BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman (23-1259)

argument 23-1259

BLOM Bank SAL v. Honickman

Supreme Court of the United States 52 min 7 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the Court’s stance on Rule 60(b)(6) and extraordinary circumstances?

Amy Coney Barrett 0:00

We'll hear argument next this morning, case twenty three, twelve fifty nine, Bloombank. versus Mikal Nickman. Mr McKinley.

Michael McGinley 0:10

Mr Chief Justice, and may I please the Court. This Court has long held that Rule sixty B six requires extraordinary circumstances to reopen a final judgment, and those circumstances cannot be the result of the movement's own strategic choices. The Second Circuit has diluted that stringent standard. In its view, courts must also give effect to Rule 15A's liberal repleting policy when considering a 60 B6 motion seeking to replete. That outlier view is wrong. It has no basis in law or logic. Rather than blurring the two rules, the proper approach is to keep them separate. If this Court's well settled test for sixty B six is met, then Rule fifteen comes into play. Collapsing the two steps undermines finality.

Michael McGinley 0:58

It creates an inherently contradictory test, it invites inefficient, repetitive and costly litigation that is at odds with the federal rules overriding objectives. Here, respondents do not qualify for Rule 60 B6 relief. They declined multiple opportunities to amend their complaint in both the trial court and on appeal. Instead, they made the tactical choice to stand on their pleadings even when the Second Circuit ordered supplemental briefing after the Kaplan decision. As a result, they received a final judgment that was affirmed on appeal. Now they seek to restart that process all over again. Doing so would effectively treat the Second Circuit's original decision as an advisory opinion. And respondents have offered no justification other than that they mistakenly believe that their that their original complaint was sufficient.

Michael McGinley 1:49

That hardly qualifies as extraordinary circumstances. It is litigators' remorse and that is not enough for Rule sixty B six relief. This court should reverse and bring this case to an end. I welcome the Court's questions.

Clarence Thomas 2:02

Um respondent seems to have premised um its argument uh on its view of the earlier uh Second Circuit uh opinion uh that it announced a new rule. What do you think of that?

Michael McGinley 2:16

That's not true, Your Honor. There's no change in law here. Instead, I would point you to my friend's brief on page twelve where they admit that it was just the application of controlling law to their set of facts. I would also mention, Your Honor, that what happened in this case is this case and Kaplan were decided in close proximity to each other, both in the district court and in the Second Circuit. When we went to oral argument in the Second Circuit in this case, Kaplan had already Been argued. I would point you to page 300 of the JA, where the court in our case said to my friend on the other side: You're aware that Kaplan is subjudiced before this court. You're also aware, I believe, that the detailed allegations in Kaplan are quite different than what are at issue here in Honekman.

Michael McGinley 2:59

What are we to do? What the court ended up doing is holding Honekman in abeyance until Kaplan was decided. At that point, My friend on the other side was fully aware that at least one member of that court thought that their allegations were lacking under uh as compared to Kaplan. The court ordered supplemental briefing. At that time, they were fully capable, and they admit this on page 40 of their brief, of asking the court to simply remand for them to replete if they if the court thought that their pleadings in this case weren't sufficient under the rule that was um announced in Kaplan. In fact, that's what happened in the last ATA Josta case that was in front of this court. This court might remember that in the Twitter case it also had a companion case called Gonzalez versus Google.

Michael McGinley 3:43

And at oral argument in the Google case, um Justice Barrett asked the plaintiff's attorney, if we were to rule against your client In the Twitter case, what would we what would you want us to do in this case? And the attorney in that case said we would ask you to remand so that we could attempt to re-plead. The court ended up doing that in the Google case. It of course pointed out that even in that case, the plaintiff had had possibly waived their ability to amend because they they saw it review rather than amending when the court gave them the opportunity to.