United States District Court, D. Connecticut
RULING RE: JOINT MOTION FOR AN INDICATIVE RULING
(DOC. NO. 348)
Janet
C. Hall, United States District Judge.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Pending
before the court is the parties' Joint Motion for an
Indicative Ruling (“Mot.”) (Doc. No. 348). In
their Motion, the parties represent that they have reached a
conditional settlement contingent upon this court vacating
the judgment, verdict, and rulings that are currently on
appeal before the Second Circuit. See Memorandum in
Support of Joint Motion for Indicative Ruling to Effect Terms
of Settlement (“Mem.”) (Doc. No. 348-1) at 2.
Pursuant to Rule 62.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, the parties seek an indicative ruling from this
court stating that the court would grant a motion to vacate
if the Second Circuit remanded for that purpose. See
id. at 4.
For the
reasons discussed below, the parties' Joint Motion for an
Indicative Ruling (Doc. No. 348) is granted.
II.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs
Bernard Pitterman and Rose O'Connor (collectively,
“the plaintiffs”) sued defendant General Motors
LLC (“General Motors”) under the Connecticut
Product Liability Act (“CPLA”). See
generally Amended Complaint (“Am. Compl.”)
(Doc. No. 239). The case proceeded to a jury trial and, on
July 19, 2017, the jury entered a verdict against General
Motors in favor of the plaintiffs. See Jury Verdict
(Doc. No. 296-1) at 7-8. On August 23, 2017, General Motors
filed a Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law After
Trial (Doc. No. 307). General Motors also filed a Motion to
Certify Questions to the Connecticut Supreme Court (Doc. No.
313) on October 12, 2017, requesting certification on two of
questions concerning Connecticut products liability law. The
court denied both Motions. See generally Amended
Ruling on Defendant's Motion to Certify Questions to the
Connecticut Supreme Court (Doc. No. 318); Ruling on
Defendant's Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of
Law After Trial (Doc. No. 321).
On May
17, 2018, General Motors filed a Notice of Appeal with the
Second Circuit (Doc. No. 329). According to the parties'
representations in their Memorandum in Support of the Joint
Motion for an Indicative Ruling, the Second Circuit ordered
the parties to participate in the court's Civil Appeals
Mediation Program. See Mem. at 2. The parties
further represent that they have now reached a conditional
agreement that would moot the pending appeal, including a
financial settlement that is satisfactory to the plaintiffs.
See id. The conditional agreement, however, is
contingent on this court vacating the judgment, verdict, and
rulings that are currently on appeal. See Mot. at 1.
At the parties' request, the Second Circuit has held the
appeal in abeyance to allow the parties to seek an indicative
ruling from this court on the issue of vacatur. See
generally Order of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit (Doc. No. 347).
III.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
It is
well settled that “[t]he filing of a notice of appeal
is an event of jurisdictional significance - it confers
jurisdiction on the court of appeals and divests the district
court of its control over those aspects of the case involved
in the appeal.” Negron v. United States, 394
Fed.Appx. 788, 792 (2d Cir. 2010) (quoting Griggs v.
Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56,
58 (1982)). However, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62.1 is
“a procedural device that allows a district court to
inform the parties and [the circuit court] how it would rule
on the merits of certain motions after an appeal has been
filed and the district court has been divested of
jurisdiction.” LFoundry Rousset, SAS v. Atmel
Corp., 690 Fed.Appx. 748, 750 (2d Cir. 2017).
Specifically, when parties file a motion pursuant to Rule
62.1, including motions to vacate, district courts are
authorized to issue so-called “indicative
rulings.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 62.1 Advisory Committee Notes;
see also Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17, 28 n.7 (2d
Cir. 2017) (“Rule 62.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure permits district courts to issue indicative rulings
to appellate courts when a timely motion is made for relief
that the court lacks authority to grant because of an appeal
that has been docketed and is pending.”) (internal
quotation marks omitted). In an indicative ruling, “the
court may (1) defer considering the motion; (2) deny the
motion; or (3) state that it would grant the motion if the
court of appeals remands for that purpose or that the motion
raises a substantial issue.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 62.1(a).
IV.
