Yeschick v. Mineta

675 F.3d 622 (6th Cir. 2012)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P worked as an air traffic controller for the FAA from 1974 until 1981. In 1981, President Reagan imposed an indefinite bar on the FAA's employment of members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) who were engaging in an unauthorized strike. P joined the strike and was terminated from his position. On August 12, 1993, President Clinton issued an Executive Order that lifted the bar on employment, restoring FAA employment eligibility to PATCO members who had gone on strike. P applied for reemployment with the FAA as an air traffic control specialist. P moved and did not inform the FAA that the address used on his reemployment application had changed. None of the FAA's letters reached P. In 2000, the FAA reviewed its list of PATCO applications and eliminated from the list of eligible applicants those for whom no current contact information was available. P's application was identified as 'inactive' during this process and, as a result, P's name was not included in referral lists for the area listed as his primary choice for assignment. P was not rehired by the FAA. In October 2002, P filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that he had been discriminated against based on his age when the FAA failed to rehire him from the PATCO register. The EEOC dismissed his complaint for untimeliness. On appeal, the EEOC affirmed the dismissal, finding that P did not act with the required diligence and that his delay was not justified. P filed a complaint alleging age discrimination. D filed a motion to dismiss and, in the alternative, for summary judgment. It was granted and D appealed and the case was returned to the district court for proceedings. D served its first set of discovery requests on P on April 29, 2009. P failed to respond to repeated requests for his discovery responses, and D filed a motion to compel on August 10, 2009. After receiving no discovery responses, D filed a motion for sanctions on September 30, 2009, requesting the district court dismiss with prejudice. It was eventually granted and D filed a motion for relief from judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(1) and a motion for leave to respond to D's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that his counsel failed to receive notice of the filing of the motion until the district court's judgment was docketed on January 15, 2010. filed a motion for relief from judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(1) and a motion for leave to respond to the FAA's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that his counsel failed to receive notice of the filing of the motion until the district court's judgment was docketed on January 15, 2010. D argued that the failure to check the docket and keep apprised of the case's status for a six-month period of time did not constitute excusable neglect sufficient to warrant relief from judgment. It denied P’s motion. The district court noted that 'P's counsel was on notice in early July that the Defendant was poised to file a motion to compel because P had not responded to any of D's interrogatory requests.' Given that Pulito also knew that discovery was to close on September 15, 2009, and that dispositive motions were due on October 15, 2009, the district court found that it was 'not reasonable for . . . counsel to assume there were no filings in this case during that specific six-month period.' The district court also found that D would be prejudiced if P's motion were granted. P appealed.