Opinion
Civil Case No. 09-cv-00007-REB-MEH
11-17-2011
AAA NATIONAL MAINTENANCE, a Georgia corporation, and DANA MAYFIELD, Plaintiffs, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, a municipal corporation, and DENVER DEPARTMENT OF AVIATION, a Department of the City and County of Denver, Defendants.
Judge Robert E. Blackburn
ORDER DENYING MOTION TO APPEAL COURT'S
DECISION DENYING REQUEST TO RE-OPEN SETTLEMENT
AGREEMENT DUE TO LACK OF JURISDICTION
Blackburn, J.
The matter before me is plaintiffs' Motion To Appeal Court's Decision Denying Request for Re-Open Settlement Agreement Due to Lack of Jurisdiction [#157]filed October 18, 2011. Construing the motion as a request for me to reconsider my Minute Order [#156] filed October 11, 2011, I deny the request.
"[#157]" is an example of the convention I use to identify the docket number assigned to a specific paper by the court's electronic case filing and management system (CM/ECF). I use this convention throughout this order.
The bases for granting reconsideration are extremely limited:
Grounds warranting a motion to reconsider include (1) an intervening change in the controlling law, (2) new evidence previously unavailable, and (3) the need to correct clear error or prevent manifest injustice. Thus, a motion for reconsideration is appropriate where the court has misapprehended the facts, a party's position, or the controlling law. It is not appropriate to revisit issues alreadyServants of the Paraclete v. Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1012 (10th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). Plaintiffs offer nothing suggesting that any of these factors are implicated in this case.
addressed or advance arguments that could have been raised in prior briefing.
I note further that a corporation cannot appear before a federal court pro se but must be represented by a licensed attorney. Tal v. Hogan, 453 F.3d 1244, 1254 (10th Cir. 2006). Thus plaintiff Mayfield's attempt to represent the interests of the corporate plaintiff are ineffectual.
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The decisions from courts outside the Tenth Circuit to which plaintiffs cite are not binding on me, nor do they convince me that the apposite authority cited in my Minute Order is erroneous. As I stated there, and shall reiterate here for plaintiffs' benefit, "there is no procedural mechanism to reopen a case dismissed with prejudice to enforce the settlement. Instead, an independent action must be commenced asserting a breach of the settlement contract, and an independent basis for jurisdiction in the enforcement action must be established." Cattlco, LLC v. United AG Export Corp., 2009 WL 973562 at *3 (D. Colo. April 10, 2009)
THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that plaintiffs' Motion To Appeal Court's Decision Denying Request for Re-Open Settlement Agreement Due to Lack of Jurisdiction [#157] filed October 18, 2011, is DENIED.
Dated November 17, 2011, at Denver, Colorado.
BY THE COURT:
Robert E. Blackburn
United States District Judge