In Long v. Atlantic City Police Department, et al., No. 06-4732 (11/9/2011), Mr. Long sought to
extend the time for filing an appeal from a Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 59(e) ruling under
Fed.R.App.Pro. 4(a)(4)(A) due to prison authorities’ obstruction of the
delivery of the Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 59(e) dismissal.
Long had sued the Atlantic City Police Department , the New Jersey State
Police, and some police officers and forensic chemists alleging some sort of
conspiracy which prevented him from proving his innocence. Screening the compliant resulted in the
district court’s dismissing the complaint sua sponte before the defendants had
been served. The order and memorandum
opinion were docketed on August 21, 2006, giving Long until September 4, 2006
to file a motion under Rule 59(e). However, on September 25, 2006, after the
expiration of the appeal period, he filed a motion for reconsideration pursuant
to Rule 59(e), along with a letter explaining that he had not received the district
court’s filings until September 22, 2006. His transfer to another prison
facility caused a delay due to the prison forwarding the filings form his old
to his new prison. He claimed he told the district court of the move. The
district court treated the motion as timely due to the delay, and rejected his
motion on the merits. On appeal, the
Court had to consider both the motion for reconsideration was timely and if so,
whether it was properly dismissed on the merits.
The Court first noted that it had held in United States v. Grana, 864
F.2d 312 (3d Cir. 1989), abrogated
on other grounds by Virgin Islands v. Martinez, 620 F.3d 321
(3d Cir. 2010) the delay caused by prison authorities in delivering an adverse
order could be excluded from the time to file a criminal appeal. The Court
later applied that rule in a §2255 case to appeals under Fed.R.App.Pro.
4(a)(4)(A). This reasoning led the Court to conclude that the rule excluding
delays in delivering an order due to prion delay could also apply to
reconsiderations orders under Fed.R.Civ.Pro.59(e) when delivery of district
court orders are delayed by prison authorities’ actions. The Court accepted
Long’s certification, that stated that false statements would subject him to
punishment that the documents were incorrectly mailed to the wrong prison and
that his new prison opened legal mail before delivering it to prisoners.
