Doris Brown v. Shelley Koeller

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Doris Brown v. Shelley Koeller, 542 F. App'x 534 (7th Cir. 2013)
PerCuriam

Doris Brown v. Shelley Koeller

Opinion

Order

We remanded this litigation in 2009 for a decision on the merits. Brown v. Varan, 322 Fed.Appx. 453 (7th Cir. 2009) (nonpre-cedential disposition). In 2011 the district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit. Plaintiff did not appeal. A year later she filed a motion asking the district court to reopen the litigation. The only source of authority for such a motion was Fed. R.Civ.P. 60(b)(6). The district court denied the motion.

Plaintiff has appealed from that decision but does not mention the grounds on which the district court acted. Instead she proceeds as if this were a belated appeal from the 2011 judgment. That is not possible, however. Plaintiff maintains that she did not receive notice of the judgment’s entry, but Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(6) allows only 180 days for a motion to reopen the time to appeal, and plaintiff did not file anything until a year after the judgment.

Arguments that could have been presented on appeal from the district court’s original decision are not within the scope of this appeal. Only the decision denying the postjudgment motion under Rule 60 is now reviewable, see Blue v. Electrical Workers, 676 F.3d 579, 582 (7th Cir. 2012), but plaintiff does not make any of the arguments that could have justified relief under Rule 60(b)(6). See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 536-38, 125 S.Ct. 2641, 162 L.Ed.2d 480 (2005). The district court’s decision therefore is affirmed.

Reference

Full Case Name
Doris BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Shelley KOELLER, Defendant-Appellee
Status
Unpublished