Opinion
Civil Action No. 94-7316.
September 15, 2004
Memorandum and Order
This is a qui tam action brought by relator Paul E. Atkinson pursuant to the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729. 1 granted summary judgment for defendants on July 28, 2004, holding that plaintiff had presented no evidence that would enable a reasonable juror to find that defendants had conspired to defraud the United States Navy. See United States ex rel. Atkinson v. Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co., 2004 WL 1686958 (E.D. Pa. July 28, 2004). Plaintiff now moves for reconsideration and requests permission to conduct additional discovery.
"The purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence." Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d 906, 909 (3d Cir. 1985). Reconsideration is proper where the moving party demonstrates one of three grounds: "(1) an intervening change in the controlling law; 2) the availability of new evidence that was not available when the court granted the motion for summary judgment; or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact or to prevent manifest injustice." Max's Seafood Café ex rel. Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999) (citing N. River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3d Cir. 1995)); see also Local Rule 7.1(g).
Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration is based upon a theory of newly discovered evidence. See Pl.'s Mot. Reconsideration (Doc. # 211). According to plaintiff, documents provided to him by defendants in October of 2003 contain evidence of a conspiracy. Evidence gleaned from the late deposition of Mr. Paden and a DOJ investigation also compel a holding, urges plaintiff, that a reasonable juror could find ample evidence of a conspiracy. Finally, plaintiff argues that a late "document dump" of 20,000 documents reveals several complex arrangements among defendants and third parties which explicate the conspiracy allegedly entered into by defendants. See id.
Plaintiff claims that the information in these documents is "new and could not have been reasonably known." Id. at 3. "A district court may properly refuse to consider evidence presented in a motion for reconsideration when the evidence was available prior to summary judgment." Bailey v. United Airlines, 279 F.3d 194, 201 (3d Cir. 2002) (citing Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d at 909). In this case, plaintiff specifically states that the documents he claims to be "new" were delivered to him in October 2003, shortly before discovery closed and well before summary judgment motions were filed. He makes no attempt to explain why the documents could not have been obtained earlier during the often-extended period of discovery. Moreover, defendants' motions for summary judgment were not filed until December 15, 2003. Plaintiff's opposition thereto — in which he had the opportunity to include all evidence he believed supported his theory of conspiracy — was filed on February 2, 2004, over three months after the date of the "late document dump." My decision was not filed until July 28, 2004 and plaintiff made no effort prior thereto to supplement the record. Although plaintiff is now acting pro se because he fired his counsel on August 9, 2004 (apparently because they refused to file this motion to reconsider), he was represented by counsel during the entire period from October, 2003 to July 28, 2004.
Motions for reconsideration "may not be used `as a means to argue new facts or issues that inexcusably were not presented to the court in the matter previously decided.'" Johnson v. Diamond State Port Corp., 50 Fed. Appx. 554, 560, 2002 WL 31429864, *6 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting Brambles USA, Inc. v. Blocker, 735 F. Supp. 1239, 1240 (D. Del. 1990)). Plaintiff had over nine months during which to consider the evidence presented in the documents he now labels "new," and has offered no compelling reason why he was unable to include the relevant evidence in his opposition to summary judgment in a timely fashion or to later supplement his response. Plaintiff's proffered evidence, therefore, does not constitute "newly discovered evidence" and does not warrant a reconsideration of this court's summary judgment grant.