Court Opinion

ID: 9950885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 00:00:34.115849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:37:14.717670
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-40422           Document: 54-1         Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/14/2024

          United States Court of Appeals
               for the Fifth Circuit
                                  ____________                     United States Court of Appeals
                                                                            Fifth Circuit

                                   No. 23-40422                           FILED
                                                                    March 14, 2024
                                 Summary Calendar
                                 ____________                        Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                          Clerk
Danny G. Shaw, Jr.; Melissa Shaw,

                                                               Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                         versus

The United Mexican States, c/o John Does 1-10, Et al.; The
Free and Sovereign State of Tamaulipas, c/o John Does 1-10,
Et al.; Tamaulipas State Police of Mexico, c/o John Does 1-10,
Et al.,

                                           Defendants—Appellees.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 7:18-CV-372
                  ______________________________

Before Davis, Ho, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam: *
      Plaintiffs-Appellants, Danny and Melissa Shaw, appeal the district
court’s dismissal of their complaint for failure to prosecute under Federal

      _____________________
      *
          This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-40422        Document: 54-1        Page: 2   Date Filed: 03/14/2024

                                 No. 23-40422

Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b). Plaintiffs additionally appeal the district
court’s order denying their attorney pro hac vice admission. We AFFIRM.
                                       I.
       Plaintiffs filed a complaint on November 21, 2018, alleging state-law
claims of battery, assault, loss of consortium, and intentional infliction of
emotional distress against Mexico, the State of Tamaulipas, and Tamaulipas
State Police of Mexico (collectively “Defendants”). Plaintiffs assert that on
November 25, 2016, officers of the Tamaulipas State Police “attempted to
murder Plaintiff Shaw, under the direction of Defendants, and while acting
within the scope of their employment as government officers.” Almost two
months after filing the complaint, Plaintiffs’ counsel, Larry Klayman, filed a
motion requesting pro hac vice admission to practice before the district court.
On February 11, 2019, the district court denied the motion at a hearing
attended by Mr. Klayman telephonically.
       Following the denial of Mr. Klayman’s pro hac vice motion, Plaintiffs
informed the district court that they would proceed pro se until they could
retain alternative counsel. From February 11, 2019, through June 29, 2021,
Plaintiffs proceeded pro se. During this time period, the district court granted
Plaintiffs’ numerous motions for continuances of status conferences and for
extensions of time to obtain counsel and effectuate service on Defendants
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(j).
       On June 29, 2021, Plaintiffs’ new counsel entered a notice of
appearance.    At a status conference the next day, Plaintiffs’ counsel
requested another extension of time to effectuate service. The district court
ordered counsel to file a motion in writing requesting the extension.
Plaintiffs’ counsel filed the motion for an extension on October 28, 2021,
almost four months after the district court ordered him to do so. Although
Plaintiffs’ motion was struck from the record for failure to comply with the

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                                  No. 23-40422

local rules and no further action was taken to refile the motion, the district
court permitted counsel to argue for the extension at a March 9, 2022 status
conference. At the conference, the district court granted the motion, and
gave Plaintiffs until June 24, 2022, to serve Defendants.
       On June 24, Plaintiffs once again moved for an extension of time to
effectuate service. In their June 24 filing, Plaintiffs noted that they had
retained a third-party to serve the Mexican government in compliance with
the Hague Convention. However, Plaintiffs’ filing was once again struck
from the record as deficient under local rules, and Plaintiffs did not file any
further motions for an extension. After several months of inactivity, the
district court set a status conference for September 19, 2022. Plaintiffs
attended neither the September 19 conference nor the rescheduled
September 28 conference. On September 28, 2022, the district court
dismissed Plaintiffs’ complaint sua sponte for want of prosecution under Rule
41(b), noting that in the four years since Plaintiffs filled suit, they had yet to
serve Defendants and failed to appear for two status conferences.
       On October 12, 2022, Plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration of
the court’s Rule 41(b) dismissal. During a December 13 hearing, the district
court granted Plaintiffs’ motion to reconsider and reinstated their case “only
for the purpose” of allowing Defendants to file a motion to dismiss “for
reasons other than failure to prosecute.” Before concluding the hearing, the
court set a briefing scheduling for Defendants’ motion to dismiss and
scheduled a motion hearing for March 8, 2023.
       On February 2, 2023, Defendants filed their timely motion to dismiss,
making Plaintiffs’ opposition due February 24. Plaintiffs moved for a
fourteen-day extension of time, until March 10, to file their opposition.
Although the district court did not rule on Plaintiffs’ extension, Plaintiffs
nonetheless did not file their opposition by the February 24 deadline.

