five business days. But the five-day period at issue in Singer differs from the three-day extension in the case before us in that it comes into operation before the thirty-day period begins to run; it therefore cannot be characterized as an “extension” of that period. Cf. Conselho Nacional, 311 U.S.App.D.C. at 87, 50 F.3d at 58. Moreover, in a footnote at the conclusion of the opinion, the court effectively differentiated the situation in Singer from the case before us:
[w]hen á judgment or final order is entered or decided out of the presence of the parties and counsel, such judgment or order shall not be considered as having been entered, for the purpose of calculating the time for filing a notice of appeal ... until the fifth day after the Clerk of the Superior Court has made an entry on the docket ... reflecting the mailing of notice by that clerk.
The plain language of Rule 4(a)(3) also supports treating the five-day period as a separate period. The rule does not provide that a party has thirty-five days to file a notice of appeal or that five additional days are added to the thirty days. Instead, Rule 4(a)(3) states that this court does not begin counting the thirty-day period for filing a notice of appeal until five days after the trial court enters the judgment on its docket.
Singer, 583 A.2d at 691 n. 1 (emphasis added). The italicized language in the footnote fairly characterizes the scenario before us: under Rule 6(a) and (e), three additional days are added to the ten days provided by Rule 59. By its own terms, therefore, Singer cannot control the present case.
*145Nor is Dr. Fischer’s position materially aided by our statements in Wallace that Rule 6(e) should be construed “liberally” to avoid inequity, 482 A.2d at 809, and “to further the cause of justice.” Id. at n. 23. Although I agree that the rule should be equitably construed, I do not consider that principle to be helpful to Dr. Fischer here. Whether, in a situation such as the one here presented, the period within which Dr. Fischer had to file his motion should exclude weekends and holidays (as Dr. Fischer urges) or include them (as Ms. Faggins contends) does not implicate equitable principles or “the cause of justice,” for there is nothing unfair or inequitable either in giving Dr. Fischer, on facts such as these, a total of twenty days to file his motion or in allowing only eighteen days. Rather, what is required is fair notice to litigants regarding the date by which they must file. In light of the analogous decision in Conselho Nacional by the United States Court of Appeals for this Circuit, Dr. Fischer’s counsel was on notice that filing the motion on the last day under his own theory of computation — a theory lacking any analogous support at all in the case law — was, at the very best, an unduly risky venture, and a decision to follow the federal precedents cannot reasonably be viewed as unfair to Dr. Fischer. Indeed, I believe that a decision construing our rule consistently with the federal rule, in this Circuit and elsewhere, would be just and equitable in that it would enhance predictability and thus diminish the likelihood of miscalculation.
II.
For the foregoing reasons, I would hold that Dr. Fischer’s Rule 59(e) motion was untimely. Accordingly, and although I would agree with my colleagues (if I were to reach that issue) that a new trial was warranted and that the result of the second trial must therefore stand, I must respectfully dissent.

. On the merits, which cannot be reached under my view of the case, I agree with the majority that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in setting aside the verdict.

. Hunt v. Dental Capital Corp., 503 A.2d 205, 206 n. 4 (D.C. 1985); Lynch v. Meridian Hill Studio Apts., Inc., 491 A.2d 515, 517 n. 2 (D.C.1985).

. E.g., Hahn v. District of Columbia Water & Sewer Auth., 727 A.2d 317, 319 (D.C.1999).

. See also Vaquillas Ranch, 844 F.Supp. at 1159:
This [c]ourt adopts the combined approach of Nalty and National Savings and will not exclude weekends and holidays from the computation of the three day mailing extension of Rule 6(e), but will extend the period to the next official business day if the last day of the three days falls on a weekend or holiday.

. To be sure, in Homstein, this court and the United States Court of Appeals were construing the same constitutional provision, not identically worded but different rules of civil procedure. In my view, however, the interest in harmony in the present case is nevertheless almost as great as in Homstein.

. Rule 4(a)(3) provided that