Opinion
04-CV-6094 CJS.
December 01, 2011.
APPEARANCES Frederick Diaz, pro se, for Plaintiff.
Gary M. Levine, A.A.G. New York State Attorney General's Office, for Defendants.
DECISION AND ORDER
INTRODUCTION
Siragusa, J. This matter, concerning the confiscation of Plaintiffs atheist pendent, is back before the Court on Plaintiff's letter motion, dated October 4, 2010, ECF No. 121, for reconsideration of the Court's Decision and Order, ECF No. 119 (Sept. 29, 2010), which granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied Plaintiffs cross-motion for summary judgment, pursuant to which the Clerk entered judgment for Defendants and closed the case. Plaintiff contends that the Court left undecided one of his pending summary judgment motions, as well as his objections to United States Magistrate Judge Marian W. Payson's Report and Recommendation, ECF No. 53 (Sept. 20, 2006). Further, Plaintiff contends that the Court, in deciding to grant summary judgment based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, overlooked facts presented in his Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF NO. 109 (Sept. 18, 2008), specifically pages five through seven, concerning Defendants' argument that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applied to this lawsuit. For the reasons stated below, the Court denies Plaintiff's application.
Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 486 (1983).
BACKGROUND
The Court set out a detailed history of this case in its Decision and Order, ECF No. 119 (Sept. 29, 2010), which it will not repeat in full here. Diaz v. Goord, No. 04-CV-6094-CJS-MWP, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103150 (W.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2010). On September 20, 2006, Judge Payson, to whom this case was referred for all non-dispositive motions, filed a Report and Recommendation, ECF No. 53, recommending that Plaintiffs motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint, ECF No. 24, be denied. Plaintiff filed objections, ECF No. 57, on October 6, 2006, and on November 16, 2006, the Court filed a Decision and Order, ECF No. 65, adopting Judge Payson's Report and Recommendation.
STANDARDS OF LAW
As the Fifth Circuit has recognized,
[t]here is no motion for "reconsideration" in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Hamilton Plaintiffs v. Williams Plaintiffs, 147 F.3d 367, 371 n. 10 (5th Cir. 1998). However, a motion for reconsideration filed within ten days of the district court's judgment is construed as a Rule 59(e) motion that suspends the time for filing a notice of appeal. See id.Bass v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 211 F.3d 959, 962 (5th Cir. 2000). Since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not expressly provide for motions for reconsideration, such a motion may be construed as a motion to alter or amend judgment under Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b). See Osterneck v. Ernst Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 174 (1989)."The standard for granting such a motion is strict, and reconsideration will generally be denied unless the moving party can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked — matters, in other words, that might reasonably be expected to alter the conclusion reached by the court." Shraderv. CSX Transp., Inc., 70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995).
ANALYSIS
First, as to Plaintiffs contention that the Court never ruled on his objections to Judge Payson's Report and Recommendation, the docket shows that the Court's Decision and Order of November 16, 2006, ECF No. 65, adopted Judge Payson's recommendation that Plaintiffs motion to file a supplemental complaint be denied.
Second, as to a pending summary judgment motion, the Court's review of the docket shows no outstanding motion. The Court's September 29, 2010, Decision and Order addressed two summary judgment motions:
Now before the Court are two motions: (1) Defendants' second motion for summary judgment (Docket No. 99); and (2) Plaintiffs cross-motion (Docket No. 106) also for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, Defendants1 motion for summary judgment is granted and Plaintiffs cross-motion is denied.Diaz, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103150, *1.
Third, with regard to pages five through seven of his Opposition, Plaintiff argued that Defendants were estopped from raising the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. PL's Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 109 (Sept. 18, 2008), at 5. He contended that since he raised all the facts of his prior New York State Article 78 proceeding in the complaint, and because Defendants did not raise Rooker-Feldman doctrine, collateral estoppel and res judicata in their answer, they were estopped from raising such arguments in their motion papers, as all three doctrines are affirmative defenses that must be plead, or they are waived. Id. He further argued that he did not have a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue "in the prior proceeding due to the State Court's bias against him, as the court was simply not interested in hearing anything that plaintiff had to say. This is evidenced by the court's decision." Id. at 5-6. His opposition continues to describe how the state court judge ignored his proof in coming to the wrong decision with regard to the confiscation of Plaintiffs atheist pendent.
Plaintiff also argued that Defendants' were estopped from raising collateral estoppel and res judicata, but the Court's decision did not rely on those doctrines.
With regard to the argument that the three doctrines, Rooker-Feldman, collateral estoppel and res judicata, are affirmative defenses, which Defendants waived by not raising them in their answers, Plaintiff is only partially correct. While collateral estoppel and res judicata are affirmative defenses that must be raised, or are considered waived, Rooker-Feldman is not. Harris v. New York State Dept. of Health, 202 F. Supp. 2d 143, 160 (S.D.N.Y. 2002). "A challenge under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is for lack of subject matter jurisdiction..., and may be raised at any time by either party or sua sponte by the court..." Moccio v. New York State Office of Court Admin., 95 F.3d 195, 198 (2d Cir. 1996) (citations omitted), abbrogated on other grounds as recognized in Hoblock v. Albany County Bd. of Elections, 432 F.3d 77, 85 (2d Cir. 2005).
Further elaborating on the application of Rooker-Feldman, the Second Circuit's decision in Hoblock, discussed the Supreme Court's decision in Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S., and the Second Circuit stated:
In Exxon Mobil, the Supreme Court pared back the Rooker-Feidman doctrine to its core, holding that it "is confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments." 544 U.S. at —, 125 S. Ct. at 1521-22. From this holding, we can see that there are four requirements for the application of Rooker-Feidman. First, the federal-court plaintiff must have lost in state court. Second, the plaintiff must "complain[] of injuries caused by [a] state-court judgment[.]" Third, the plaintiff must "invit[e] district court review and rejection of [that] judgment[]. ..." Fourth, the state-court judgment must have been "rendered before the district court proceedings commenced" — i.e., Rooker-Feidman has no application to federal-court suits proceeding in parallel with ongoing state-court litigation. The first and fourth of these requirements may be loosely termed procedural; the second and third may be termed substantive.Hoblock, 422 F.3d at 85.
Here, Plaintiffs litigation in state court was completed by the time of this lawsuit. Compi., ECF No. 1 {Mar. 8, 2004), ¶¶ 18-19. The complaint in Federal court raised the same issues raised in Plaintiffs unsuccessful Article 78 proceeding. Compare Compl., ECF. No. 1, ¶ 67 ("When plaintiff wrote to the Inmate Records Coordinator requesting that his pendant be returned, he was informed by the Legal Officer that his pendant would not be returned because it was suddenly being considered to be a 'potential weapon.'") with Petition, ECF No. 100, at 14 ¶ 10 ("I subsequently wrote to the Head Clerk's Office requesting that my pendant and chain be returned. However, instead of having it returned, I received a note from the Legal Officer informing me that my pendant would not be returned since it was being considered as a potential weapon.") and Memorandum and Judgment, In re Diaz v. Goord, No. 19, 631 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Jun. 6, 2003), ECF No. 100, at 10 ("Respondent has exercised its discretion to seize the petitioner's pendant due to security concerns."). Plaintiff's second claim was an invitation to this Court to review and reject that decision. As such, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court denies Plaintiffs application to reconsider its prior Decision and Order dated September 29, 2010, ECF No. 119.
IT IS SO ORDERED.