Court Opinion

ID: 9481473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:19:59.28214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:20.264165
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority has concluded that the unique circumstances doctrine is viable and binding upon this Court. With this conclusion, I, of course, agree. The majority, however, has concluded that this doctrine does not apply to the case at bar. With this conclusion, I cannot agree.
The majority conducts a thorough and exhaustive discussion of the case law interpreting the unique circumstances doctrine. At the end of this discussion, the majority frames the test as an analysis of whether it was “reasonable for Dow to rely upon the district court’s improper extension” of the relevant time limits, (emphasis deleted).
Initially, I note that the majority correctly holds, in the text of its opinion, that our Circuit, unlike the Seventh and Third Circuits, has never required an affirmative oral or written statement from the district court assuring the appellant that his or her filing was adequate. The majority notes that our Circuit’s case law supports the notion that judicial action by the district court, such as the grant of a motion, may be sufficient to invoke the doctrine. Our Circuit’s case law is well founded in that the Supreme Court has specifically allowed judicial action by the district court, without any contemporaneous oral or written assurances, to be sufficient to constitute a basis for invoking the unique circumstances doctrine. See Wolfsohn v. Harkin, 376 U.S. 203, 84 S.Ct. 699, 11 L.Ed.2d 636 (1964) (per curiam). The majority, however, tempers its reading of our case law in its footnote 8 and in its application of the test in section C of its opinion.
In footnote 8, the majority implies that language found in Osterneck v. E.T. Barwick Industries, Inc., 825 F.2d 1521, 1528 (11th Cir.), aff'd sub nom. Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 109 S.Ct. 987, 103 L.Ed.2d 146 (1989), suggests a shift in the requirements of the doctrine. The Eleventh Circuit decision in Osterneck stated that no judicial officer affirmatively represented or assured the appellant that the filing was timely. Osterneck, 825 F.2d at 1528. The Supreme Court adopted similar language in its affirmance of our Court’s decision. See Osterneck, 489 U.S. at 179, 109 S.Ct. at 993. However, contrary to the implications of the majority’s *1536footnote 8, there is no reason to imply that either our Court or the Supreme Court has imposed a requirement that appellants wishing to invoke the doctrine must point to a specific oral or written statement by the district court assuring the party that the filings complied with all the relevant procedures. The appellant in Ostemeck could not point to any judicial action or statement that caused it to delay the filing of its notice of appeal. Osterneck, 825 F.2d at 1529. The majority’s implied reading of Ostemeck in fact sub silentio overrules both Butler v. Coral Volkswagen, Inc., 804 F.2d 612 (11th Cir.1986), and Wolfsohn, supra, since both of these cases allowed judicial actions, without any contemporaneous judicial statements, to constitute a unique circumstance.1 Absent an express statement by the later courts overruling the prior precedent, we should attempt to read the opinions as being consistent with each other. The two opinions are consistent if we recognize that a judicial action, such as the approval of an order, can constitute an affirmative representation by the court.
While the majority, in the formulation of its test, acknowledges that judicial action, without more, is sufficient to invoke the doctrine, the majority, in the application of its test, places significant stock in the district court’s failure to make any “emphatic” assurances. The majority concludes that absent any such assurances, it becomes “apparent ... that the party’s filing error stems as much from the party’s own negligence.” The majority holds that in such a case, the doctrine is inapplicable. Essentially the majority’s opinion can be fairly read as holding that if the litigant is not pro se {see majority’s note 11) and if the court does not make any “emphatic” assurances then the litigant will be presumed not to have established the existence of unique circumstances. This is not the law of our Circuit. In Butler we found unique circumstances and in Wolfsohn the Supreme Court found unique circumstances despite the fact that in both cases the appellants were presumably represented by able counsel and despite the fact that the district courts only signed an order in the two cases and did not assure counsel that the orders were timely filed.
The majority’s opinion is a departure from the law of our Circuit in one other significant way. The majority presumes that, with the exception of cases involving pro se litigants and cases where the district court emphatically assures the litigants, litigants who rely upon judicial actions will be unable to prove the reasonableness of their reliance. The majority reasons that most parties could have avoided the situation in the first place by simply reading the rules.2 While it is true that if Dow had properly read the rules it would not be in the present predicament, the same is true of every litigant who seeks to invoke the unique circumstances doctrine. By presuming that the actions of the parties were unreasonable for failing to read the rules, the majority has invoked a presumption which significantly narrows the application of the doctrine.
The majority narrows the doctrine because it confuses the reasonableness of the appellants in filing the initial motion for an extension of time with the reasonableness of the appellants in relying upon the district court’s granting this motion. While it is clear that filing the motion for an extension of time, in direct contravention of Fed. R.Civ.P. 6(b), was negligent, it is less clear that relying on the district court’s grant of this motion was negligent. Our Circuit, in Butler v. Coral Volkswagen, Inc., supra, noted that the two questions are in fact separate and that only the second question *1537is relevant to the unique circumstances doctrine. See Butler, 804 F.2d at 615 n. 5 & 617. The focus of the unique circumstances doctrine is on why the appellant failed to timely file his notice of appeal, not on why the appellant thought he or she could file the underlying motion. In Butler, while we condemned the appellant’s actions in filing a motion requesting an extension of time and we condemned the district court’s grant of the motion, we held reasonable the appellant’s reliance upon the district court’s actions.3 As we held in Butler, “if [the appellant’s] motion had been dismissed [by the district court] as it should have been, [the appellant] would have had plenty of time to perfect its appeal. As in Willis, appellant here was ‘lulled into inactivity’ by the action of the district court.” Butler, 804 F.2d at 617 (quoting Willis v. Newsome, 747 F.2d 605, 606 (11th Cir.1984)). Contrary to the majority’s presumption of unreasonableness in the case at bar, the Butler panel adopted an opposite presumption. The Butler court held reasonable the reliance on the judicial action and stated that “[notwithstanding these breaches of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ... we are required by Supreme Court precedent to allow the appeal under the ‘unique circumstances’ doctrine.” Butler, 804 F.2d at 617 (emphasis added); compare id. with majority opinion at 1532 (“the power to apply a unique circumstances exception does not impose on us a requirement to do so”).
The proper test for whether the unique circumstances doctrine should be applied to the case at bar is found in Willis v. Newsome where we wrote:
Courts will permit an appellant to maintain an otherwise untimely appeal in unique circumstances in which the appellant reasonably and in good faith relied upon judicial action that indicated to the appellant that his assertion of his right to appeal would be timely, so long as the judicial action occurred prior to the expiration of the official time period such that the appellant could have given timely notice had he not been lulled into inactivity.
Willis, 747 F.2d at 606. It is undisputed that (1) the judicial action indicated that appellant’s right to appeal notice would be timely and (2) the judicial action occurred when appellant could still timely file the notice. What is disputed is whether appellant “reasonably and in good faith” relied upon the judicial action. I believe that appellant's reliance was both reasonable and in good faith. There is no indication that Dow was aware that the district court lacked the power to grant the motion for an extension of time to file the new trial motion. More importantly, Dow could easily have submitted a timely notice of appeal if it was aware of the proper deadlines, and Dow’s delay gained it little.
While I am aware that certain jurists believe the equitable doctrine of unique circumstances is a questionable doctrine and therefore ought to be narrowed, this is not the case for such narrowing. The majority’s decision that Dow acted unreasonably creates a large windfall for the Pinions. Unlike other cases, such as Butler,4 the Pinions’ hands are far from clean. In the ease at bar, the Pinions and Dow entered a consent agreement, later ratified by the court, allowing Dow to file an untimely *1538new trial motion. Now, with a $2.45 million judgment at stake, the Pinions are in the unseemly position of attacking that consent agreement. It is not proper to manipulate this equitable doctrine to benefit the Pinions in contravention of the basic principle of equity that “he [or she] who comes into equity must come with clean hands.” New York Football Giants, Inc. v. Los Angeles Chargers Football Club, Inc., 291 F.2d 471, 473 (5th Cir.1961).
Finally, I am concerned about the implication of the majority’s holding. In the ease at hand, a motion was placed before the district court and the court ruled on that motion by issuing an order. The majority finds that we lack jurisdiction because it was unreasonable for Dow to rely upon this order. Whether or not an order is correct, it is still binding upon the parties as the law of the case until an appellate court reviews that order. It seems to be, at the very least, bad policy for appellate courts to instruct litigants not to rely upon district court orders. Though I do not intend to point out a parade of horribles, the majority’s holding encourages parties to second guess district courts and file needless notices of appeals even when the parties do not suspect that the district court is in error.
I therefore would find jurisdiction, and I believe we should proceed to the merits.

