Steve Gaydos v. Guidant Corporation ( 2007 )


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  •                     United States Court of Appeals
    FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
    ___________
    No. 06-3810
    ___________
    In re: Guidant Corp. Implantable         *
    Defibrillators Products Liability        *
    Litigation,                              *
    ________________                         *
    *
    Steve Gaydos; Diane Gaydos,              *
    *
    Appellants,                  *
    * Appeal from the United States
    v.                                 * District Court for the
    * District of Minnesota.
    Guidant Corporation,                     *
    *
    Appellee.                    *
    ___________
    Submitted: May 18, 2007
    Filed: August 1, 2007
    ___________
    Before BYE, BEAM, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.
    ___________
    SMITH, Circuit Judge.
    Steve and Diane Gaydos were plaintiffs in a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) suit
    brought against Guidant Corporation ("Guidant"). The district court1 dismissed the
    1
    The Honorable Donovan W. Frank, United States District Judge for the District
    of Minnesota.
    Gaydoses's claims for failure to comply with two court orders and denied the
    Gaydoses's motion for reconsideration. The Gaydoses appeal. We affirm.
    I. Background
    The Gaydoses are two of nearly 1,400 plaintiffs involved in a MDL suit
    alleging Guidant manufactured defective pacemakers and implantable cardioverter
    defibrillators. See e.g., In re Guidant Corp. Implantable Defibrillators Prod. Liab.,
    
    484 F. Supp. 2d 973
     (D. Minn. 2007). As is typical in MDL litigation, many of the
    local, pretrial logistics are handled on behalf of all plaintiffs by a Plaintiff's Liason
    Counsel. Additionally, all individual plaintiffs, like the Gaydoses, retained their own
    private counsel ("Counsel").
    The district court, for case management purposes, issued two important pretrial
    orders relevant to this case ("the orders"). Pretrial Order #2 required all attorneys,
    including Counsel, to provide a current email address for correspondence with the
    court. The order also required all plaintiffs to complete a "Plaintiff's Fact Sheet"—a
    lengthy and detailed medical questionnaire that included a medical disclosure form.
    A second order, Pretrial Order #5, required that the Gaydoses comply with Pretrial
    Order #2 by March 2, 2006.
    The Gaydoses did not provide the court with a current email address, a
    completed fact sheet, or a signed medical disclosure form by the required deadline.
    Counsel was notified at least three times that he had failed to comply with the orders.
    Upon each notice, Counsel submitted incomplete answers to questions on the district
    court's mandated fact sheet. Eventually, Guidant moved to dismiss the Gaydoses's
    claims.
    The district court, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 41(b), granted
    Guidant's motion to dismiss with prejudice for failure to comply with the orders.
    Although notice of the court's dismissal was sent to the email address provided by
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    Counsel, Counsel claimed that he was unaware of the dismissal until months later
    because he had provided the court with an erroneous email address. Upon learning of
    the dismissal, the Gaydoses through Counsel asked, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil
    Procedure 60(b)(1) and 60(b)(6), that the district court reconsider the dismissal. The
    court denied the motion.
    II. Discussion
    The Gaydoses appeal the district court's denial of their motion for relief under
    Rule 60(b). The Gaydoses do not appeal the underlying Rule 41(b) dismissal;
    therefore, we only consider the district court's refusal to set aside the dismissal order.2
    Specifically, the Gaydoses argue that the district court should have granted relief
    under Rule 60(b)(1), permitting a court to grant relief due to excusable neglect, and
    Rule 60(b)(6), permitting a court to grant relief for "any other reason justifying relief
    from the operation of the judgment."
    The denial of a Rule 60(b) motion is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Noah
    v. Bond Cold Storage, 
    408 F.3d 1043
    , 1045 (8th Cir. 2005). "We will find an abuse
    of discretion only when the district court's judgment was based on clearly erroneous
    fact-findings or erroneous conclusions of law." 
    Id.
     "Reversal of a district court's denial
    of a Rule 60(b) motion is rare because Rule 60(b) authorizes relief in only the most
    exceptional of cases." 
    Id.
     (quoting Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers v. Hope Elec. Corp.,
    
    293 F.3d 409
    , 415 (8th Cir. 2002)).
    A. Rule 60(b)(1)
    Rule 60(b)(1) permits, inter alia, a district court to grant relief from a judgment
    entered because of a party's excusable neglect. Noah, 
    408 F.3d at 1045
    . Excusable
    neglect, necessarily, has two components: (1) neglect or noncompliance and (2) that
    2
    Assuming that the Gaydoses did challenge the underlying dismissal, we would
    lack jurisdiction to consider that order as the Gaydoses failed to appeal the dismissal
    within 30 days. Fed. R. App. Pro. 4(a).
    -3-
    is excusable. 
    Id.
     The parties only dispute whether the court abused its discretion when
    it determined that the Gaydoses's noncompliance was inexcusable. In assessing
    whether conduct is excusable, several factors must be taken into account, including:
    (1) the danger of prejudice to the non-moving party; (2) the length of the delay and
    its potential impact on judicial proceedings; (3) whether the movant acted in good
    faith; and (4) the reason for the delay, including whether it was within the reasonable
    control of the movant.3 Pioneer Inv. Serv. Co. v. Brunswick Assoc. Ltd. P'ship, 
    507 U.S. 380
    , 395 (1993). These four Pioneer factors do not carry equal weight; the reason
    for delay is a key factor in the analysis. Lowry v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 
    211 F.3d 457
    , 463 (8th Cir. 2000).
    1. Danger of Prejudice and Potential Impact on Proceedings
    The district court ordered the Gaydoses to submit their Plaintiff's Fact Sheet by
    March 2, 2006. The Gaydoses did not do so until August 28, 2006—nearly six months
    tardy. In some circumstances, such a delay might be insignificant; however,
    "administering cases in multidistrict litigation is different from administering cases
    on a routine docket . . ." In re Phenylpropanolamine Prod. Liab. Litig., 
    460 F.3d 1217
    ,
    1229 (9th Cir. 2006). Congress established MDL protocols to encourage efficiency.
    
