Court Opinion

ID: 9406967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-05 15:01:09.260079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:34.316417
License: Public Domain

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                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                  No. 22-13366
                            Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        DR. EDWARD L. JONES,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        DR. ANDREW HUGINE, JR.,
        individually and oﬃcially as President of Alabama A&M University,
        BRIAN RUBLE,
        individually and oﬃcially,
        CURTIS MARTIN,
        individually and oﬃcially,
        DR. DANIEL WIMS,
        individually and oﬃcially,
        ALABAMA A&M UNIVERSITY, et al.,
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13366

                                                     Defendants-Appellees.

                             ____________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Alabama
                      D.C. Docket No. 5:16-cv-00326-MHH
                            ____________________

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and NEWSOM and GRANT, Cir-
        cuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Dr. Edward Jones appeals the denial of his motion for relief
        from the judgment, Fed. R. Civ. P. 60, filed nearly five years after
        the district court dismissed his lawsuit challenging the termination
        of his employment at Alabama A&M University. In the lawsuit,
        Jones complained that the University and several of its employees
        violated his federal civil rights, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and Alabama law.
        We affirm.
                                I. BACKGROUND
               In February 2016, Jones sued the university; its former pres-
        ident Dr. Andrew Hugine; its former Dean of College Education,
        Humanities and Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Curtis Martin; its former
        Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Daniel Wims;
        and a university police investigator, Brian Ruble. The complaint
        alleged that, as early as 2013, Jones, the Director of the Office of
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        22-13366               Opinion of the Court                        3

        Teacher Education and Certification, warned the university about
        various red flags that later came to the attention of institutional
        regulators. It alleged that, to “keep [Jones’s] mouth shut,” univer-
        sity administrators began a “retaliatory smear campaign” against
        him, which escalated around 2015, when he refused to participate
        in a committee that he believed was designed to cover up the uni-
        versity’s problems.
               The complaint further alleged that Wims, on October 13,
        2015, placed Jones on administrative leave and, on January 14,
        2016, recommended terminating Jones. It alleged that after Jones
        notified the university of his intent to appeal, Ruble and university
        police officers executed search warrants of Jones’s home and per-
        sonal property based on a false allegation that he had stolen univer-
        sity property. The complaint alleged that the unlawful searches of
        his “personal electronic data and records” yielded the evidence on
        which the university relied to terminate him. It also alleged that
        the university falsely accused him of professional incompetence,
        committing theft, and engaging in immoral conduct.
               In March 2016, Jones moved for a temporary restraining or-
        der and a preliminary injunction to bar the university from termi-
        nating him without proper notice and a hearing. In his affidavit,
        Jones averred that he did not “have any information about the basis
        for the charges” against him. But he attached an “Intent to Termi-
        nate” letter, dated January 14, 2016, which stated, “The cause for
        termination is gross professional misconduct. You are charged with
        both using University resources to view obscene materials and the
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13366

        production and/or creation of obscene materials. The behaviors
        which are the basis of these charges occurred on university prop-
        erty during duty hours.” Jones also attached his termination letter,
        dated March 10, 2016, which stated that he was terminated imme-
        diately because “[t]here is convincing evidence that you have en-
        gaged in sexual conduct below minimum standards of professional
        integrity and misused University computing/electronic assets in
        gross violation of well-established University policy.”
               The university defendants opposed the motion for injunc-
        tive relief and moved to dismiss the complaint. In an attached affi-
        davit, Ruble averred that the university property manager reported
        several missing computers to the police, including a laptop com-
        puter issued to Jones. On February 12, 2016, after obtaining and
        executing a warrant to search Jones’s home for stolen property, Ru-
        ble retrieved a university-issued laptop and other items with the
        assistance of the Huntsville Police Department. A computer foren-
        sics expert reviewed the laptop and determined that three porno-
        graphic videos had been downloaded to it. According to Ruble, the
        videos depicted Jones masturbating on university property and re-
        ceiving fellatio from two young males, who appeared to be about
        20 years old, in a university classroom.
               In May 2016, after a hearing, the district court denied injunc-
        tive relief because Jones failed to establish a substantial likelihood
        of success on the merits and because he had an adequate remedy
        at law. The district court granted the university defendants’ motion
        to stay discovery until it ruled on their motion to dismiss.
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        22-13366               Opinion of the Court                        5

