Court Opinion

ID: 9469581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:44:14.453608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:27.559332
License: Public Domain

EAST, Senior District Judge,
specially concurring:
I specially concur in the conclusion of the majority that this court held appellate jurisdiction.
The majority reaches that conclusion through the route of Rule 59, Fed.R.Civ.P., and the case law. I do not disagree on that score. However, I do believe that an equally rational alternate route to appellate jurisdiction is available through Rule 60(b)(6), Fed.R.Civ.P., and the case law.
The District Court, without an oral hearing and proceeding solely upon Parisie’s pro se papers, entered a summary judgment in favor of Greer on December 18, 1979. On February 2, 1980, Parisie filed his pro se motion with supporting memorandum, for reconsideration of the December 18, 1979 final judgment. The District Court recognized that “liberal construction is to be accorded material drawn pro se” and entertained the merits of the motion for reconsideration. Wilson v. Phend, 417 F.2d 1197, 1199 (7th Cir. 1969). See also Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972); Bryant v. Harris, 465 F.2d 365 (7th Cir. 1972). Thereupon the District Court considered the motion as having been made under both Rule 59 and Rule 60 and ultimately denied the merits of the motion for reconsideration on May 8, 1980. Parisie timely filed a notice of appeal from that denial order.
Mr. Justice Blackmun entered a concurring opinion in Browder v. Director, Ill. Dept. of Corrections, 434 U.S. 257, at 272, 98 S.Ct. 556 at 565, 54 L.Ed.2d 521. I find the following sentence at the close of page 274, 98 S.Ct. of page 566 more challenging than disarming:
Under these circumstances [respondent’s disavowal of reliance on Rule 60(b)], I see no obligation on this Court’s part to attempt to rescue respondent’s case on a Rule 60(b) basis.
In its published disposition of this case, this court held that the District Court committed reversible error in failing in its summary judgment to consider and adjudicate the decisive constitutional issue of “[w]hether Parisie was deprived of his *1019Sixth Amendment right to present a defense when the trial court refused to allow three crucial defense witnesses to testify.” 671 F.2d 1011.
Here the pro se defendant acted as promptly as his circumstances of imprisonment would permit to alert the attention of the District Court to the lack of its consideration and adjudication of the decisive issue of whether he had been accorded constitutional due process throughout his state court criminal trial. He clung to every procedure open to him.
I would elect to consider the cause here as a timely appeal from the District Court’s denial of the merits of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for reconsideration of the December 18, 1979 summary judgment.
In Klapprott v. United States, 385 U.S. 601, 614-15, 69 S.Ct. 384, 390-391, 93 L.Ed. 266 (1949), the Court held that Rule 60(b)(6), for all reasons except the five particularly specified in Rule 60(b)(l)-(5), “vests power in courts adequate to enable them to vacate judgments whenever such action is appropriate to accomplish justice.” The denial of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion is a final order within the meaning of Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure 4(a), and is thus appealable. Browder v. Director, Ill. Dept. of Corrections, 434 U.S. at 263 n.7, 98 S.Ct. at 560 n.7. However, the filing of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion neither affects the finality of the original judgment nor tolls the time limit for taking an appeal from that judgment. Id.; Ellingsworth v. Chrysler, 665 F.2d 180, 183 (7th Cir. 1981); Needham v. White Laboratories, Inc., 639 F.2d 394, 397 n.4 (7th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 927, 102 S.Ct. 427, 70 L.Ed.2d 237 (1981). Thus, a Rule 60(b)(6) motion does not bring up the underlying judgment- for appellate review, and a ruling on such a motion is reviewable only for an abuse of discretion. Browder v. Director, Ill. Dept. of Corrections; Ellingsworth v. Chrysler; Ben Sager Chemicals International, Inc. v. E. Targosz & Co., 560 F.2d 805, 809 (7th Cir. 1977).
A grant of relief under the circumstances here will not violate the policy of preventing Rule 60(b)(6) from being used to circumvent the requirement of a timely notice of appeal. See Fox v. Brewer, 620 F.2d 177 (8th Cir. 1980); Oliver v. Home Indemnity Co., 470 F.2d 329 (5th Cir. 1972). Parisie can in no sense be said to have made a “free, calculated, deliberate” choice not to appeal from the summary judgment. See Ackermann v. United States, 340 U.S. 193, 198, 71 S.Ct. 209, 211, 95 L.Ed. 207 (1950).
I conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in not considering and adjudicating Parisie’s renewed constitutional due process claim through a reconsideration of the delinquent summary judgment.
Ordinarily, the cause should be remanded to the District Court for such a reconsideration in light of the pertinent authorities cited in the court’s published decision herein. However, since we have the same record before us that would be before the District Court, and the parties have fully addressed us on the issue through the briefings, we should deem that judicial expediency and the furtherance of justice demand that we meet the issue and make a disposition now in the light of the pertinent authorities cited in the published decision.
I join in the majority’s denial of Greer’s petition for rehearing.