Budri v. FirstFleet

Case: 20-10612 Document: 00515891618 Page: 1 Date Filed: 06/08/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
June 8, 2021
No. 20-10612
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Adriano Kruel Budri,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
FirstFleet, Incorporated, a Nationwide Trucking Company;
Daniel Matthew Humphreys, Regional Supervisor; Laurie
Brooks; David R. Beeny, Vice President and Financial Officer,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
USDC No. 3:19-CV-409
Before Wiener, Elrod, and Higginson, Circuit Judges.
Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:*
Plaintiff-Appellant Adriano Budri worked for less than a month as a
commercial truck driver for Defendant-Appellee FirstFleet, Inc. After hiring
Budri on January 25, 2017, FirstFleet terminated his employment on
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 20-10612 Document: 00515891618 Page: 2 Date Filed: 06/08/2021
No. 20-10612
February 21, 2017. Budri claims that he was fired because he refused to
engage in illegal activities at FirstFleet’s behest. He also claims that
FirstFleet provided false and disparaging information about him to a
reporting agency that collects and provides employee referrals for trucking
companies. FirstFleet denies these claims and insists that it legitimately
terminated Budri’s employment.
This is not the first time this court has considered Budri’s grievances
against FirstFleet stemming from his brief employment and subsequent
termination in early 2017. Recently, this court recounted the tangled
procedural history between Budri and FirstFleet and described the vexatious
and bad-faith litigation strategy that Budri has pursued against FirstFleet and
the other individual defendants named here. Budri v. Admin. Rev.
Bd., --- F. App’x ----, No. 20-60574, 2021 WL 1726818, at *1-3, *5-8 (5th Cir.
Apr. 30, 2021) (per curiam) [hereinafter “April 30 Decision”] (describing
Budri’s “complete lack of respect for the legal process”). In addition to
denying his petition for review, the court issued a detailed order restricting
Budri’s ability to make future filings in this court. Id. at *9.
We do not retread that ground here. Instead, we provide a limited
procedural history of the present appeal in order to orient our decision.
I
The present case relates to Budri’s second complaint (of six) to the
Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(“OSHA”). As described in the April 30 Decision:
While his first complaint was pending before the ALJ,
Budri filed a second OSHA complaint on January 23, 2018,
which also was dismissed by OSHA and, on June 26, 2018, by
ALJ Price. Initially, on March 25, 2019, the [Administrative
Review Board (ARB)] affirmed the ALJ’s dismissal of the
complaint, concluding the claim was not timely filed within 180
2
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days of Budri’s discovery of the alleged violation, and thus, was
untimely. Later, however, on July 30, 2019, the ARB vacated
its March 25, 2019 decision for lack of jurisdiction, having
discovered that Budri had timely filed suit in federal district
court on February 19, 2019, that is, while the ARB appeal was
pending. On October 29, 2019, the district court dismissed
Budri’s suit, and, on December 18, 2019, we dismissed his
appeal for want of prosecution.
Id. at *2 (citations omitted); see also Budri v. Admin. Rev. Bd., 825 F. App’x
178, 179-80 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam).
This appeal arises out of the federal district court suit filed on
February 19, 2019. In his operative complaint, Budri asserts a variety of
claims against FirstFleet and three FirstFleet employees, all flowing from the
same general dispute relating to Budri’s brief employment at FirstFleet.1 The
defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and for failure to
state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The magistrate judge recommended the
motion be granted in full. On October 29, 2019, the district court adopted
that recommendation, dismissing some claims without prejudice for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction and the remainder of the claims with prejudice for
failure to state a claim.
Two days later, on October 31, 2019, Budri filed a notice of appeal
stating his intent to appeal the district court’s order granting the defendants’
motion to dismiss. That appeal was docketed in this court as Case No. 19-
11203. Shortly thereafter, on November 7, 2019, this court ordered Budri to
sign his notice of appeal, which he had not done upon submitting it to this
1
Most prominently, Budri asserts claims under the Surface Transportation
Assistance Act of 1982, 49 U.S.C. § 31105; the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.
§§ 201-19; and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1681x.
3
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court. On December 18, 2019, after Budri failed to comply with the court’s
order, the appeal was dismissed for want of prosecution. Budri v. FirstFleet,
Inc., No. 19-11203, 2019 WL 8645418, at *1 (5th Cir. Dec. 18, 2019). This was
the dismissal noted by the court in the excerpt above. Budri v. Admin. Rev.
