Gnana Chinniah v. Township of East Pennsboro ( 2015 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 15-2911
___________
GNANA M. CHINNIAH,
a/k/a Gnanachandra M. Chinniah;
SUGANTHINI CHINNIAH
v.
TOWNSHIP OF EAST PENNSBORO;
JEFFREY S. SHULTZ
Gnana M. Chinniah; Suganthini Chinniah,
Appellants
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 1:08-cv-01330)
District Judge: Honorable Yvette Kane
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
December 2, 2015
Before: CHAGARES, KRAUSE and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: December 21, 2015)
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OPINION*
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PER CURIAM
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
Appellants Gnana and Suganthini Chinniah, proceeding pro se, appeal from an
order of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania denying
their motion to open a judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). For
the reasons set forth below, we will affirm the order of the District Court.
The procedural history of this case and the details of the Chinniahs’ claims are
well-known to the parties and need not be discussed at length. In short, the Chinniahs
brought this action in 2008 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Defendants East
Pennsboro Township and Jeffrey Shultz, a township Building Inspector and Codes
Enforcement Officer, treated them differently because they are of Indian descent and
practice Hinduism. The Chinniahs purchased property in East Pennsboro in 2007, and
claim that Shultz treated them worse than the previous owner, a white man, and that this
was part of a pattern in East Pennsboro of treating Indian property owners less
advantageously than similarly situated non-Indians. The Chinniahs contended that this
different treatment violated the Equal Protection Clause.
After a four-day trial in November of 2013, a jury found for Defendants on all
claims. The Chinniahs’ counsel then withdrew, and the Chinniahs, who have proceeded
pro se since, timely appealed. We affirmed the judgment of the District Court,
concluding that the jury’s verdict was supported by adequate evidence in the record and
that the Chinniahs offered no meritorious basis for reversal. See Chinniah v. East
Pennsboro Twp., 602 F. App’x 558, 560 (3d Cir. 2015).
2
Several months after the mandate in the prior appeal issued, the Chinniahs filed a
motion in the District Court pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) seeking
to open the judgment entered on the jury verdict. The Chinniahs primarily argued that
the conduct of their attorney, Joshua Autry, Esq., at trial constituted a “virtual
abandonment”1 of their case justifying relief from the judgment entered on the jury
verdict. The Chinniahs contend that various allegedly “improper” contacts between the
jury and counsel or court staff resulted in Autry altering his trial strategy such that he
failed to: (1) call all of the witnesses who were subpoenaed to appear; (2) introduce all
documents into evidence; and (3) fully and effectively cross-examine all witnesses.2
1
Appellants’ “virtual abandonment” argument is borrowed from a case decided by
the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. See Mackey v. Hoffman, 682 F.3d 1247,
1251-53 (9th Cir. 2012).
2
The Chinniahs point to two specific contacts with the jury that they consider as
“serious” and “improper.” One such contact occurred between Defendants’ counsel as he
was entering the courthouse and a juror who was outside smoking a cigarette. The juror
asked if trial would be finishing that day, and counsel responded that it would likely go
until Monday. This inadvertent and limited interaction was promptly brought to the
attention of the District Court at sidebar on the morning when it occurred. We have
reviewed the transcript from the sidebar conference and concluded that this incident was
neither serious, nor improper.
