Jerry Kennedy v. Jefferson County, Mississippi

Case: 16-60805 Document: 00513997849 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/18/2017
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
United States Court of Appeals
No. 16-60805
Fif h Circuit
FILED
Summary Calendar May 18, 2017
Lyle W. Cayce
JERRY L. KENNEDY, Clerk
Plaintiff - Appellant
v.
JEFFERSON COUNTY HOSPITAL,
Defendant - Appellee
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi
USDC No. 5:13-CV-226
Before KING, DENNIS, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Jerry Kennedy was fired by Jefferson County Hospital. Kennedy filed
for unemployment benefits, which were denied when an Administrative Law
Judge from the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES)
found that Kennedy had been terminated for misconduct. His appeal of that
* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not
be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH
CIR. R. 47.5.4.
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No. 16-60805
decision to the MDES Board of Review was unsuccessful. Kennedy did not
seek judicial review of the administrative ruling.
Instead, Kennedy started from scratch and filed a separate action in
state court, asserting claims against a range of parties, including one for
breach of contract against the Hospital. After the lawsuit was removed to
federal court, the district court granted the Hospital’s motion for summary
judgment. It concluded that Kennedy was barred from bringing his contract
claim because he had failed to appeal the MDES’s finding of misconduct in
state court. Kennedy then filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter the judgment,
claiming that an intervening change in Mississippi law called for a different
result. The district court disagreed. Kennedy now appeals.
We review the district court’s denial of Kennedy’s Rule 59(e) motion for
abuse of discretion. Templet v. HydroChem Inc., 367 F.3d 473, 477 (5th Cir.
2004). Under this standard, the district court’s decision must only be
reasonable. Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Bright, 34 F.3d 322, 324 (5th Cir. 1994).
Amending a judgment under Rule 59(e) is only appropriate when (1) there has
been an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) there is newly discovered
evidence that was previously unavailable; or (3) there was a manifest error of
law or fact. Demahy v. Schwarz Pharma, Inc., 702 F.3d 177, 182.
The district court granted the Hospital’s motion for summary judgment,
in part, because it held that Kennedy could not collaterally attack the MDES’s
decision that he was fired for misconduct. In so holding, the district court
relied on our opinion in Cox v. DeSoto Cty. Miss., 564 F.3d 745, 748 (5th Cir.
2009). That case held that a Mississippi employee could not collaterally attack
a decision by a state agency when she could have challenged the ruling through
direct appeal. Id., at 748. That is the situation Kennedy is in. He does not
dispute that he loses under Cox.
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Case: 16-60805 Document: 00513997849 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/18/2017
No. 16-60805
Instead, Kennedy argues that the Supreme Court of Mississippi’s
opinion in Linde Health Care Staffing, Inc. v. Claiborne County Hospital
changes this rule. 198 So. 3d 318 (Miss. 2016). But, as the district court
discussed, Linde dealt with entirely separate legal issues from those addressed
in Cox. In Linde, the Supreme Court discussed whether the Federal
Arbitration Act or the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure applied to the
timeliness of a motion for relief of judgment under Mississippi law. Id. at 322.
It also briefly discussed whether a Mississippi court was required to recognize
a foreign judgment that was obtained by extrinsic fraud. Id. at 323. Neither
of these questions was at issue in Cox or here. Linde did not discuss Cox’s
central holding—and its only relevant application to this case—about whether
a litigant can collaterally attack a state administrative decision when there
was no direct appeal of the ruling. Cox, 564 F.3d at 748.
***
The district court’s denial of Kennedy’s Rule 59(e) motion is AFFIRMED.
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