               In July 2016, Jones sought reconsideration of the denial of
        injunctive relief. He submitted a new affidavit averring that on the
        same day that Wims placed him on administrative leave in October
        2015 due to “serious concerns raised by the Alabama State Depart-
        ment of Education [] as to the sufficiency of [] administrative pro-
        cesses,” the university’s Chief Information Officer and a locksmith
        went to his office to retrieve his computer and to change the locks.
        Jones stated that, on March 10, 2016, he was arrested at his home
        for theft of university property and terminated. Jones stated that he
        was not terminated because of performance or his alleged theft of
        property, but because of his sexual orientation.
               In February 2017, the district court held a hearing on Jones’s
        motion for reconsideration of injunctive relief. Jones stated that he
        had the opportunity to attend a grievance hearing at the university,
        but he did not attend because he “repeatedly asked for the infor-
        mation, the equipment, [and] the documentation that [the univer-
        sity] had,” including information related to his criminal trial and
        the search of his home. Jones stated that he wanted his forensic
        specialist to review the items to determine whether the obscene
        material was located on university property, or if the material had
        been transferred over from personal devices like jump drives and
        cell phones that were seized from his office and home.
               The university defendants responded that Jones and his pre-
        vious counsel had viewed the obscene material that was evidence
        against him in university counsel’s office with Ruble present. They
        argued that because Jones was aware of the evidence against him,
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-13366

        he could have participated in the grievance hearing. They argued
        that Jones was challenging his inability to conduct discovery before
        the grievance hearing, but the grievance procedure was not a law-
        suit. They also argued that Jones’s “voluminous document re-
        quest” made it clear to them “that he was not only seeking discov-
        ery as to the particular electronic documents that were relied on in
        terms of his termination, but also discovery as to the box of docu-
        ments related to the theft of monies” that formed the basis of the
        state criminal charge against him. And they asserted that it was the
        core acts of Jones’s sexual misconduct on campus that was ade-
        quate grounds for his immediate termination, and the existence of
        recordings of that misconduct on university devices only added an-
        other layer to his misconduct.
               During the evidentiary hearing, the district court dismissed
        Jones’s Fourth Amendment claim. It ruled that the validity of the
        warrant to search his home was an evidentiary matter at issue in
        his ongoing state criminal case, so it was not a cause of action
        against the university defendants. The district court told Jones’s
        counsel that it needed to avoid further delays in resolving the pend-
        ing motion to dismiss:
                     I want you to understand [] the challenge that
              the court faces, we have been working on trying to
              see if we could identify any claims in this case that
              could go forward for months now. Dr. Jones has
              changed attorneys a number of times. I have sched-
              uled hearings at which no one has appeared. I’m still
              working from the original complaint in this action
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        22-13366               Opinion of the Court                          7

               and counsel for the plaintiff is saying that the court
               should be aware of this, the court should be aware of
               that, but the court is trying to resolve a motion to dis-
               miss the complaint that is before the court.
                      [Jones’s] counsel has had abundant time in
               which to amend the complaint, if [his] counsel chose
               to, and at some point the court needs not to have a
               moving target so that the court can resolve the pend-
               ing motion.

                On February 16, 2017, the district court denied Jones’s mo-
        tion for reconsideration of its denial of injunctive relief and dis-
        missed the Fourth Amendment claim and several other claims with
        prejudice. The district court ordered the university to give Jones
        another opportunity to engage in the grievance process. Specifi-
        cally, it ordered Jones to submit any information that he wanted
        the university to consider, and it ordered the university to provide
        a written response to Jones’s supplemental information explaining
        whether the information changed its decision or required further
        proceedings. The district court ordered that Jones, after receiving
        the university’s written response, either file an amended complaint
        to proceed with the action or file a notice voluntarily dismissing it.
        Because the district court anticipated receiving either an amended
        complaint or a notice of voluntary dismissal, it denied the motion
        to dismiss as moot. On March 10, 2017, the district court granted
        Jones’s request for an extension and reiterated its instructions
        about filing an amended complaint.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13366

               Jones did not file an amended complaint, nor did he dismiss
        the lawsuit. Instead, he filed a discovery request for the electronic
        devices that allegedly contained the obscene material. He also re-
        quested information about other university employees who had
        been terminated for theft of property, sexual misconduct, or moral
        turpitude.
                On April 27, 2017, the district court held a telephone confer-
        ence with Jones and the university defendants and provided Jones
        an opportunity to explain why he disregarded its orders. The dis-
        trict court explained that, regardless of whether the obscene mate-
        rial was downloaded or stored on university property, the univer-
        sity had an adequate reason to terminate Jones because he engaged
        in sexual conduct in a classroom on campus, which Jones had not
        disputed.
               The next day, the district court dismissed the lawsuit for fail-
        ure to follow its orders, Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b). The district court de-
        nied Jones’s motion for reconsideration, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Jones
        did not appeal either the February or April 2017 dismissal orders.
               Almost five years later, in February 2022, Jones moved to
        vacate the February 2017 order under Federal Rule of Civil Proce-
        dure 60(b)(6) and, alternatively, 60(d)(3), insofar as the order dis-
        missed his Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful search. Jones as-
        serted that in October 2017, he brought an employment discrimi-
        nation and retaliation lawsuit against the university and had been
        able to obtain discovery, including a “box of documents” that con-
        tained an investigative file on him. He contended that the
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        22-13366               Opinion of the Court                          9