. It would be illogical to view the panel opinion in Ostemeck as overruling Butler because panels lack that power, see United States v. Machado, 804 F.2d 1537, 1543 (11th Cir.1986). Moreover, these cases were decided only eleven months apart and two members of the Butler panel sat on the Ostemeck panel.

. The majority does not explain why a party’s reliance becomes more reasonable when the district court is more emphatic. If a party is to be held to the rules when the judge signs an order it is unclear why a party should be excused from the rules when the party relies upon an informal oral representation from a filing clerk. See Willis v. Newsome, 747 F.2d 605 (11th Cir.1984).

. The majority's error in confusing the reasonableness of moving for an extension of time with the reasonableness of relying upon a district court order mistakenly leads it to distinguish Butler from the case at hand. The majority compares the papers filed by Coral Volkswagen in Butler to the papers filed by Dow in the case at hand. See majority note 12. The distinctions between the motions are irrelevant. What is relevant is that the district court mistakenly granted the appellant an extension of time to file a new trial motion, and while the untimely motion was pending, the time to file a notice of appeal expired because no valid new trial motion stayed the time to file the appeal. Viewed through this lens, Butler is “on all fours” with the case at bar. If the question before our Court is whether it was reasonable to file the initial motion asking for an extension, Butler would be distinguishable. But, regardless of what was filed, if the question is whether it was reasonable for the appellant to rely upon the judge's actions, then Butler is indistinguishable.

. In Butler, the appellees promptly objected to the district court’s order granting the appellants an extension of time in which to file the motion for a new trial. The appellees protested that the district court lacked the power to grant the extension of time. See Butler, 804 F.2d at 613.