LFoundry Rousset v. Atmel Corp.

16-2566-cv
LFoundry Rousset v. Atmel
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED
BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1.
WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY
MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE
NOTATION ASUMMARY ORDER@). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY
OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held
at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New
York, on the 19th day of May, two thousand seventeen.
PRESENT: REENA RAGGI,
DENNY CHIN,
SUSAN L. CARNEY,
Circuit Judges.
LFOUNDRY ROUSSET, SAS, JEAN YVES
GUERRINI, individually and on behalf of all other
persons similarly situated,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v. No. 16-2566-cv
ATMEL CORPORATION, ATMEL ROUSSET, SAS,
LFOUNDRY GMBH,
Defendants-Appellees.
APPEARING FOR APPELLANTS: PHILIPPE JEAN JOSEPH PRADAL (Lauren
Anne Marshall, on the brief), Pradal &
Associates PLLC, New York, New York.
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APPEARING FOR APPELLEES: SAMUEL J. RUBIN (Marshall H. Fishman, on
the brief), Goodwin Procter LLP, New York
New York, for Atmel Corporation and Atmel
Rousset, SAS.
GREGORY F. HAUSER, Wuersch & Gering
LLP, New York, New York, for LFoundry
GmbH.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York (Laura Taylor Swain, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
AND DECREED that the order entered on June 27, 2016, is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiffs LFoundry Rousset, SAS, and a putative class of its employees, led by
Jean Yves Guerrini, appeal from the denial of their Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) and 62.1
motions, which the district court characterized as moot in light of this court’s summary
order affirming the conditional dismissal of the complaint on forum non conveniens
grounds.
Plaintiffs had asserted claims under RICO, as well as for fraud, tortious
interference with contracts, and trespass to chattel, and had sought a declaration voiding
certain contracts, based on what plaintiffs allege was a scheme by defendants Atmel
Corporation, Atmel Rousset, SAS, and LFoundry GmbH fraudulently to convey a
semiconductor manufacturing unit in France to a near-insolvent buyer to dispose of it
without paying employee assistance, as mandated by French labor law and collective
bargaining agreements. The district court ruled that France was a more appropriate
forum and conditioned its dismissal on the defendants’ consent to jurisdiction in France,
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which was the disposition we affirmed on the first appeal. See Guerrini v. Atmel Corp.,
667 F. App’x 308 (2d Cir. 2016).
During the prior appeal, this court granted plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file an
amended motion for judicial notice of French court documents allegedly evincing
LFoundry GmbH’s noncompliance with the district court’s condition for dismissal
insofar as that defendant opposed jurisdiction through a motion it filed in French courts,
but it does not appear that we formally ruled on the amended motion itself. Nonetheless,
this evidence was thoroughly discussed in plaintiffs’ reply brief and during oral
argument. Indeed, it was in response to concerns voiced by the panel at argument that
LFoundry GmbH submitted a letter explaining that it consented to jurisdiction in France
but would not withdraw its challenge to the French courts’ jurisdiction until the United
States proceedings were final. Plaintiffs responded with their own letter rejecting
defendant’s assurances and requesting that the court “find that Defendant-Appellee
LFoundry has not consented to the jurisdiction of French courts.” J.A. 269–70.
Plaintiffs now contend that this court’s summary order, which discussed the merits
of the district court’s conditional forum non conveniens dismissal and, in so doing,
concluded that defendants had consented to jurisdiction, did not reach the late-adduced
evidence and arguments, and therefore the district court erred in deeming their post-
judgment motions moot.
We review the denial of motions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) for abuse of
discretion, see Gomez v. City of New York, 805 F.3d 419, 423 (2d Cir. 2015), which we
identify when “(1) [the court’s] decision rests on an error of law (such as application of
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the wrong legal principle) or clearly erroneous factual finding, or (2) [the court’s]
decision—though not necessarily the product of a legal error or a clearly erroneous
factual finding—cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions,” McDaniel
v. Cty. of Schenectady, 595 F.3d 411, 416 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We apply the same standards to the denial of indicative relief pursuant to Fed.
R. Civ. P. 62.1.1 See Jackson v. Allstate Ins. Co., 785 F.3d 1193, 1206 (8th Cir. 2015)
(“We review a denial of indicative relief for abuse of discretion.”); Dice Corp. v. Bold
Techs., 556 F. App’x 378, 384 (6th Cir. 2014) (stating that reviewing court “treat[s] a
denial of indicative relief as we would a Rule 60(b) motion”); Ray v. Pinnacle Health
Hosps., Inc., 416 F. App’x 157, 161 n.3 (3d Cir. 2010) (same). In conducting our review,
we assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and procedural history of this case,
which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.
1. Fed. R. Civ. P. 62.1
A motion brought pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 62.1 is a procedural device that
allows a district court to inform the parties and this court how it would rule on the merits
of certain motions after an appeal has been filed and the district court has been divested
of jurisdiction. When presented with a Rule 62.1 motion, a district court “may” (1) defer
consideration, (2) deny the motion, (3) indicate that it would grant the motion if the court
of appeals remanded for that purpose, or (4) state that it “raises a substantial issue.” Fed.
