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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 18-10290
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 8:15-cv-02846-MAP
CELESTE L. GUICE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
POSTMASTER GENERAL, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(December 13, 2018)
Before BRANCH, FAY, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM:
Celeste Guice, proceeding pro se, 1 filed this employment discrimination
action against her former employer, the Postmaster General of the United States
Postal Service. In this appeal, Guice challenges the district court’s denial of her
motion to vacate -- pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) -- all orders entered by the
district court after 16 November 2016. No reversible error has been shown; we
affirm.
This case has a lengthy procedural history, including two earlier proceedings
in this Court. 2 On 26 December 2017, Guice filed the motion to vacate at issue in
this appeal. Guice argued that the district court’s orders entered after 16
November 2016 -- including an order granting summary judgment for the
Postmaster General -- violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the Equal
Protection Clause, and the Double Jeopardy Clause and were barred by the
doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Briefly stated, Guice argued that
1
We construe liberally pro se pleadings. Tannenbaum v. United States,
148 F.3d 1262, 1263
(11th Cir. 1989).
2
See In re: Guice, No. 16-17706 (11th Cir. April 3, 2017) (denying as frivolous Guice’s petition
for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to vacate all orders entered after 15 November
2016 and to enter default judgment against the Postmaster General); Guice v. Postmaster
General, U.S. Postal Serv., No. 17-14161 (11th Cir. Oct. 24, 2017) (dismissing for lack of
jurisdiction Guice’s appeal from an earlier order denying Guice’s motion to vacate all orders
entered after 21 October 2016).
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an entry of default judgment was warranted because the Postmaster General
responded to her amended complaint with a motion to dismiss instead of by filing
an answer. Guice also argued that the Postmaster General was barred by res
judicata and collateral estoppel from disputing her employment discrimination
claims because the district court had earlier denied the Postmaster General’s
motion to dismiss Guice’s original complaint.
The district court denied the motion to vacate. The district court explained
that Guice merely rehashed arguments that had already been addressed repeatedly
by the district court and pointed out that a Rule 60(b) motion was no substitute for
an appeal or a motion for reconsideration of the court’s earlier orders.
We review a district court’s denial of a motion to vacate under Fed. R. Civ.
P. 60(b) for abuse of discretion. Cano v. Baker,
435 F.3d 1337, 1342 (11th Cir.
2006). Review is narrow, and the movant bears a heavy burden on appeal.
Id.
That a grant of the Rule 60(b) motion might have been permissible or warranted is
not enough; rather, the decision to deny the motion must have been sufficiently
unwarranted as to amount to an abuse of discretion.
Id. In other words, a movant
must provide a justification so compelling that the district court was required to
vacate its order.
Id.
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The district court abused no discretion in denying Guice’s motion to vacate.
The district court determined properly that no default judgment was warranted: the
Postmaster General’s timely-filed motion to dismiss qualified as a responsive
pleading to Guice’s amended complaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 55(a) (entry of default
is proper only “[w]hen a party against whom a judgment for affirmative relief is
sought has failed to plead or otherwise defend . . ..”). Moreover, the district court’s
denial without prejudice of the Postmaster General’s earlier motion to dismiss
Guice’s original complaint was no final adjudication on the merits for purposes of
triggering res judicata. See Hughes v. Lott,
350 F.3d 1157, 1161 (11th Cir. 2003)
(“A dismissal without prejudice is not an adjudication on the merits and thus does
not have a res judicata effect.”). Thus, nothing precluded the Postmaster General
from reasserting -- in its second motion to dismiss -- the same arguments raised in
its first motion.
In her brief on appeal, Guice now argues that this Court -- based on a 9
March 2018 order issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(“EEOC”) in McConnell v. U.S. Postal Serv., EEOC Case No. 520-2010-00280X
(the “McConnell Order”) -- should vacate, remand, and hold in abeyance the
district court’s orders in this case. In the McConnell Order, the EEOC denied a
motion for reconsideration of its decision concluding that the Postmaster General
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had violated the Rehabilitation Act by subjecting disabled limited-duty employees
to disparate treatment and by withdrawing their reasonable accommodations.
Guice says she qualifies as a class member under McConnell and asks this
Court to take judicial notice of the McConnell Order. We may take judicial notice
of the McConnell Order “only for the limited purpose of recognizing the ‘judicial
act’ that the order represents or the subject-matter of the litigation.” See United
States v. Jones,
29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994). We may not, however,
judicially notice the McConnell Order as establishing “the truth of the matters
asserted in the other litigation.” See
id.
Nothing in the McConnell Order affects our decision about the issue in this
appeal: whether the district court denied properly Guice’s motion to vacate. That
Guice might qualify as a class member under McConnell is insufficient to warrant
the vacatur and remand of the district court’s orders in this case.
AFFIRMED.
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