Louis Matthew Clements v. 3M Electronic Monitoring

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 18-13866
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 2:16-cv-00776-SPC-CM
LOUIS MATTHEW CLEMENTS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
3M ELECTRONIC MONITORING,
Defendant - Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(May 3, 2019)
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Louis Clements, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s denial of his
motions for relief from a final judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
60(b). Clements asked the district court to revisit its earlier determination not to
grant him leave to amend his complaint against 3M Electronic Monitoring (“3M”)
to include an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim. The district court
denied Clements’s Rule 60(b) motions as improper substitutions for a timely and
proper appeal. After careful consideration, we affirm.
I.
Clements filed this products liability suit against 3M1 on October 19, 2016.
He later filed a second amended complaint raising claims of strict and negligent
products liability. He alleged that while he was on state probation, 3M’s
monitoring equipment repeatedly malfunctioned. According to Clements, these
malfunctions caused him to be arrested on several occasions for violating probation
even though he always complied with the terms of his probation. Clements further
alleged that he spent 241 or 216 days in jail as a result of the errors made by the
monitoring equipment. He sought $14,460,000 in compensatory and punitive
damages. He stated that the Kafkaesque ordeal and the constant worry that he
could go to jail at any time based on a mechanical error took a serious toll on his
1
3M has since been sold and renamed Attenti Electronic Monitoring. For the sake of
clarity and continuity, we continue to use 3M.
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health. Specifically, he stated that the continuous arrests and wrongful
incarcerations left him with “PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], anger, anxiety,
loss of appetite, fear (of retaliation), humiliation, stress, depression, nightmares,
[p]sychological damage, [and] stomach and digestion problems.”
3M moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, arguing that
the claims were time-barred under Florida’s four-year statute of limitations for
products liability actions. 3M also argued that Clements failed to allege that its
monitoring equipment caused a “tangible physical harm to either Clements or to
his property,” which is required under Florida law to allege a products liability
claim. Clements filed a response opposing 3M’s motion to dismiss and requested
leave to amend his complaint to include an intentional infliction of severe
emotional distress (“IIED”) claim, which does not require an allegation of physical
harm.
The district court granted 3M’s motion to dismiss and dismissed Clements’s
suit with prejudice. At no point did the district court’s order mention or otherwise
engage with Clements’s request for leave to amend his complaint. Shortly
thereafter, Clements filed an “appeal of order to dismiss and motion to recuse,”
which the district court treated as a Rule 60(b) motion for reconsideration.
Although Clements contested the district court’s determination that his claims were
untimely, he did not challenge the district court’s failure to consider his request for
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leave to amend his complaint to include an IIED claim. The district court denied
Clements’s motion for reconsideration and recusal on September 21, 2017. On
appeal, this Court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Clements’s suit. See
Clements v. Attenti US, Inc., 735 F. App’x 661, 664 (11th Cir. 2018) (per curiam)
(unpublished). Because Clements did not “argue on appeal that the district court
erred in denying him leave to amend his complaint to allege a claim for [IIED],”
this Court did not address “whether dismissal without leave to amend was
appropriate.” Id.
Clements then filed three Rule 60(b) motions for reconsideration before the
district court. Each argued the district court erred by failing to consider his motion
for leave to amend before dismissing his suit with prejudice. He also argued the
district court should have considered his negligent infliction of emotional distress
claim. The district court denied the motions, ruling that Clements could not use
Rule 60(b) “as a substitute for a timely and proper appeal” after he failed to
challenge on appeal the district court’s failure to consider his motion for leave to
amend. The district court also observed that this was the first time Clements had
ever mentioned a “negligent infliction of emotional distress” claim. Clements
timely appealed.
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II.
“[W]e review a district court’s denial of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for abuse of
discretion.” Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc., 741 F.3d 1349, 1355
(11th Cir. 2014). It is clear the district court should have addressed Clements’s
request for leave to amend his complaint during the motion to dismiss stage of
litigation. See Burger King Corp. v. Weaver, 169 F.3d 1310, 1319 (11th Cir.
1999) (“Unless there is a substantial reason to deny leave to amend, the discretion
of the district court is not broad enough to permit denial.” (quotation marks
omitted and alteration adopted)). However, it is equally clear the district court did
not abuse its discretion in denying Clements’s instant Rule 60(b) motions.
Rule 60(b) permits district courts to “relieve a party . . . from a final
judgment, order, or proceeding” on the basis of, among other things, a “mistake,
inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.” However, “the law is clear that Rule
60(b) may not be used to challenge mistakes of law which could have been raised
on direct appeal.” Am. Bankers Ins. Co. of Fla. V. Nw. Nat. Ins. Co., 198 F.3d
1332, 1338 (11th Cir. 1999). Clements had the opportunity to challenge the
district court’s failure to address his motion for leave to amend both in his initial
motion for reconsideration and during his first appeal to this Court. He did not.
Neither does Rule 60(b)(6) offer a path forward for Clements here. This
catch-all provision justifies setting aside a final judgment only when “the
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circumstances are sufficiently extraordinary to warrant relief.” Aldana, 741 F.3d at
1355 (quotation marks omitted). We recognize Clement’s frustration as a pro se
plaintiff as well as his claim that his lack of legal knowledge caused him to miss
the district court’s mistake. However, inattention or inexperience by a pro se
plaintiff ordinarily does not constitute an extraordinary circumstance that justifies
Rule 60(b)(6) relief. See Clarke v. Health & Human Serv., 180 F. App’x 840, 844
(11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (unpublished); see also Greenawalt v. Stewart, 105
F.3d 1268, 1273 (9th Cir. 1997) (per curiam), abrogation on other grounds
recognized by Jackson v. Roe, 425 F.3d 654, 658–61 (9th Cir. 2005) (holding that
neither a pro se plaintiff’s “inattention [n]or inexperience . . . constitutes a[n]
‘extraordinary circumstance’ that justifies Rule 60(b)(6) relief”).
To the extent Clement argues the district court should have granted his Rule
60(b) motion to reconsider his negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, that
argument is without merit. Clement never raised a negligent infliction of
emotional distress claim in his complaint—only a negligent products liability
claim. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a Rule 60(b)(6)
motion to address a claim Clement could have made but never did.
AFFIRMED.
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