Bd., --- F. App’x ----, No. 20-60574, 2021 WL 1726818, at *2 & n.11 (5th Cir.
Apr. 30, 2021).
Overlappingly, on November 13, 2019, Budri filed in the district court
a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) seeking to alter
or amend the district court’s final judgment dismissing his case. On
December 3, 2020, the district court denied the motion. That same day,
Budri filed a new notice of appeal that described his intent to appeal the
district court’s order denying his Rule 59(e) motion. That appeal was
docketed as Case No. 20-10612—the case now before us.
II
“Reconsideration of a judgment after its entry is an extraordinary
remedy that should be used sparingly.” Templet v. HydroChem Inc., 367 F.3d
473, 479 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). Accordingly, this court has held
that a motion under Rule 59(e) “is not the proper vehicle for rehashing
evidence, legal theories, or arguments that could have been offered or raised
before the entry of judgment.” Id. (citing Simon v. United States, 891 F.2d
1154, 1159 (5th Cir. 1990)). “Rather, Rule 59(e) ‘serve[s] the narrow purpose
of allowing a party to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly
discovered evidence.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Waltman v. Int’l
Paper Co., 875 F.2d 468, 473 (5th Cir. 1989)). We thus review the denial of a
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Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion. In re Life
Partners Holding, Inc., 926 F.3d 103, 128 (5th Cir. 2019).2
Neither in his motion for reconsideration before the district court nor
in his briefing here has Budri identified a manifest error of law or fact, or
newly discovered evidence, that demonstrates the district court abused its
discretion in denying Budri the “extraordinary remedy” of amending its final
judgment. See Templet, 367 F.3d at 479. Instead, as the district court
explained in its thorough opinion denying Budri’s motion for
2
Budri’s notice of appeal in this case refers only to the district court’s order
denying his Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration; it does not mention the order granting
the Defendants-Appellees’ motion to dismiss, the resulting final judgment entered on
October 29, 2019, nor his first notice of appeal. Although Budri’s briefing to us appears to
focus on the motion to dismiss, we lack jurisdiction to review that order as part of this
appeal and thus limit our review to the district court’s order denying Budri’s Rule 59(e)
motion for reconsideration. An appellant must “designate the judgment, order, or part
thereof being appealed” in the notice of appeal. Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B). That
requirement is jurisdictional. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 147 (2012). In certain
circumstances, where an appellant designates only a motion for reconsideration in his
notice of appeal, we may still exercise jurisdiction to review the unspecified underlying
order when, above all, the appellee “could fairly infer” that the appellant intended to
appeal the underlying order. See Wiener, Weiss & Madison v. Fox, 971 F.3d 511, 514-16 (5th
Cir. 2020).
For two reasons, however, we do not think it is appropriate to apply that “liberal
construction,” id. at 515, to Budri’s notice of appeal in this case. First, Budri did file a
separate notice of appeal that specifically designated the motion to dismiss order and the
accompanying final judgment, and that appeal was docketed in this court as a separate case.
See Budri v. FirstFleet, Inc., No. 19-11203, 2019 WL 8645418, at *1 (5th Cir. Dec. 18, 2019).
This demonstrates that Budri understood how to properly notice and appeal that specific
ruling. Nevertheless, Budri failed to pursue that appeal and the case was dismissed. Id.Second, “[b]y focusing on notice, as opposed to strict construction of mechanical rules, we
seek to discourage appellees’ games of ‘gotcha’ while insisting on appellants’ abidance
with the spirit of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.” Wiener, 971 F.3d at 515 n.9.
As discussed above and as exhaustively detailed by the court in the April 30 Decision, Budri
has demonstrated no regard for the spirit of the Rules; we will thus not excuse his failure to
adhere to their letter.
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reconsideration, Budri sought to rehash the arguments and legal theories that
he had already put forth in his myriad filings before the district court. He also
sought to advance new arguments and claims that could have been previously
offered. In short, Budri offered nothing that would justify a decision by the
district court to reconsider its judgment. The district court thus did not err
in denying Budri’s Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration.
AFFIRMED.3
3
We reiterate that any future filings by Budri to this court must comply with the
order set forth in our April 30 Decision. See Budri v. Admin. Rev. Board, --- F. App’x ----,
No. 20-60574, 2021 WL 1726818, at *9 (5th Cir. Apr. 30, 2021).
6