The second contact concerns communications between the jury and the District
Court’s courtroom deputy that were allegedly relayed to the Chinniahs’ attorney. It
appears that the jury expressed dissatisfaction with the length of time Defense counsel
was taking to examine a witness, and the Chinniahs learned of this from a handwritten
note from Autry explaining that he was going to ask “very few questions” on cross. We
note that, in general, communications between the jury and a courtroom deputy are to be
expected as a matter of course during trial because the deputy handles the logistical needs
of jurors during their service, and nothing about that type of general communication can
be deemed improper. To the extent that feedback from the jury regarding the pace of trial
was shared with Autry, the nature of this feedback was seemingly innocuous. In any
event, the Chinniahs have not pointed to evidence that this interaction led to changes in
3
By order dated July 15, 2015, the District Court denied the Rule 60(b)(6) motion,
concluding that most of the contentions re-raised in the Rule 60(b)(6) motion – those
alleging attorney misconduct and conspiracy – had previously been rejected by this Court
in the prior appeal as meritless. The District Court further determined that the Chinniahs
failed to demonstrate that they did not receive a fair trial. In reaching that conclusion, the
District Court fully considered the Chinniahs’ argument that alleged improper contact
with the jury by counsel and court staff resulted in a change of trial strategy by Autry so
significant that it constituted a “virtual abandonment” of their case at trial. The District
Court explicitly found that Autry represented the Chinniahs diligently throughout the
proceedings and that the Chinniahs’ disagreement with his trial strategy was insufficient
to support a “virtual abandonment” claim warranting relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
The Chinniahs filed a timely notice of appeal, and we have jurisdiction pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a district court’s denial of a motion under Rule 60(b)(6)
for abuse of discretion. Cox v. Horn, 757 F.3d 113, 118 (3d Cir. 2014), cert. denied sub
nom. Wetzel v. Cox, 135 S. Ct. 1548 (2015) (citing Brown v. Phila. Hous. Auth., 350
F.3d 338, 342 (3d Cir. 2003)). “A district court abuses its discretion when it bases its
decision upon a clearly erroneous finding of fact, an erroneous conclusion of law, or an
trial strategy that could somehow be deemed abandonment by Autry. See, e.g., Latshaw
v. Trainer Wortham & Co., 452 F.3d 1097, 1103 (9th Cir. 2007) (noting that Rule
60(b)(6) relief is permissible only for cases of extreme negligence or misconduct by an
attorney).
4
improper application of law to fact.” Cox, 757 F.3d at 118 (citing Morris v. Horn, 187
F.3d 333, 341 (3d Cir.1999)).
We have considered the parties’ briefs and appendices, and conclude that the
District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Chinniahs’ Rule 60(b)(6)
motion. Reopening of a judgment under Rule 60(b)(6) is warranted “only in
extraordinary circumstances where, without such relief, an extreme and unexpected
hardship would occur.” Cox, 757 F.3d at 120 (quotation marks omitted). The District
Court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the Chinniahs’ arguments are
insufficient to warrant the extraordinary relief provided for in Rule 60(b)(6). The
arguments raised in their motion had previously been raised before both the District
Court and this Court and were rejected as meritless. See Chinniah, 602 F. App’x at 560
(observing that “[a]s to the Chinniahs’ allegations of attorney misconduct and conspiracy,
they offer little but speculation.… [T]heir allegations do not provide a basis for relief in
this action.”). Raising the same arguments yet again and simply recharacterizing them as
an example of counsel’s “virtual abandonment”3 does not transform them from
speculative arguments into meritorious ones.
3
In Mackey, the Ninth Circuit issued a narrow holding that “a district court may
grant an incarcerated habeas petitioner relief from judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) if his attorney’s abandonment causes him to fail to timely file a
notice of appeal.” 682 F.3d at 1248. The applicability of that narrow holding to
Appellants’ case is questionable at best. The incarcerated petitioner in Mackey was
essentially deprived of the opportunity to file an appeal from the denial of his habeas
petition because of an alleged abandonment by his counsel. The Chinniahs’ case presents
very different circumstances. They are not incarcerated, nor are they seeking habeas
5
Furthermore, the District Court based its decision to deny the motion on its own
observations of Autry at trial. The District Court determined that Autry diligently
represented the Chinniahs, and we see no reason to disturb that conclusion. The District
Court – having presided over the trial and having observed firsthand the conduct
Appellants challenge – was in the best position to assess whether Autry’s behavior
altered the outcome of the trial in such a way as to warrant the extraordinary remedy of
relief under Rule 60(b)(6). Because the Chinniahs have not demonstrated that the District
Court based its decision upon a clearly erroneous finding of fact, an erroneous conclusion
of law, or an improper application of law to fact, see Cox, 757 F.3d at 118, we cannot
conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in denying their Rule 60(b)(6)
motion.
We have carefully reviewed the rest of the Chinniahs’ claims on appeal and find
them to be meritless. For essentially the same reasons set forth by the District Court in its
well-reasoned order, we will affirm.
relief. Moreover, they received a multi-day jury trial after several years of litigation,
filed post-trial motions, and previously appealed to this Court in order to seek review of
their claims. The record demonstrates that Autry’s conduct cannot be characterized as
the sort of gross negligence that amounts to having practically no representation and
therefore constitutes an extraordinary circumstance warranting relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
See Latshaw, 452 F.3d at 1103 (observing that a client is usually accountable for the
neglectful or negligent acts of his attorney and that judgments are only set aside under
Rule 60(b)(6) based on attorney conduct where that conduct amounts to gross negligence
or egregious misconduct).
6