        documents related to the university’s decision to terminate him
        and its post-termination investigation of him. Specifically, he ar-
        gued that the file established that counsel for the university defend-
        ants deliberately lied to the district court at the February 2017 hear-
        ing when counsel represented that the file “related to theft of mon-
        ies that were otherwise state funds that were collected by
        Dr. Jones.” Jones argued that this false statement “trick[ed] the
        Court into believing the investigative file was not relevant to pre-
        vent dismissal of [his] Fourth Amendment Claim” and provided
        cause for the district court to vacate its February 2017 order under
        Rule 60(b)(6) or Rule 60(d)(3). In the same motion, he moved for
        leave to file an amended complaint adding defendants and to con-
        solidate this lawsuit with his employment discrimination lawsuit.
               The district court denied the motion to vacate the judgment.
        It recognized that it erred by dismissing with prejudice Jones’s
        Fourth Amendment claim, instead of staying the claim until the
        state criminal proceeding resolved the lawfulness of the search, be-
        cause a claim for damages for an alleged Fourth Amendment vio-
        lation is unavailable in the state proceeding. Deakins v. Monaghan,
        484 U.S. 193, 202 (1988). But it explained that, even if it had not
        dismissed the Fourth Amendment claim in February 2017, it would
        have later dismissed the claim in its April 2017 order dismissing the
        lawsuit for failure to comply with its orders.
               The district court ruled that Jones’s evidence fell short of es-
        tablishing that university counsel committed fraud on the court un-
        der Rule 60(d)(3). It explained that its sua sponte decision to dismiss
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13366

        the Fourth Amendment claim had not been procured by fraud, the
        theft investigation was legitimate, and nothing established that the
        university had tampered with the administration of justice. It stated
        that, even if it found that the university defendants or their counsel
        misled the district court about the contents of the “box of docu-
        ments,” it still would not grant relief under Rule 60(d)(3) in the light
        of Jones’s own lack of transparency during the litigation, which in-
        cluded his refusal to participate in the grievance process when or-
        dered to do so and his first affidavit stating that he did not “have
        any information about the basis for the charges” when he already
        received two letters informing him that he was charged with “using
        University resources to view obscene materials and the production
        and/or creation of obscene materials . . . on University property
        and during duty hours” and that he was terminated for sexual mis-
        conduct and misuse of university assets.
                The district court also ruled that Jones could not use a Rule
        60(b)(6) motion as a substitute for an appeal. It explained that “[o]n
        another record, [its error in dismissing with prejudice the Fourth
        Amendment claim] might suffice to permit relief under Rule
        60(b)(6), but here, Dr. Jones [could not] escape the fact that his liti-
        gation strategy ultimately is to blame for the dismissal of his claims
        in this action.”
                           II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
               We review the denial of a motion under Federal Rule of
        Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) and (d)(3) for abuse of discretion. Aldana
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        22-13366                Opinion of the Court                         11

        v. Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc., 741 F.3d 1349, 1355 (11th Cir.
        2014); Booker v. Dugger, 825 F.2d 281, 285 (11th Cir. 1987).
                                  III. DISCUSSION
                Jones argues that substantial justice required the district
        court to grant his motion under Rule 60(b)(6). We disagree. A dis-
        trict court “may relieve a party . . . from a final judgment, order, or
        proceeding for . . . any other reason” not covered by the rest of
        Rule 60(b) “that justifies relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). Because
        this is “an extraordinary remedy,” Jones must establish “a justifica-
        tion for relief so compelling that the district court was required to
        grant [his] motion.” Rice v. Ford Motor Co., 88 F.3d 914, 919 (11th
        Cir. 1996). Our review of the ruling on a Rule 60(b) motion “is fairly
        circumscribed and deferential; this appeal does not bring up the un-
        derlying judgment for review.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
                The district court did not abuse its discretion by ruling that,
        in the light of the entire record, this case did not present the kind
        of equitable factors that warrant Rule 60(b) relief. See Seven Elves,
        Inc. v. Eskenazi, 635 F.2d 396, 402 (5th Cir. 1981) (listing the factors
        that should inform the consideration of a Rule 60(b) motion). The
        district court considered the policy favoring the finality of judg-
        ments and that Jones’s motion effectively was a belated appeal of
        its decision to dismiss his Fourth Amendment claim. Id. It ruled
        that, even assuming counsel for the university defendants misled it
        regarding the contents of the “box of documents,” the equities did
        not weigh in favor of reviving Jones’s claim in the light of his own
        conduct contributing to the dismissal of the lawsuit. Id. Indeed, the
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        12                      Opinion of the Court                   22-13366

