Nittany Outdoor Advertising, LLC v. College Township
Nittany Outdoor Advertising, LLC v. College Township
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM
This case presents fascinating constitutional questions as to the application of the First Amendment to municipally approved outdoor advertisements. However, the two motions presently under consideration are, as a matter of procedure, untimely. They must therefore be denied.
I. BACKGROUND
The fundamental dispute in the instant suit arose when Defendant College Township, located in Centre County, Pennsylvania, denied a request by Plaintiff Nittany Outdoor Advertising, LLC, to post billboard messages written by co-Plaintiff Stephanas Ministries.
By that point in time, Defendant had amended its sign ordinance, which required the Court to distinguish between pre-and post-amendment claims brought by the Plaintiffs.
In evaluating Plaintiffs’ First Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, this Court ultimately held that Plaintiffs were -without standing to pursue their pre-amendment claims.
Over one year later, on June 18, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona.
On August 4, 2015, nearly two months after the Reed decision was handed down, Plaintiffs in this case filed a Motion to Revise this Court’s May 20, 2014 summary judgment decision pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).
In response, Defendant primarily contends that, as a threshold issue, Plaintiffs’ two motions are untimely. Specifically, Defendant argues that Local Rule 7.10— which provides that “any motion for reconsideration or re-argument must be.. .filed within fourteen (14) days after the entry of the Order of concern”—bars the Motion to Revise.
Defendant is correct. Though the Court considers it less than ideal to refuse the opportunity to contribute to such an intriguing constitutional problem, a federal court’s authority is limited to only those cases or controversies properly before it. As Defendant rightly contends, Plaintiffs have failed- to file the instant motions in a timely fashion and’ simultaneously have neglected to provide any justification for that tardiness. In accordance with the following
II. LAW
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), upon which Plaintiffs base their Motion to Revise, states in pertinent part as follows:
[A]ny order or other decision, however designated, that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties does not end the action as to any of the claims or parties and may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties’ rights and liabilities.
When disposing of motions to reconsider or revise brought pursuant to Rule 54(b), “[a] [cjourt will amend a prior order only where a different outcome is justified by: (1) an intervening change in law; (2) the availability of new evidence not previously available; or (3) a need to correct a clear error of law or manifest injustice.”
Importantly, however, Middle District of Pennsylvania Local Rule 7.10 (“Motions for Reconsideration”) states as follows:, -
Any motion for reconsideration or rear-gument must be accompanied by a supporting brief and filed within fourteen (14) days after the entry of the order concerned. This rule is not applicable to a motion to alter or amend a judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59.
Local Rule 7.10 applies to motions for reconsideration brought pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54(b) or 60(b). It specifically excepts those brought pursuant to Rule 59 because Rule 59 already contains a twenty-eight day time limitation.
“[Djistrict courts may not disregard local procedural rules without sound justification for doing so.”
III. ANALYSIS
A. Plaintiffs’ Motion To Revise Pursuant To Rule 54(B) Fails To. Comply With Local Rule 7.10’s Fourteen-day Time Limitation And Is Therefore Denied Without Reaching The Merits.
As a threshold matter, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Revise must be denied for failing to comply with the fourteen-day time limitation set forth in Local Rule 7.10. Noncompliance with a local rule governing timeliness is enough to warrant denial of the requested relief. Federal courts “may deny an untimely motion if the filing party fails to demonstrate excusable neglect.”
For example, in Bernard v. East Stroudsburg University, the Honorable Robert D. Mariani of this Court, decided fhat “[bjecause Plaintiffs do not attempt to provide the Court with any rationale for
In another case, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, applying a local rule that instituted a fourteen-day time limit, denied a late Rule 54(b) motion for reconsideration and admonished that “Plaintiffs motion was not filed until 42 days after the entry of the decision he challenges; accordingly, his motion could be denied on this basis alone.”
For the sake of clarity, it makes no difference as far as application of Local Rule 7.10 goes that Plaintiffs here captioned their motion as a “motion to revise” rather than as a “motion for reconsideration.” “The style of the motion is not controlling; courts are free to consider a motion for reconsideration.. .depending on the substance of the motion and the type of relief sought.”
Further, my colleagues in this District have already confirmed that motions styled as “motions to revise” pursuant to Rule 54(b) are subject to Local Rule 7.10’s fourteen-day time limitation. In Clark Distribution Sys., Inc, v. ALG Direct, Inc., the Honorable Christopher C. Conner, wrote the following paragraph in a decision denying an untimely Rule 54(b) motion:
ALG filed this motion 49 days after the court’s entry of the order concerned. Rule 54(b) allows the court to revise an interlocutory order at any time prior to entry of final judgment, but Local Rule 7.10 requires the parties to file any motion for reconsideration within fourteen (14) days after entry of the order. Thus, ALG’s motion is untimely.28
Once again, in Kohn v. School District of the City of Harrisburg, the Honorable William W. Caldwell of this Court determined that a motion to revise an interlocutory order was “cognizable as a motion for reconsideration under Local Rule 7.10.”
