United States District Court, D. Connecticut
RULING RE: THE PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR
RECONSIDERATION [ECF NO. 54]
Kari
A. Dooley, United States District Judge.
On June
10, 2014, the Plaintiff initiated this 42 U.S.C. § 1983
action, in which he challenges the constitutionality of
certain events that transpired after his transfer to Garner
Correctional Institution (“Garner”) on June 7,
2012. On January 16, 2019, the Court granted the
Defendants' motion to dismiss this action for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction, and the Plaintiff filed a timely
motion for reconsideration on January 23, 2019. The Court
assumes the parties' familiarity with the factual
allegations in the operative complaint and the procedural
history of this case. See generally Lauray v.
Hannah, No. 3:14-cv-00838 (KAD), 2019 WL 235324 (D.
Conn. Jan. 16, 2019) (slip opinion). For the reasons set
forth below, the motion for reconsideration is DENIED.
Legal
Standard
“The
standard for granting a motion for reconsideration is
strict.” Roman v. Leibert, No. 3:16-cv-1988
(JCH), 2017 WL 4286302, at *1 (D. Conn. Sept. 27, 2017)
(quoting Ricciuti v. Gyzenis, 832 F.Supp.2d 147, 165
(D. Conn. 2011)); accord Shrader v. CSX Transp.,
Inc., 70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995); see also
D. Conn. R. Civ. P. 7(c)(1) (“Motions for
reconsideration shall not be routinely filed and shall
satisfy the strict standard applicable to such
motions.”). “The primary function of a motion for
reconsideration ‘is to present the court with an
opportunity to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to
consider newly discovered evidence.'” Alexander
v. Gen. Ins. Co. of Am., No. 3:16-cv-00059 (SRU), 2017
WL 188134, at *2 (D. Conn. Jan. 17, 2017) (quoting
LoSacco v. City of Middletown, 822 F.Supp. 870, 876
(D. Conn. 1993), aff'd, 33 F.3d 50 (2d Cir.
1994)). A motion for reconsideration “is not a vehicle
for relitigating old issues, presenting the case under new
theories, securing a rehearing on the merits, or otherwise
taking a second bite at the apple.” Analytical
Surveys, Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P., 684 F.3d 36, 52
(2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly, “[a] motion for reconsideration should be
granted only when the [moving party] identifies an
intervening change of controlling law, the availability of
new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent
manifest injustice.” Kolel Beth Yechiel Mechil of
Tartikov, Inc. v. YLL Irrevocable Trust, 729 F.3d 99,
104 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The
Plaintiff's motion for reconsideration does not satisfy
this stringent standard.
New
Evidence and Manifest Injustice
The
Plaintiff claims to have discovered new evidence in support
of his claim - namely, video footage of his strip search -
and that it would be manifestly unjust for this Court to
dismiss his case without viewing this video
footage.[1] Assuming without deciding that this video
footage constitutes “newly discovered” evidence,
[2] it
does not change the outcome of this case.
The
Court dismissed this action because the Plaintiff failed to
establish that he had standing to assert a retaliation claim
predicated on his ex-wife's rights under the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court
further concluded that this holding was fatal to the
Plaintiff's case because the Amended Complaint did not
state a plausible first party retaliation claim and the
doctrines of abandonment and judicial estoppel precluded him
from asserting any non-retaliation claims. The
Plaintiff's new evidence does not call into question the
accuracy or integrity of these holdings. The Plaintiff
“alleges that he was strip searched in an egregious
manner, ” but the manner in which the strip search was
conducted has no bearing on the Court's holding that the
Plaintiff lacks standing to assert a third-party retaliation
claim. It is also immaterial to the Court's holding that
the Plaintiff failed to state a first party retaliation
claim. The Court's ruling in this regard was based not
the Plaintiff's failure to allege that he was subjected
to adverse action (as he alleged that he was placed in
segregated housing and strip searched for retaliatory
reasons), but on his failure to allege that he himself
engaged in constitutionally protected activity that motivated
the alleged adverse action.[3] Lastly, the Plaintiff does not
take issue anywhere in his motion with this Court's
decision that he was precluded from pursing non-retaliation
claims.
Accordingly,
even if the Court permitted the Plaintiff to amend his
complaint to include a description of this video footage, as
requested, his case would still be subject to dismissal for
the reasons articulated in this Court's earlier ruling.
The
Eleventh Amendment
The
Plaintiff also asks this Court to permit him to amend his
complaint to add additional prospective injunctive relief not
barred by the Eleventh Amendment to the United States
Constitution, asserting “[i]n other cases where the
Eleventh Amendment would otherwise require the dismissal of
allegations in a complaint because the plaintiff had not
adequately plead the relief sought, the Court has allowed the
plaintiff the opportunity to amend the complaint.” It
is difficult to see what bearing this argument has on the
motion for reconsideration, as the Court did not dismiss his
claims on Eleventh Amendment grounds. Regardless, this
argument does not provide a basis for reversing the
Court's earlier ruling.
Conclusion
For all
of the foregoing reasons, the motion for reconsideration is
DENIED.
SO
...