Court Opinion

ID: 9469884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:51:24.23802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:36.909235
License: Public Domain

*127MacKINNON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part and concurring in part).
In my judgment the dismissal by the district court should be affirmed, without prejudice to the right of appellant to move under Rule Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(1) to be relieved from the judgment on the grounds of mistake, inadvertence or excusable neglect. The majority opinion claims reliance on Butler v. Pearson, 636 F.2d 526 (D.C.Cir. 1980) and Jackson v. Washington Monthly Co., 569 F.2d 119 (D.C.Cir.1977) for reversing the dismissal by the district court. However, the decisions in those cases were made on facts disclosed in the record in the district court following hearings on motions to reinstate the case. That is not the case here. Appellant never made any request to the district court to reinstate the case. He has thus failed to exhaust his remedies before the district court and comes here with no record whatsoever to attack the action the court has taken. The alleged facts upon which the court acts appear as statements in briefs before this court and as statements of appellant at oral argument in response to interrogation by the court. In addition, all the parties did not appear at oral argument because they had not been served. The court is thus acting as one of original jurisdiction to resolve facts, and in doing so, exceeds its jurisdiction which is supposed to be purely appellate in nature. This court should have refused to hear .the case and left appellant to make his motion to the district court.
I also dissent from the discussion and reference to “misconduct” and its relevance to dismissal. This is not a case, on this record, of “misconduct.” The case was not dismissed for “misconduct.” It was dismissed as Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b) authorizes for “failure ... to prosecute .... ” Regardless of what the majority opinion states, failure to prosecute is not misconduct. In this instance, as in thousands of cases throughout the United States, whenever a party fails to appear at a calendar call or status hearing which is purposely set to consider the future trial of the case, in the absence of some other indication, such failure is interpreted almost uniformly as an indication that the party or parties intend to have the case dismissed. The district court here had every right to so conclude, given the fact that appellant did not appear after he was duly notified of the date and time for the hearing, even though the time set was affirmed by telephone on the day preceding the hearing.
It is clear, however, that appellant may move the district court under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) to have the case reinstated on a proper showing. In my judgment he should so proceed and I concur in the court’s decision that he may obtain counsel. To date, it appears that organizations that usually supply counsel to indigent or unknowledgeable parties have failed or refused to extend such assistance to appellant, apparently because they did not believe he had a meritorious case. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and appellant’s union, the Communications Workers of America, Local 2336, both found that there was no reasonable cause to believe that his employer or his union had unlawfully discriminated against him. His defect, or so it seemed at oral argument, was that he was habitually tardy and hence unreliable; which was the same personal defect that led to the dismissal of his suit at the status call. It also appears that the groups of public interest lawyers who habitually represent worthy defendants, and many unworthy ones, in such cases, have considered his case and refused to represent Camps. These included, according to Camps’ statement at oral argument: Howard Law School, Antioch Law School, Lawyers Referral Service and Neighborhood Legal Services. Under these circumstances it may be that the district court will be required to designate counsel to represent him.
All this might have been dispensed with, and this court might not have been required to spend an inordinate amount of time considering this case on a negative record if appellant had moved to have the court reinstate his case as the appellants did in Butler v. Pearson, and Jackson v. Washington Monthly Co., supra. I am concerned with the majority opinion citing those cases to *128justify its action here. As explained above, the records in those cases are materially different, and therefore do not support the decision here. The majority’s opinion to my mind is sui generis, and wrong. I believe we should affirm the district court and compel appellant to proceed by motion before the district court as the parties did in Butler and Jackson. I am not inclined to support the dismissal of cases on highly technical grounds, Automated Datatron, Inc. v. Kenneth Woodcock, 659 F.2d 1168 (D.C.Cir.1981) (MacKinnon, J., dissenting), but I do believe that a party who claims abuse of his rights should present his claim to the trial court, as was done in Butler and Jackson, in the first instance. To that extent I dissent from the basis the court relies upon to give appellant a further opportunity to present his case.