Case: 21-30080 Document: 00516076190 Page: 1 Date Filed: 11/01/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
November 1, 2021
No. 21-30080
Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
In re Deepwater Horizon
______________________________
Angela Thibodaux, individually and on behalf of her minor children,
Caroline Nicole Thibodaux and Ty Joseph Thibodaux and
on behalf of The Estate of Glenn Clarence Thibodaux,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling,
Incorporated; BP, P.L.C.; BP America, Incorporated; BP
Corporation North America, Incorporated; BP
Company North America, Incorporated; BP Products
North America, Incorporated,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
USDC No. 2:14-CV-1026
Before Clement, Southwick, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
Case: 21-30080 Document: 00516076190 Page: 2 Date Filed: 11/01/2021
No. 21-30080
Per Curiam:*
Appellant Angela Thibodaux’s husband Glen Clarence Thiboxaux
died of pancreatic cancer on October 29, 2012. She alleges that he was
exposed to toxic chemicals during his work on the Deepwater Horizon
cleanup operation, and that this exposure caused his death.
Thibodaux’s case was dismissed because her attorney made a mistake:
He failed to sign up for a docket alert service as ordered by the district court.
The district court’s order that parties sign up for this service was placed on
Thibodaux’s individual docket and was emailed to her counsel by the clerk
of court. Because Thibodaux’s counsel did not sign up for this service, he did
not receive the district court’s February 22, 2017 order that all plaintiffs file
individual complaints. This order warned all plaintiffs that failure to comply
would result in their cases being dismissed with prejudice. Nor did
Thibodaux’s counsel receive the district court’s July 18, 2017 order
dismissing Thibodaux’s case for failing to comply. It was not until September
6, 2018, when the district court closed the individual dockets of cases that
had already been dismissed, that Thibodaux’s counsel realized his mistake.
Thibodaux filed a Rule 60(b) motion for reconsideration, arguing that she did
not intentionally disobey the court’s order, and asking the court to reinstate
her case. On March 15, 2019, the district court denied that motion without
an opinion and without a hearing.
Thibodaux then made a second mistake: She did nothing for over a
year. On March 16, 2020—well outside of the time for an appeal from the
district court’s March 15, 2019 order—Thibodaux filed a second Rule 60(b)
motion. After hearing nothing from the district court for six weeks,
Thibodaux filed a third Rule 60(b) motion that was substantively identical to
*
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.
2
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the first and second. The district court denied the second and third motions,
cautioning Thibodaux’s attorney that filing another motion for
reconsideration could result in sanctions. Thibodaux’s appealed that order
to our court.
The bulk of Thibodaux’s brief argues that the district court’s 2019
order denying her first Rule 60(b) motion was in error. But even if Thibodaux
is right, it does not matter. Thibodaux did not appeal that order, but instead
waited over a year before filing two more Rule 60(b) motions that were
virtually identical to the first. Only the district court’s order denying those
two motions is before us.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Thibodaux’s
second and third Rule 60(b) motions. 1 “Rule 60(b) simply may not be used
as an end run to effect an appeal outside the specified time limits, otherwise
those limits become essentially meaningless.” 2 Dismissal is “particularly
appropriate in a case such as this one where a Rule 60(b) motion is itself an
attack on the denial of a prior post-judgment motion that asserted virtually
identical grounds for relief, and where, as here, it is filed after the time for
giving notice of appeal from the order denying the earlier motion.” 3 These
principles are especially important in a multi-district litigation (MDL) as
large as this one, where a single district court judge is responsible for
managing the dockets of thousands of individual complaints. Because of this
administrative complexity, a district court’s case management orders are
1
In re Deepwater Horizon, 907 F.3d 232, 234 (5th Cir. 2018) (“We review matters
concerning docket management for an abuse of discretion.”).
2
In re Edwards, 865 F.3d 197, 209 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Pryor v. U.S. Postal Serv.,
769 F.2d 281, 288 (5th Cir. 1985)).
3
Latham v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 987 F.2d 1199, 1203 (5th Cir. 1993) (emphasis
in original).
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accorded “special deference in the context of an MDL.” 4 Rewarding
plaintiffs for filing duplicative Rule 60(b) motions instead of filing an appeal
would further encumber an already complex and time-consuming process.
Finding no abuse of discretion, we AFFIRM.
4
In re Deepwater Horizon, 907 F.3d at 235.
4