Case: 20-40440 Document: 00515619899 Page: 1 Date Filed: 10/29/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
October 29, 2020
No. 20-40440
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Bimal K. Banik,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
Katie Pearson Klein; William D. Mount, Jr.; Elizabeth
F. Turco; Dale & Klein, L.L.P.,
Appellants,
versus
Amanda Ybarra,
Defendant—Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. 7:16-CV-462
Before Haynes, Willett, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 20-40440 Document: 00515619899 Page: 2 Date Filed: 10/29/2020
No. 20-40440
This appeal follows a district court’s order on remand as to the
parties’ joint motion for relief from judgment. See Banik v. Ybarra, 805 F.
App’x 266, 268–69 (5th Cir. 2020). In Banik, a panel of our court noted that
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) provided district courts the
authority to grant relief based on postjudgment settlements under
“exceptional circumstances.” Id. (quoting U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner
Mall P’ship, 513 U.S. 18, 29 (1994)). Because the district court had not
recognized this authority, the panel vacated the district court’s order denying
relief on the monetary portions of the judgment and remanded to the district
court to consider whether exceptional circumstances warranted vacatur of
those portions of the judgment. Banik, 805 F. App’x at 268–69. On remand,
the parties did not move to supplement their joint motion for relief, which
did not assert that exceptional circumstances warranted relief. Thus, the
district court denied the parties’ motion because the parties failed to establish
any “exceptional circumstances” warranting relief. Appellants timely
appealed. Now, for the first time on appeal, appellants argue that an
exceptional circumstance—a change in the law—warrants relief.
We reverse a district court’s Rule 60(b) decision only for abuse of
discretion. Edwards v. City of Hous., 78 F.3d 983, 995 (5th Cir. 1996) (en
banc). The party seeking relief bears the burden of showing that Rule 60(b)
applies. Frew v. Janek, 780 F.3d 320, 327 (5th Cir. 2015).
In that regard, we have previously held that when the party seeking
relief “d[oes] not offer any explanation” warranting relief, a “district court
d[oes] not abuse its discretion in denying the [Rule 60(b)] motion.” See
Edwards, 78 F.3d at 995; see also Goldstein v. MCI WorldCom, 340 F.3d 238,
258–59 (5th Cir. 2003) (affirming the denial of a Rule 60(b)(2) motion
because the movant did not explain how newly-discovered evidence was
relevant and did not demonstrate how it would have resulted in different
allegations in the complaint). We hold the same here. Appellants did not
2
Case: 20-40440 Document: 00515619899 Page: 3 Date Filed: 10/29/2020
No. 20-40440
explain to the district court what exceptional circumstances, if any,
warranted relief from the monetary portions of the judgment. Therefore, the
district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Rule 60(b) motion. 1
Accordingly, we AFFIRM. 2
1
Even assuming arguendo that the appellants raised the change-in-law argument
in district court, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying relief, as we have
expressly held that “[a] change in decisional law after entry of judgment does not constitute
exceptional circumstances and is not alone grounds for relief from a final judgment.” Bailey
v. Ryan Stevedoring Co., 894 F.2d 157, 160 (5th Cir. 1990).
2
We reject the appellants’ argument that vacatur is appropriate because the
judgment became moot by “happenstance.” To the extent that this argument is
jurisdictional and may be raised for the first time on appeal, see Brinsdon v. McAllen Indep.
Sch. Dist., 863 F.3d 338, 345 (5th Cir. 2017), we reject it because the appellants caused the
mootness by settling, U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 25 (“Where mootness results from
settlement, . . . 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.”). As to any non-jurisdictional aspect of appellants’ mootness argument, we
decline to address it for failure to raise the issue below. United States v. Bigler, 817 F.2d
1139, 1140 (5th Cir. 1987).
3