        record reflects various problems that Jones’s litigation strategy
        caused the district court and the efforts the district court made to
        resolve these problems in a manner that was fair to him, including
        holding several hearings and telephone conferences and warning
        Jones before dismissing the lawsuit.
                Jones argues that the district court failed to consider the mer-
        its of his re-framed Fourth Amendment claim. But the district court
        considered the evidence he submitted and ruled that he still “ha[d]
        not demonstrated that [the university] launched a bogus investiga-
        tion into alleged theft by Dr. Jones as a ploy to investigate Dr.
        Jones’s sexual misconduct” and found that the theft investigation
        was legitimate. We are not persuaded that the district court failed
        to consider the appropriate factors in denying Jones relief under
        Rule 60(b)(6), or that exceptional circumstances are present in this
        case that required the district court to grant him relief. See id.; Rice,
        88 F.3d at 919. Insofar as Jones now challenges that the April 2017
        order dismissing his lawsuit was reversible error too because he did
        not display willful contempt and lesser sanctions would have been
        appropriate, he cannot use his Rule 60(b) motion as a substitute for
        a timely appeal of that order. See Rice, 88 F.3d at 919.
                Jones also argues that the district court “completely disre-
        garded” the issue whether he offered sufficient evidence to estab-
        lish fraud on the court under Rule 60(d)(3), but we disagree. A liti-
        gant may bring an independent action for relief under Rule 60(d),
        formerly the savings clause of Rule 60(b), which allows a district
        court to “set aside a judgment for fraud on the court.” Fed. R. Civ.
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        22-13366                Opinion of the Court                         13

        P. 60(d)(3). To obtain this relief, the movant must establish “fraud
        on the court” by clear and convincing evidence of egregious mis-
        conduct. Travelers Indem. Co. v. Gore, 761 F.2d 1549, 1551 (11th Cir.
        1985). The movant also must establish that the adverse party ob-
        tained the verdict through fraud and employed an “unconscionable
        plan or scheme” to improperly influence the decision of the district
        court. Rozier v. Ford Motor Co., 573 F.2d 1332, 1338 (5th Cir. 1978).
                The record contradicts Jones’s argument that the district
        court failed to consider whether he had established fraud on the
        court. The district court considered his arguments about the inves-
        tigative file and found that he “ha[d] not established that dismissal
        of his Fourth Amendment claims was procured by fraud.” The dis-
        trict court explained that, even if it found that the investigative file
        was part of the same “box of documents” referenced by opposing
        counsel during the February 2017 hearing, and even if it found that
        opposing counsel had misled the district court about his knowledge
        of the contents of that box, those findings would not entitle Jones
        to relief under Rule 60(d)(3) because the presumedly “misleading”
        statement did not influence its decision to dismiss the claim under
        Rule 12(b)(6) or to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to comply with its
        orders. Jones could not use opposing counsel’s statement as a basis
        to relitigate his Fourth Amendment claim. See Travelers, 761 F.2d at
        1552.
                Jones incorrectly argues that the district court violated the
        principle of party presentation when it relied on his “negligence”
        as a reason for finding that relief was unwarranted. See United States
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13366

        v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 1579 (2020). But the university
        defendants argued in their response to Jones’s motion that he
        lacked exceptional circumstances due to his own conduct. And
        even if they had not raised his conduct as a reason to his deny relief,
        the district court still was tasked with considering whether Jones
        “had a fair opportunity to present his claim” and “any other factors
        relevant to the justice of the judgment.” Seven Elves, 635 F.2d at 402.
        The district court did not abandon its role as a “neutral arbiter of
        matters” to construct its own theories for denying relief. See
        Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. at 1579. And because we conclude that
        the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Jones’s mo-
        tion for relief from the judgment, we deny his motion to supple-
        ment the record with affidavits that were not presented to the dis-
        trict court. See Shahar v. Bowers, 120 F.3d 211, 212 (11th Cir. 1997)
        (en banc).
                                    IV. CONCLUSION
               We AFFIRM the denial of Jones’s motion for relief from the
        judgment, DENY his motion to supplement the record, and
        GRANT his motion to withdraw his previous motion to file his re-
        ply brief with partial redactions.