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                                        No. 23-40422

Plaintiffs’ counsel 1 additionally failed to appear at the March 8 motion
hearing. The next day—thirteen days after the deadline—Plaintiffs filed
their opposition to Defendants’ motion to dismiss.
        The district court rescheduled the unattended March 8 conference for
March 15, 2023. Plaintiffs’ counsel did not appear. During the March 15
hearing, the district court orally granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss for
want of prosecution. The court subsequently entered an order of dismissal
into the record, listing each instance of delay caused by Plaintiffs and
concluding that it had “undeniably resulted in great prejudice to the
Defendants.” Plaintiffs moved to set aside the order of dismissal, which the
district court denied. Plaintiffs timely appealed both the district court’s Rule
41(b) dismissal and the denial of Mr. Klayman’s pro hac vice application.
                                              II.
        We review a district court’s dismissal of an action for failure to
prosecute under Rule 41(b) for abuse of discretion. 2 However, in cases where
the dismissal is with prejudice, “our examination is searching.” 3 A “Rule
41(b) dismissal[] with prejudice will be affirmed only on a showing of [1] a
clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the plaintiff” and “[2]
where lesser sanctions would not serve the best interests of justice.” 4 In
addition to these two factors, we additionally consider whether certain
“aggravating factors” are present, including “the extent to which the
plaintiff, as distinguished from his counsel, was personally responsible for the

        _____________________
        1
            Defense counsel also failed to appear at the March 8, 2023 hearing.
        2
            Campbell v. Wilkinson, 988 F.3d 798, 801 (5th Cir. 2021).
        3
            Nottingham v. Warden, Bill Clements Unit, 837 F.3d 438, 441 (5th Cir. 2016).
        4
         Sealed Appellant v. Sealed Appellee, 452 F.3d 415, 417 (5th Cir. 2006) (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted).

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                                         No. 23-40422

delay, the degree of actual prejudice to the defendant, and whether the delay
was the result of intentional conduct.” 5
        As to the first requisite factor, there was a clear record of delay in this
case. “This Court has recognized that delay which warrants dismissal with
prejudice must be longer than just a few months; instead, the delay must be
characterized by significant periods of total inactivity.” 6                    We have
additionally recognized that “[a] delay between filing and service ordinarily
is to be viewed more seriously than a delay of a like period of time occurring
after service of process.” 7
        Here, Plaintiffs waited until four days before the statute of limitations
ran on their claims to file suit on November 21, 2018, 8 and then waited until
after a March 2022 status conference before even beginning the process of
effectuating service on Defendants. 9 Thus, Defendants emphasize that
“[t]his case languished on the docket [for] almost four years before

        _____________________
        5
            Id. at 418 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
        6
         Millan v. USAA Gen. Indem. Co., 546 F.3d 321, 326–27 (5th Cir. 2008) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted).
        7
           Sealed Appellant, 452 F.3d at 419–20 (quoting Veazey v. Young’s Yacht Sale &
Serv., Inc., 644 F.2d 475, 478 (5th Cir. Unit A May 1981)).
        8
           Plaintiffs’ complaint asserts claims under Texas law for events they allege
occurred on November 25, 2016. Thus, under Texas’s two-year statute of limitations, the
statute of limitations expired on November 25, 2018. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code
§ 16.003(a).
        9
          See contra Lucero v. Wheels India, Ltd., No. 23-10494, 2023 WL 8622293, at *3–4
(5th Cir. Dec. 13, 2023) (per curiam) (unpublished) (holding the district court abused its
discretion in dismissing a complaint in which service had not been effectuated under the
Hague Service Convention after a period of twenty-two months because plaintiffs twice
tried to effectuate service and initially “dispatched their service packet within a month of
the case’s removal to federal court”).

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                                       No. 23-40422

Defendants received a copy of the Complaint.” 10 We have previously
affirmed Rule 41(b) dismissals with prejudice for far shorter periods of delay
in cases, like this one, where the limitations period expired during the delay
in serving process. 11 Moreover, during the four-year delay in this case, there
were “significant periods of total inactivity,” such as from October 10, 2019
to May 10, 2021, where the district court noted “there was zero docket
activity of any kind.”
        On appeal, Plaintiffs argue that any delay or perceived contumacious
conduct was the result of the district court’s improper denial of Mr.
Klayman’s pro hac vice application, which left Plaintiffs “to proceed pro se and
with the arduous task of effectuating service of process on a foreign
government.” But both the record and the district court’s reasons for
dismissal contradict Plaintiffs’ assertion.              Specifically, the delay and
contumacious conduct cited by the district court mainly involves Plaintiffs’
actions (or inaction) after retaining alternative counsel, such as their failure
to: (1) attend four status conferences or hearings, (2) timely file an opposition
to Defendants’ motion to dismiss, and (3) timely file motions for extensions
of time to effectuate service. Thus, Plaintiffs’ efforts to blame their various
delays and failure to comply with court orders on their pro se status are
unavailing. As a result, the clear record of delay in this case supports the
district court’s dismissal under Rule 41(b).