DISCUSSION
The
parties argue that the exceptional circumstances of this case
warrant vacatur. See Mem. at 4. In particular, they
note that (1) the Second Circuit initiated the negotiations
that eventually led to the parties' settlement; (2) both
parties desire vacatur; (3) vacatur is a necessary condition
of the settlement agreement; and (4) the only damage to the
public interest from the proposed vacatur is depriving the
public of the precedential effect of this court's
decisions. See id. at 7.
Pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), the court has the
power to vacate a final judgment, order, or proceeding for,
inter alia, “any [ ] reason that justifies
relief.” That said, when a voluntary settlement reached
by the parties moots an appeal, vacatur of the underlying
judgment is ordinarily not available. See Major League
Baseball Properties, Inc. v. Pac. Trading Cards, Inc.,
150 F.3d 149, 151 (2d Cir. 1998). Mootness by reason of
settlement does not, by itself, justify vacatur in light of
several opposing considerations, namely: (1) that
“[j]udicial precedents are presumptively correct and
valuable to the legal community as a whole”; (2) that
allowing parties to employ vacatur as a collateral attack on
a judgment would “disturb the orderly operation of the
federal judicial system”; and (3) that when a case is
settled, “the losing party has voluntarily forfeited
his legal remedy by the ordinary processes of appeal or
certiorari, thereby surrendering his claim to the equitable
remedy of vacatur.” U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v.
Bonner Mall P'ship, 513 U.S. 18, 25-27 (1994);
see also Microsoft Corp. v. Bristol Tech., Inc., 250
F.3d 152, 154 (2d Cir. 2001). Thus, because “denying
vacatur after settlement advances the public interest in
preserving judicial precedent and the proper course of
appellate procedure, ” ATSI Commc'ns, Inc. v.
Shaar Fund, Ltd, 547 F.3d 109, 112 (2d Cir. 2008), the
Second Circuit has cautioned that vacatur is “an
extraordinary remedy to be granted only in exceptional
circumstances.” Microsoft, 250 F.3d at 154
(internal quotation marks omitted).
The
Second Circuit has declined to define what circumstances
should be considered “exceptional.” See
id. at 154 (“Without undertaking to say what is
‘exceptional' under Bancorp and what is
not, we have granted vacatur on several occasions.”);
Zomber v. Stolz, No. CV 09-4637 ETB, 2012 WL
1427775, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 25, 2012) (“[T]he Second
Circuit has declined to define what circumstances are
considered ‘exceptional' to warrant vacating a
final judgment[.]”). However, it has highlighted
several considerations that weigh in favor of vacatur. To
begin, the Second Circuit has indicated that the public
interest in preserving judicial precedent is “less
compelling when, as here, the judgment to be vacated is one
of a federal district court” because “[d]istrict
court decisions, unlike the decisions of States' highest
courts and federal courts of appeals, are not precedential in
the technical sense[.]” ATSI Communications,
547 F.3d at 112 (internal quotation marks
omitted).[1] The public interest in preserving a
district court opinion is further diminished when its
“chief precedential value” is its interpretation
of state law. Microsoft, 250 F.3d at 155. In
Microsoft v. Bristol Technology, for example, the
Second Circuit vacated this court's “interpretive
opinion” of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act
(“CUPTA”), explaining that the opinion was
“perhaps dispensable” because “CUPTA is a
state statute” and “one can expect that its
import will be developed by Connecticut state
courts[.]” Id.
The
Second Circuit has also been more amenable to vacatur when
“the court and appellee, not the appellant, initiated
consideration of settlement, ” and when “all the
parties had a significant interest in vacating the district
court's opinion.” Major League Baseball
Properties, 150 F.3d at 152. In Major League
Baseball Properties v. Pacific Trading Cards, for
example, the Second Circuit vacated the district court's
rulings in a trademark dispute where the parties settled
after the Second Circuit had encouraged the parties to engage
in negotiations. See id. at 151. Because the court
would have preliminarily enjoined the appellee from selling
certain merchandise unless the appellee posted a bond
sufficient to secure the appellant's infringement claims,
the appellee in that case “strongly desired” a
settlement to avoid the burdensome financial consequences of
an appeal. Id. at 150, 152. The appellant, however,
would not settle without vacatur because it was concerned
about “the effect of the district court's decision
in future litigation with alleged ...