Court Opinion

ID: 9405095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-27 16:00:49.629826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:19.337235
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13823    Document: 47-1     Date Filed: 06/27/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-13823
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       KEITH FERNANDEZ,
                                                     Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       FREEDOM HEALTH, INC.,
       OPTIMUM HEALTHCARE, INC.,
       PHYSICIAN PARTNERS, LLC,

                                                 Defendants-Appellees.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
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       2                     Opinion of the Court                22-13823

                    D.C. Docket No. 8:18-cv-01959-MSS-JSS
                          ____________________

       Before GRANT, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
                                        I.
             In August 2018, Keith Fernandez filed a qui tam suit against
       three medical services companies under the False Claims Act. For
       purposes of this appeal, what he claimed is far less important than
       when he filed his pleadings.
              After the initial complaint, Fernandez requested and
       received at least three extensions of time to respond to various
       motions and file reports. Then, in May 2021, the court dismissed
       his complaint for failing to plead with sufficient particularity. To
       fix these defects, the court granted Fernandez an extension:
       twenty-one days to amend his complaint. That gave him until June
       16, 2021. On June 16, however, he requested another extension
       until July 14, which the court granted.
               July 14 came and went with no further action from
       Fernandez. Two days later, he moved for a third extension of time
       to file the complaint, which the court denied because he had not
       explained why the extension was necessary. Over a month later,
       Fernandez moved again, this time citing communication
       difficulties as the justification. The court granted the motion,
       emphasizing that its order represented “one final opportunity to
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       22-13823              Opinion of the Court                        3

       file an Amended Complaint” by September 20, 2021. “No further
       extensions will be granted,” the court added.
             That statement proved premature. Instead of filing the
       complaint on September 20, 2021, Fernandez filed a motion to stay
       the case, which the court granted a few months later. In
       conjunction with the stay, it gave him fourteen days to file his
       amended complaint, which resulted in a new deadline of April 19,
       2022. On that date, Fernandez filed yet another request for an
       extension of time, but he also—finally—included his amended
       complaint as well. Almost one year had passed since the original
       amended complaint deadline.
              About four months later, the court dismissed Fernandez’s
       amended complaint for failure to “demonstrate due diligence and
       just cause for delay” related to proceedings after he filed the
       amended complaint. The dismissal was with prejudice, the court
       explained, because Fernandez had “engaged in a clear pattern of
       delay or willful contempt” and “lesser sanctions would not suffice.”
       He then appealed this dismissal and the court’s denial of his motion
       to reconsider.
                                       II.
             We review jurisdictional questions and the dismissal of a
       complaint de novo. Auto. Alignment & Body Serv., Inc. v. State Farm
       Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 953 F.3d 707, 719 (11th Cir. 2020). We review
       the denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion.
       Id.
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       4                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13823

                                       III.
              “The timely filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case is a
       jurisdictional requirement.” Green v. Drug Enf’t Admin., 606 F.3d
       1296, 1300 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted and alteration
       adopted). To be timely, a notice of appeal in a civil proceeding
       “must be filed with the district clerk within 30 days after entry of
       the judgment or order appealed from.” Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A).
              Given the history of this case, it may be unsurprising that
       Fernandez failed to timely file a proper notice of appeal. But the
       path to our holding is not intuitive. Fernandez did appeal the
       court’s latest dismissal within the required period. But we do not
       have jurisdiction to evaluate his appeal because he failed to timely
       appeal or set aside a much earlier district court order that became
       the final judgment in his case: the May 2021 dismissal.
              Our recent holding in Automotive Alignment all but decides
       this case. 953 F.3d 707. There the district court had dismissed
       plaintiffs’ complaints without prejudice “with leave to amend
       within a specified time” but some plaintiffs “missed the deadline to
       amend without ever seeking an extension of time.” Id. at 716, 720.
       This Court reiterated that “an order dismissing a complaint with
       leave to amend within a specified time becomes a final judgment if
       the time allowed for amendment expires without the plaintiff
       seeking an extension.” Id. at 719–20; see Hertz Corp. v. Alamo Rent-
       A-Car, Inc., 16 F.3d 1126, 1132–33 (11th Cir. 1994). And so “the
       orders of dismissal became final judgments when the deadline to
       amend expired” and because they were never appealed, this Court
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       22-13823                Opinion of the Court                          5