• These authorities confirm that the instant motion is properly reviewed under Rule 54(b) and ultimately Local Rule 7.10. Though, for the record, I would note that the motion would be untimely under Rule 59’s more lenient twenty-eight day standard as well, given that it was filed four hundred and forty-one days after the contested Order’s issuance.
Last, the Court cannot discern—and Plaintiffs fail to offer—any compelling justification for departing from Local Rule
In my view, Plaintiffs suffer little harm from my refraining to relitigate the contested issues: if Reed does, as they contend, alter the constitutionality of Defendant’s signage regime, then Plaintiffs are free to re-apply for permission to post their messages and ultimately contest any subsequent denials that they believe violate their First Amendment rights. Having not reached the merits, the Court offers no opinion as to the applicability or effect of the Reed decision. I mention Reed only in recognition that the aftermath of that decision should now properly unravel in communities around the country, rather than by reviving stale federal claims, the latter path having the unseemly tendency to breed activist judging as opposed to measured consideration.
B. Plaintiffs’ Second Motion For Partial Summary Judgment Is Also Denied As Untimely, Given That The Court’s Prior Order Will Not Be Revised.
Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner of this Court and to whom the matter was initially assigned set the dispositive Motions Deadline as March 1, 2013.
Defendant therefore correctly points out that Plaintiffs’ untimely Second Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is premised upon this Court reconsidering its May 20, 2014 Order. To enter partial summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs as to their substantive claims about the amended ordinance necessarily requires the Court to vacate and reconsider its prior holding as to that ordinance’s content neutrality. As outlined above, that is not a path that the Court is prepared to take at this time.
Thus, in light of these considerations, the Court agrees with Defendant that Plaintiffs have “not properly or. validly presented any reason for this Court to disturb its prior Orders.”
IV. CONCLUSION
In accordance with the foregoing reasoning,' Plaintiffs’ Motion to Revise and Second Motion for Partial Summary Judgment are both denied. The appropriate situs for resolution of the instant dispute that Plaintiffs’ new motions advance is truly no longer federal court but is, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., characterized it, the community’s vibrant “marketplace of ideas.”
An appropriate Order follows.
. ECF No. 47 at 1.
. Id.
. See id. at 11.
. See id.
. See id. at 25.
. Id. at 11.
. Id..
. See id. at 11-12.
. Id. at 26.
. 18 F.3d 1043 (1994). Because it need not reach the merits, the Court does not intimate as to whether Rappa remains good law.
. Id. at 1067.
. -U.S.-, 135 S.Ct. 2218, 192 L.Ed.2d 236.
. Id. at 2224.
. ECF No. 69.
. Id. at 1.
. ECF No. 71.
. ECF No. 76 at 3-4.
. ECF No. 77 at 4-5.
. DiNoia v. Cumbo, No. 2:12-03175 (WJM), 2016 WL 183526, at *1 (D.N.J. Jan. 14, 2016) (citing N. River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance, Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3d Cir. 1995)).
. U.S. ex rel. Streck v. Allergan, Inc., 288 F.R.D. 88, 90 (E.D.Pa. 2012).
. United States v. Eleven Vehicles, Their Equip. & Accessories, 200 F.3d 203, 215 (3d Cir. 2000).
. Streck, 288 F.R.D. at 91.
. Boraks v. Daniels, No. 10-23095-CIV, 2011 WL 4566218, at *2 (S.D.Fla. Sept. 29, 2011).
. No. 3:09-CV-00525, 2014 WL 4093069, at *1 n. 2 (M.D.Pa. Aug. 18, 2014).
. Id. at *1.
. DiNoia v. Cumbo, No. 2:12-03175 (WJM), 2016 WL 183526, at *1 (D.N.J. Jan. 14, 2016).
. In re Gedda, No. 6:13-BK-02238-KSJ, 2015 WL 1137883, at *2 (Bankr.M.D.Fla. Mar. 6, 2015).
. 12 F.Supp.3d 702, 723 (M.D.Pa. 2014) (emphasis in original).
. Kohn v. Sch. Dist. of City of Harrisburg, No. 1:11-CV-109, 2012 WL 5379283, at *2 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 31, 2012).
. Am. Canoe Ass'n v. Murphy Farms, Inc., 326 F.3d 505, 514 (4th Cir. 2003).
. United States v. Windsor, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 2675, 2698, 186 L.Ed.2d 808 (2013) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
. Spector Motor Serv. v. Walsh, 139 F.2d 809, 823 (2d Cir. 1943), vacated sub nom. Spector Motor Serv. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101, 65 S.Ct. 152, 89 L.Ed. 101 (1944).
. ECF No. 9 at 1.
. ECF No. 68 (emphasis added).
. ECF No, 47 at 18.
. ECF No. 47 at 25.
. ECF No. 77 at 5.
. Id.
. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630, 40 S.Ct. 17, 22, 63 L.Ed. 1173 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting),
Reference
- Full Case Name
- NITTANY OUTDOOR ADVERTISING, LLC, and Stephanas Ministries v. COLLEGE TOWNSHIP
- Cited By
- 6 cases
- Status
- Published