24-565 Hall v. Annucci

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 “SUMMARY 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 3rd day of October, two thousand twenty-four.

PRESENT: RICHARD J. SULLIVAN, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges, RAMÓN E. REYES, JR., District Judge. * _____________________________________

RALPH HALL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. No. 24-565

*Judge Ramón E. Reyes, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. ANTHONY ANNUCCI, DOCCS Commissioner, in his official and personal capacity, PATRICK GRIFFIN, GHCF Superintendent, in his official and personal capacity, DR. ROBERT BENTIVEGNA, GHCF Medical Supervisor, in his official and personal capacity, DR. KYOUNG KIM, GHCF Medical Provider, in his official and personal capacity, AILEEN MCCARTHY, GHCF Hospital-Infirmary Nurse, in her official and personal capacity, NICOLE WALSH, GHCF Hospital- Infirmary Nurse, in her official and personal capacity, DONNA HEITZ, GHCF Hospital-Infirmary Nurse, in her official and personal capacity, DEBORAH MACDONALD, GHCF Hospital-Infirmary Nurse, in her official and personal capacity,

Defendants-Appellees. † _____________________________________

For Plaintiff-Appellant: Ralph Hall, pro se, Stormville, NY.

For Defendants-Appellees: Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Ester Murdukhayeva, Deputy Solicitor General, Stephen J. Yanni, Assistant Solicitor General, Claire Rothschild, Law Intern, for

† The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above.

2 Letitia James, Attorney General for the State of New York, New York, NY.

Appeal from a January 25, 2024 order of the United States District Court

for the Southern District of New York (Kenneth M. Karas, Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Ralph Hall, an incarcerated prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals from the

district court’s denial of his motion for relief from a final judgment under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 60. He also moves for the appointment of counsel. We

assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history,

to which we refer only as necessary to resolve this appeal.

In 2019, Hall commenced a federal action against the Commissioner of

New York State’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the

superintendent of the Green Haven Correctional Facility, and several prison

hospital workers, alleging that defendants were deliberately indifferent to his

medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, by virtue of the failure of

prison medical staff to treat his surgical wound. The district court granted

3 summary judgment to the defendants on the ground that Hall had not exhausted

his available administrative remedies, as required by the Prison Litigation

Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). See Hall v. Annucci, No. 19-cv-5521 (KMK),

, at *7–10 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 30, 2022), aff’d No. 22-2031,

(2d Cir. Nov. 2, 2023). After we affirmed the district court’s judgment

on direct appeal, see Hall,

, at *1–2, Hall moved for relief from

that judgment pursuant to Rule 60. The district court denied Hall’s motion as

barred by the law-of-the-case doctrine, and, in the alternative, determined that

Hall had failed to meet the requirements of Rule 60(a) or (b).

We review a district court’s denial of relief under Rule 60 for abuse of

discretion. See Paddington Partners v. Bouchard,

(2d Cir. 1994).

A district court lacks jurisdiction to consider a motion to set aside a final

judgment that has been affirmed on appeal unless that motion identifies a

material change of circumstances or newly discovered evidence. See DeWeerth

v. Baldinger,

(2d Cir. 1994) (discussing Standard Oil Co. v. United

States,

(1976)); see also Fine v. Bellefonte Underwriters Ins. Co.,

(2d Cir. 1985). We have referred to this jurisdictional rule as part of the

4 law-of-the-case doctrine, see Brown v. City of Syracuse,

(2d Cir.

2012), which generally “commands that when a court has ruled on an issue, that

decision should . . . be adhered to by that court in subsequent stages in the same

case unless cogent and compelling reasons militate otherwise,” Johnson v. Holder,

(2d Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under the

law-of-the-case doctrine, “[w]hen an appellate court has once decided an issue,

the trial court, at a later stage of the litigation, is under a duty to follow the

appellate court’s ruling on that issue.” Brown,

(quoting Doe v.

N.Y. City Dep’t of Soc. Servs.,

, 788 (2d Cir. 1983)).

Nevertheless, because an appellate mandate “relate[s] only ‘to the record

and issues then before the court, and [does] not purport to deal with possible

later events,’” a district court may consider a Rule 60 motion based on new

information or compelling facts. DeWeerth,

. (quoting Standard

Oil Co.,

). Compelling reasons that might justify a Rule 60 motion

include “an intervening change in law, [the] availability of new evidence, or the

need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Johnson, 564 F.3d at

99–100 (internal quotation marks omitted).

5 Here, the district court held (and we affirmed) that Hall could not proceed

with his federal suit because there was no genuine dispute that he failed to

exhaust the administrative remedies that were available to him. Specifically,

the district court concluded that his medical condition was “grievable” under the

applicable grievance procedures, that the grievance process was not a simple

“dead end,” and that a prison official’s off-hand remark did not amount to a

“threat” that prevented Hall from filing a grievance. Hall,

, at

*7–10. On appeal, we agreed with the district court “that there is no genuine

issue of fact as to whether any exception applies to Hall’s failure to file a

grievance related to his medical treatment.” Hall,

, at *2.

In his Rule 60 motion, Hall neither identified an intervening change in the

law nor presented new evidence that was previously unavailable to him. To the

extent that Hall now claims “fraud on the court” as a basis for relief from the

judgment under Rule 60(b)(3), he presents no facts whatsoever – much less

compelling ones – to support his conclusory assertion that the defendants

improperly raised “an unavailable affirmative defense via motion for summary

judgment.” Hall Br. at 2. We therefore conclude that our prior mandate

6 compelled the district court to deny Hall’s motion for relief from the final

judgment and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in doing so.

* * *

We have considered Hall’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the order of the district court. It is

further ordered that Hall’s motion for the appointment of counsel is DENIED as

moot.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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