Court Opinion

ID: 9443288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:16:54.618529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:26.273543
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
1. An order like this one for the exclusive purpose of reviving litigation is ordinarily, I think, non-appealable. So courts have held where a motion for a new trial is granted, Hume v. Bowie, 148 U.S. 245, 13 S.Ct. 582, 37 L.Ed. 438, or, under 60(b), where an old judgment is vacated. United States v. Agne, 3 Cir., 161 F.2d 331. There is, of course, one traditional *306exception to the non-appealability of such orders, and that is where the lower court had no jurisdiction to grant the order,' i. e., where the time limit on a motion for new trial had run. Phillips v. Negley, 117 U.S. 665, 6 S.Ct. 901, 29 L.Ed. 1013. Cf. Larsen v. Wright & Cobb Lighterage Co., 2 Cir., 167 F.2d 320. Those cases might be applied to permit review of 60(b) orders if challenged on the ground that the judge had no power under that Rule to make them in the first place. So, here, appellant argues that 60(b) does not permit relief after a year from an order (not a judgment) based upon a stipulation inadvertently entered into by one of the parties and subsequently rendered burdensome to that party by a change in the law. My colleagues, however, have skipped over the question of whether the judge here had jurisdiction, under the Rule, to vacate the order, and have apparently decided that we can review his action on the merits, i. e., decide whether or not he correctly exercised his discretion. With this disposition I disagree.
In addition, it seems to me, the appropriate way for defendant to raise the question is by a motion to dismiss plaintiff’s appeal, if and whenever he attempts to perfect it after the long lapse of time. Then defendant can urge not only the plaintiff’s delay but the alleged invalidity of the order setting aside the stipulation. In the alternative, defendant can wait until the appeal is perfected and urge the invalidity of that order as a ground of affirming the original judgment in defendant’s favor. Since at least one of those methods is open to the defendant, I think irrelevant the exception vis a vis appeals announced in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528.
2. Since my colleagues have, mistakenly I think, gone on to dispose of the case on the merits, I feel it well to state my disagreement in this area too. The trial judge found enough equities on plaintiff’s side to support a cancellation of the stipulation, and I think his discretion should not be lightly overturned. Plaintiff was a seaman in 1949, who found himself in the unfortunate position of having his lawsuit pulled out from under him by a Supreme Court decision saying he had sued the wrong person. Rather than prosecute a meaningless appeal, he stipulated for dismissal of the appeal from the negligence action in return for immediate payment of his maintenance-and-cure claim. Otherwise he might have to wait several more years to secure this minimum compensation for his medical expenses in a new suit against the United States; perhaps (the record is not clear on this) the statute of limitations had already run on that claim against the United States. It is true that plaintiff may or should have had some general idea that Congress would probably restore some of these rights against the United States by extending the time for suit. But he had no idea when such legislation would come into effect; it was, in fact, a year and a quarter after the McAllister case before the Enabling Act finally passed. That is a long time for a seaman to wait for hospital expenses. Plaintiff had little idea that his action in dismissing the appeal would forfeit his rights in a future action against the United States; he may well have assumed that Congress would wipe the slate clean for all those who had mistakenly sued the shipping companies, and that they would be given a new chance to sue the right party, without reference to the outcome of their suits aginst the shipping companies.. He probably could not have foreseen the disqualifying clause in the Enabling Act .providing that only those plaintiffs could sue again whose initial suits had been “dismissed solely because improperly 'brought against” an improper party.
It would be different here, too, if defendant stood to lose anything by the cancellation of the stipulation, but it doesn’t. Defendant’s maintenance-and-cure contribution has been returned to it; the only .thing that can happen on appeal is that defendant will be totally exonerated from liability under the McAllister decision. The plaintiff’s next moves will be against the United States, not the defendant. I see no injustice, therefore, resulting from the cancellation of the stipulation. See The Hiram, 1 Wheat. 440, 14 U.S. 440, 4 L.Ed. 131; Aronstam v. All-Russian Central Union of Consumer’s Societies, 2 Cir., 270 *307F. 460; Brast v. Winding Gulf Colliery Co., 4 Cir., 94 F.2d 179; Hodgson Oil Refining Co. v. United States, 74 Ct.Cl. 303. All of these cases set aside stipulations entered into under a mistaken impression of the law (roughly analogous to the plaintiff’s situation here) when cancellation would prejudice neither party. They emphasized, too, that a district court’s exercise of discretion in setting aside such stipulations should rarely be tampered with.