        _____________________
        10
          At the December 13, 2022 hearing, Defendants stated they had not been served
with process yet in this case. At a hearing a few months later, on March 15, 2023, counsel
for Defendants informed the court that they had “recently received a copy of the petition,”
which is why counsel was “specifically appearing.”
        11
          See Sealed Appellant, 452 F.3d at 419 n.7 (collecting cases and noting that “[o]ther
courts . . . have affirmed dismissals with prejudice for failure to serve process where
limitations has run, even where the delay was as short as four moths”).

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                                         No. 23-40422

       As for the second requisite factor, the record supports the conclusion
that lesser sanctions would not have served the best interests of justice.
“When lesser sanctions have proved futile, a district court may properly
dismiss a suit with prejudice.” 12 Such lesser sanctions include, for example,
conditional dismissals, dismissals without prejudice, and explicit warnings by
the district court. 13 Furthermore, “[p]roviding plaintiff with a second or
third chance is itself a lenient sanction, which, when met with further default,
may justify imposition of the ultimate sanction of dismissal with prejudice.” 14
       The district court here gave Plaintiffs numerous second chances and
warnings, all of which proved futile. For example, after dismissing this case
for failure to prosecute the first time, the court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for
reconsideration and reinstated the case. But this prior dismissal did nothing
to change Plaintiffs’ behavior given that after their case was reinstated,
Plaintiffs failed to appear at two status conferences and missed the deadline
to file their opposition to Defendants’ motion to dismiss. After Plaintiffs
missed the second conference, the court provided another warning, explicitly
stating on the record that unless Plaintiffs filed “a motion within 14 days . . .
indicating that they’re asking for a hearing date . . . where they will be present,
the Court is going to dismiss this case for want of prosecution.” In light of
the above, “it is unclear what lesser sanctions could have been appropriate
following the district court’s warnings and second chances.” 15                         Thus,
because a lesser sanction would not better serve the interests of justice, the
second factor also supports dismissal here.

       _____________________
       12
            Hornbuckle v. Arco Oil & Gas Co., 732 F.2d 1233, 1237 (5th Cir. 1984).
       13
            In re Taxotere (Docetaxel) Prods. Liab. Lit., 966 F.3d 351, 360 (5th Cir. 2020).
       14
            Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
       15
            Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

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                                        No. 23-40422

       In addition to the two requisite factors discussed above, we have
generally only affirmed dismissals with prejudice when “at least one of the
aggravating factors” is also present. 16 In this case, the district court held that
Plaintiffs’ “clear record of delay—more than four years since the filing of this
lawsuit, and more than six years after the alleged incident is claimed to have
occurred—has undeniably resulted in great prejudice to the Defendants.”
We agree.
       This Court has previously acknowledged “that failure to serve
process within the statute of limitations period is extremely prejudicial
because it affects all the defendant’s preparations.” 17 In addition, “if the
statute [of limitations] has run, a potential defendant that has not been served
is entitled to expect that it will no longer have to defend the claim.” 18
Plaintiffs here waited until right before the statute of limitations expired to
file their case and then delayed serving Defendants for several years after the
statute of limitations expired. In light of this delay, Defendants assert that
reinstating Plaintiffs’ “fact-intensive” claims would be extremely prejudicial
because Plaintiffs deprived them “of any chance to conduct a meaningful
investigation into the incident by not providing them with notice of the claims
until almost six years after the shooting allegedly occurred.” Plaintiffs’ brief
on appeal does not dispute this prejudice.
       After conducting an independent review of the record, we conclude
that both requisite factors for dismissal with prejudice are present here, as
well as at least one aggravating factor. The district court therefore did not

       _____________________
       16
            Rogers v. Kroger Co., 669 F.2d 317, 320 (5th Cir. 1982).
       17
            Sealed Appellant, 452 F.3d at 418.
       18
            Id.

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                                       No. 23-40422

abuse its discretion in dismissing Plaintiffs’ complaint with prejudice for
failure to prosecute. 19 AFFIRMED.

        _____________________
        19
           We additionally find meritless Plaintiffs’ separate argument that the district
court abused its discretion in denying Mr. Klayman’s motion to appear pro hac vice. As
noted above, the district court did not primarily base its Rule 41(b) dismissal on Plaintiffs’
conduct during the time they proceeded as pro se litigants. More crucially, Plaintiffs’ brief
on appeal fails to identify why the district court abused its discretion in denying Mr.
Klayman’s motion. The district court held a hearing on Mr. Klayman’s pro hac vice motion,
and in a minute entry following the hearing stated that “[a]fter some discussion” the
motion was denied “as stated on the record.” Because Plaintiffs did not provide a
transcript of the hearing, we do not know what reasons the district court gave when ruling
on the motion. Regardless, Plaintiffs do not offer any evidence to suggest the district court
abused its discretion, and instead inaptly compare their case to a criminal defendant’s right
to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. Given Plaintiffs’ failure to identify any error in
the district court’s reasoning, coupled with the fact that “[c]ourts enjoy broad discretion
to determine who may practice before them and to regulate the conduct of those who do,”
we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denial of Mr. Klayman’s application.
United States v. Nolen, 472 F.3d 362, 371 (5th Cir. 2006).

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