R. Civ. P. 62.1(a).
1
As defendants correctly argue, we do not review the denial of these motions de novo.
Unlike the cases cited by plaintiffs in support of that contention, the disposition of these
motions was not a merits adjudication on mootness grounds.
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We detect no abuse of discretion in the district court’s decision to defer
consideration and ultimately deny the motion as moot. See Steven S. Gensler, 2 Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules and Commentary, Rule 62.1 Indicative Ruling on a
Motion for Relief that is Barred by a Pending Appeal (Feb. 2017) (observing that Rule
62.1 “does not supply a free-standing basis for parties to solicit the district court’s views
on matters currently on appeal”). This court declined to remand to allow the district court
to consider the Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion while the appeal was pending. Thus, our
return of the mandate to the district court rendered the Rule 62.1 motion moot because it
was no longer necessary for the district court’s jurisdiction to consider the concomitant
Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s disposition in
this regard.
2. The Mandate Rule
This court’s longstanding precedent establishes that “a district court does not have
jurisdiction to alter an appellate ruling where the appellate court has already considered
and rejected the basis for the movant’s Rule 60(b) motion.” DeWeerth v. Baldinger, 38
F.3d 1266, 1270 (2d Cir. 1994); accord Burrell v. United States, 467 F.3d 160, 165 (2d
Cir. 2006) (observing that if “an appellate court has once decided an issue, the trial court,
at a later stage in the litigation, is under a duty to follow the appellate court’s ruling on
that issue” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Whether we have already considered and
rejected the basis for a given motion is dependent on the contours of the mandate, which
“impliedly decides at least enough issues to allow it to be effective, even if not all issues
are made explicit.” In re Coudert Bros. LLP, 809 F.3d 94, 101–02 (2d Cir. 2015); see
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United States v. Ben Zvi, 242 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir. 2001) (“The mandate rule compels
compliance on remand with the dictates of the superior court and forecloses relitigation
of issues expressly or impliedly decided by the appellate court.” (emphasis in original)
(internal quotation marks omitted)). “To determine whether an issue remains open for
reconsideration on remand, the trial court should look to both the specific dictates of the
remand order as well as the broader spirit of the mandate.” United States v. Ben Zvi, 242
F.3d at 95 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Plaintiffs argue that this court’s earlier decision in this case did not render the
issues presented in the Rule 60(b) motion moot because that decision did not explicitly
address the merits of the arguments and evidence presented by the Rule 60(b) motion.
Defendants argue to the contrary, and, therefore, submit that the district court’s
consideration of the Rule 60(b) motion was barred by the mandate rule.
The district court did not err in concluding that it was foreclosed from considering
the Rule 60(b) motion because, although there was no remand order here, this court’s
mandate clearly encompassed the arguments made in the Rule 60(b) motion before the
district court.2 The court heard extensive argument about the ongoing proceedings in
France, took judicial notice of the records of those proceedings, and ultimately concluded
that “the defendants expressly consented to jurisdiction” in France. Guerrini v. Atmel
Corp., 667 F. App’x at 310. If the court had viewed the evidence before it as
2
Indeed, plaintiffs’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion explicitly concedes that the evidence it
presents is the same as that presented by the motion for judicial notice to this court.
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undercutting defendants’ professed consent to jurisdiction in France, it would not have so
ruled.
Even if this court’s consent conclusion did not, by itself, capture the entirety of
plaintiffs’ arguments, the relevant summary order did so in stating that the court “f[ound]
no merit in the plaintiffs’ other arguments.” Id. Because the issue of defendants’
conduct in the French courts was raised and fully argued, such language—even without
overt reference to a particular argument or explanation of the reasons it lacked merit—
signifies an adjudication on the merits. See Francolino v. Kuhlman, 365 F.3d 137, 141
(2d Cir. 2004) (observing “that a claim was adjudicated on the merits where it was one of
the remaining contentions that the [reviewing court] stated were without merit” (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
Moreover, even if we could now reconsider this issue, it would fail on the merits.
As one member of the original appeals panel observed, merely because LFoundry GmbH
was “prepared to be in France; [but] not prepared to be in France and the United States at
the same time,” Appellee LFoundry GmbH’s Br. 12 (quoting Tr. of June 20, 2016 Oral
Arg. at 24:18–20), does not mean that it violated the condition of the district court’s
forum non conveniens dismissal. Indeed, if LFoundry GmbH is faithful to its
representations to this court and the district court and withdraws any opposition to
jurisdiction when these proceedings are final, there would be no violation justifying the
reinstatement of the case. If it fails to do so, plaintiffs may then file another Rule 60(b)
motion for the district court to consider in the first instance. See Standard Oil Co. of Cal.
v. United States, 429 U.S. 17, 18 (1976) (“Like the original district court judgment, the
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appellate mandate relates to the record and issues then before the court, and does not
purport to deal with possible later events.”). On the present record, however, which, to
be clear, includes the French court documents, the district court did not abuse its
discretion in denying plaintiffs’ motion as moot based on the mandate rule.
3. Conclusion
We have considered plaintiffs’ remaining arguments and conclude that they are
without merit. For the reasons stated, the district court’s June 27, 2016 order is
AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, Clerk of Court
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