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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 19-12155
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:18-cv-23570-KMW
TERESITA VALDES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
SCHOOL BOARD OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY,
School Board Attorney's Office
1450 N.E. 2nd Avenue Suite 400
Miami, FL 33132 305-995-1334,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(March 17, 2020)
Before GRANT, LUCK, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Teresita Valdes is an employee of the Miami-Dade County School Board
(the “School Board”). Proceeding pro se, Valdes brought several claims against
the School Board. She appeals the District Court’s (1) denial of her request for
preliminary injunctive relief, (2) dismissal of her amended complaint, and (3)
denial of her motion for reconsideration. Her appeal lacks merit. Accordingly, we
affirm.
I.
We first consider whether the District Court properly denied Valdes’s
request for preliminary injunctive relief. We conclude that it did.
We review a district court’s denial of temporary injunctive relief for an
abuse of discretion. Horton v. City of St. Augustine,
272 F.3d 1318, 1326 (11th
Cir. 2001). A district court may only grant a preliminary injunction if the movant
shows all of the following:
(1)[the claim] has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, (2)
the movant will suffer irreparable injury unless the injunction is
issued, (3) the threatened injury to the movant outweighs the possible
injury that the injunction may cause the opposing party, and (4) if
issued, the injunction would not disserve the public interest.
Id.
Here, the District Court properly denied Valdes’s request for injunctive
relief because she did not sufficiently allege any of the four legal requirements for
preliminary injunctive relief.
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II.
We next consider whether the District Court properly dismissed Valdes’s
complaint on the ground that it was an impermissible shotgun pleading.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 8(a)(2), a complaint must
contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is
entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). “Shotgun” pleadings, as we have
repeatedly said, violate this requirement of a short and plain statement of a claim.
See Magluta v. Samples,
256 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2001).
Shotgun pleadings come in many forms. Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty.
Sheriff’s Office,
792 F.3d 1313, 1321–23 (11th Cir. 2015). Relevant here, a
shotgun pleading is “a complaint containing multiple counts where each count
adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to
carry all that came before [it] and the last count to be a combination of the entire
complaint.”
Id. at 1321. Among other things, these pleadings fail “to give the
defendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which
each claim rests.”
Id. at 1323. Therefore, a district court that receives such a
complaint should strike it and instruct counsel to replead the case. Jackson v. Bank
of Am., N.A.,
898 F.3d 1348, 1357 (11th Cir. 2018).
Here, Valdes’s complaint was a shotgun pleading because each count
incorporated every preceding count. And although she might have been able to
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argue that the District Court should not have dismissed her complaint with
prejudice on this ground,1 she waived that argument by failing to raise it both in
the District Court and on appeal. See United States v. Jernigan,
341 F.3d 1273,
1283 n.8 (11th Cir. 2003) (“[A] party seeking to raise a claim or issue on appeal
must plainly and prominently so indicate.”); Wagner v. Daewoo Heavy Indus. Am.
Corp.,
314 F.3d 541, 542 (11th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (“[I]ssues not raised before the
district court will not be considered on appeal.”).
III.
We next consider whether the District Court properly denied Valdes’s self-
styled “Rule 60” motion for reconsideration of the Court’s judgment. We conclude
that the Court properly construed the motion as one under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 59(e) and properly denied relief.
In classifying post-judgment motions, the style of the motion is not
controlling. Finch v. City of Vernon,
845 F.2d 256, 258 (11th Cir. 1988).
Generally, Rule 59 is the proper motion “for reconsideration of matters
encompassed in a decision on the merits of the dispute.” Lucas v. Fla. Power &
Light Co.,
729 F.2d 1300, 1301 (11th Cir. 1984);
Finch, 845 F.2d at 258. A Rule
59 motion may be granted only based on newly discovered evidence or a manifest
error of law or fact, and it may not be used to raise new arguments, relitigate old
1
We do not express any opinion regarding the merits of this hypothetical argument.
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matters, or present evidence that could have been raised before the entry of
judgment. Arthur v. King,
500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007).
Here, the District Court properly construed Valdes’s motion as one under
Rule 59(e) because none of the bases for relief in Rule 60 were present and Valdes
was essentially challenging the merits of the Court’s previous ruling. Likewise,
the Court properly denied the motion because Valdes did not present any relevant
new evidence or manifest errors of law or fact to the District Court in her motion. 2
Instead of raising new arguments, her motion reiterated the points she had
previously raised. Therefore, the District Court properly denied Valdes’s motion
for reconsideration.
IV.
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
2
For example, her assertions about service of process are irrelevant because the School
Board never claimed that it was improperly served.
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