    Id.
     In order to do so, MDL courts must be able to "establish schedules with firm cutoff
    dates if the coordinated cases are to move in a diligent fashion toward resolution by
    motion, settlement, or trial." Id at 1232. MDL courts must be given greater discretion
    to organize, coordinate and adjudicate its proceedings, including the dismissal of cases
    for failure to comply with its orders. 
    Id.
    Given the time pressure on a defendant that must investigate the claims of
    nearly 1,400 plaintiffs, we consider the danger of prejudice substantial. The delay also
    3
    The district court did not explicitly evaluate each of the four Pioneer factors.
    Although we strongly encourage district courts to do so, a court's failure to explicitly
    balance the Pioneer factors does not mandate an automatic reversal. Gibbons v. United
    States, 
    317 F.3d 852
    , 854 n.4 (8th Cir. 2003).
    -4-
    impacted the nearly 1,400 other plaintiffs by unfairly diverting the time and attention
    of the court away from their timely claims to that of the Gaydoses. Therefore, we must
    conclude that the first two factors weigh against the Gaydoses.
    2. Good Faith
    In determining whether a party has acted in good faith we have "consistently
    sought to distinguish between contumacious or intentional delay or disregard for
    deadlines and procedural rules, and a 'marginal failure' to meet pleading or other
    deadlines."Johnson v. Dayton Elec. Mfg. Co., 
    140 F.3d 781
    , 784 (8th Cir. 1998). "We
    have rarely, if ever, excused the former." 
    Id.
     We do not believe that this is a simple
    or marginal failure. The Gaydoses had three opportunities, spread over several
    months, to comply with the court's orders. While not contumacious, perhaps, this is
    a blatant disregard for the deadlines and procedure imposed by the court. Therefore,
    we conclude that the Gaydoses did not act in good faith.
    3. The Reason for the Delay
    Lastly, the Gaydoses offer two primary reasons for their failure to comply with
    the court's orders: (1) Guidant and the court sent several documents to the erroneous
    email address provided by Counsel4 and (2) they tried to complete the Plaintiff's Fact
    Sheet, but Steve Gaydos's reluctance to provide Counsel with his military records
    hindered this effort. Even if we accept these reasons as true, they do not excuse the
    delay. The record does not show that Counsel attempted to mitigate any harm or
    inconvenience to others by informing the court, Guidant, or the Plaintiff's Liason
    Counsel of his difficulty in obtaining information from his client. Further, the district
    court characterized the Gaydoses's eventual final submission as "incomplete and
    contained unacceptable limitations of scope, in direct contradiction to the Court's
    Orders." The record before us is still unclear whether the Gaydoses ever submitted a
    4
    Counsel blames a colleague for the unauthorized creation of the email address;
    however, he offers no explanation for how the email address was submitted to the
    court.
    -5-
    signed medical disclosure form. These errors epitomize the type of professional
    carelessness that we have held does not warrant relief under Rule 60(b). Inman v. Am.
    Home Furniture Placement, Inc., 
    120 F.3d 117
    , 199 (8th Cir. 1997) ("Rule 60(b) has
    never been a vehicle for relief because of an attorney's incompetence or
    carelessness."); Noah, 
    408 F.3d at 1045
    ; Hunt v. City of Minneapolis, 
    203 F.3d 524
    (8th Cir. 2000). We, therefore, find that the Gaydoses's reasons do not justify their
    failure to comply with the district court's orders.
    After giving consideration to each of the Pioneer factors, we conclude that the
    district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to grant relief under Rule
    60(b)(1).
    B. Rule 60(b)(6)
    Rule 60(b)(6) authorizes relief from final judgments in extraordinary
    circumstances. Watkins v. Lundell, 
    169 F.3d 540
    , 544 (8th Cir. 1999). Relief under
    this rule is exceedingly rare as relief requires an "intrusion into the sanctity of a final
    judgment." 
    Id.
     "Exceptional circumstances are not present every time a party is subject
    to potentially unfavorable consequences as a result of an adverse judgment properly
    arrived at. Rather, exceptional circumstances are relevant only where they bar
    adequate redress." Atkinson v. Prudential Prop. Co., Inc., 
    43 F.3d 367
    , 373 (8th Cir.
    1994) (internal quotations omitted).
    The Gaydoses essentially reiterate the arguments that they made with their Rule
    60(b)(1) motion, this time emphasizing Counsel's accidental submission of an
    erroneous email address and his ignorance of his case's dismissal. For support, the
    Gaydoses point to a series of cases5 arising under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37
    and are hence inapposite to the issue at hand. We must reject this argument, as we
    5
    Gleghorn v. Melton, 
    195 Fed.Appx. 535
     (8th Cir. 2006) (unpublished);
    Schoffstall v. Henderson, 
    223 F.3d 818
     (8th Cir. 2000); Hairston v. Alert Safety Light
    Prod., Inc., 
    307 F.3d 717
     (8th Cir. 2002).
    -6-
    believe there are no extraordinary circumstances in this case. Chambers v.
    Armontrout, 
    16 F.3d 257
    , 261 (8th Cir. 1994) ("Absent extraordinary circumstances,
    Rule 60(b)(6) motions cannot be used to remedy a failure to take an appeal.").
    III. Conclusion
    After a careful review of the record, the decision of the district court is
    affirmed.
    ______________________________
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