       lacked jurisdiction to decide the merits of the later orders that were
       appealed. Auto. Alignment, 953 F.3d at 719–20.
              That is almost exactly what happened here. The court
       dismissed Fernandez’s complaint on May 26, 2021 and gave leave
       to amend until June 16. On June 16, Fernandez moved for more
       time, and the court extended the deadline until July 14. But
       Fernandez did not file his complaint before this deadline. Nor did
       he ask for more time until it had already passed. The court’s May
       26, 2021 dismissal thus became a final judgment on July 14, 2021.
       It makes no difference that the case continued after the final
       judgment. When the judgment became final, the district court
       “surrendered jurisdiction” and its orders entered “after that time
       were a nullity and must be vacated.” Id. at 720 (quotations
       omitted).
              Despite that final judgment, Fernandez still had three
       options. “The only recourse for a plaintiff who seeks to set aside
       the final judgment is to appeal, Fed. R. App. P. 3, move to alter or
       amend the judgment, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), or move for relief from
       the final judgment, Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b).” Id. In Automotive
       Alignment, we clarified that relief under Federal Rule of Procedure
       6(b)(1)(B) was not an option. Even though it allows for past
       deadlines to be extended, Rule 6(b)(1)(B) “does not allow a district
       court to extend the time for a party to act after it has entered a final
       judgment.” Id. at 720. Thus, even if the court’s orders here were
       grounded in Rule 6(b)(1)(B)—which they never mention—they
       could not alter the final judgment.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13823

               The only way for Fernandez to negate that final judgment
       was to appeal that order—which he did not—or for the court to
       grant one or more Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b) motions. A Rule 59(e)
       motion, for example, requests that the court alter or amend a
       judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). And a Rule 60(b) motion asks for
       relief from a final judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P 60(b). Although none
       of the motions or orders here references Rule 59 or 60, the court in
       Automotive Alignment raised the possibility that deadline extensions
       could still qualify under those rules. 953 F.3d at 722. But ultimately
       it did not consider whether it should “construe the grant of relief
       under Rule 6(b)(1)(B) as granting a postjudgment motion under
       Rules 59(e) or 60(b)” because the parties affirmatively waived that
       argument. Id.
               On this record, we cannot construe Fernandez’s motions
       and the court’s orders in a way that rescues this appeal. No motion
       references Rule 59 or 60, and no order grants relief under those
       rules. Of course, we look to “functions rather than labels” when
       construing motions. Hertz Corp., 16 F.3d at 1131. But a functional
       lens is not enough here.
              Assume, for a moment, that we could construe both
       Fernandez’s July 16, 2021 and August 29, 2021 motions as timely
       motions to amend, alter, or relieve him of judgment under Rule
       59(e) or Rule 60(b). Then the new court-ordered deadline to file
       the amended complaint would have been September 20, 2021. But
       Fernandez did not file his complaint or ask for an extension on that
       date; he moved to stay the case instead. We cannot construe this
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       22-13823                  Opinion of the Court                                7

       motion to stay (or the court’s later order granting it) as working
       under Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b). Unlike his motions for
       extensions—which at least arguably functioned as requests to
       change the specific due date set out in the May 26 order—the stay
       motion in no way asked for a change to or relief from the specific
       final judgment.
               So, at the very latest, the judgment became final (again)
       when the time to amend expired on September 20, 2021, and the
       district court “surrendered jurisdiction” on that date. Auto.
       Alignment, 953 F.3d at 720 (quotation omitted). Yet Fernandez
       appealed over one year later, on November 10, 2022, and never
       appealed the May 2021 dismissal. Even assuming that the court’s
       extensions somehow reopened the judgment or pushed out
       Fernandez’s time to appeal, he never appealed the “operative final
       judgment[]” in this case, and he could not do so because “the
       deadline to appeal ha[d] expired.” 1 Id. at 722. The orders on appeal
       are thus “a nullity” and we cannot review them. See id. at 720.

       1 The time to appeal “is measured from the date on which the district court
       order of dismissal becomes final.” Schuurman v. Motor Vessel Betty K V, 798 F.2d
       442, 445 (11th Cir. 1986). We need not decide whether the judgment was
       required to be set out in a separate order to be considered entered and begin
       the clock to appeal. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 58; Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7). Even if it
       were, 150 days after the entry of the dismissal order, the thirty-day appeal
       window would begin to run, meaning the time to appeal the operative final
       judgment expired long before Fernandez appealed the later order. See id.
       None of Rule 4’s other parts could have extended Fernandez’s appeal time by
       a full year. No Rule 4(a)(5) motion to extend the time to appeal was filed. And
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       8                        Opinion of the Court                    22-13823

                                        *       *       *
             Because the court surrendered jurisdiction in September
       2021 at the latest, we VACATE the district court orders dismissing
       the amended complaint and denying reconsideration and
       REMAND for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

       nothing suggests that the district court reopened the time to file an appeal
       under Rule 4(a)(6).