What A Diff'rence A Day Makes: Seventh Circuit Reviews Delinquent Rule 59(e) Motion

Deadlines matter, even if you're late, as Dinah Washington once famously crooned, by "24 little hours." That lesson was driven home again by the Seventh Circuit in Banks v. Chicago Bd. of Educ., No. 13-2018 (7th Cir. Apr. 24, 2014), a case in which the appellant's tardy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion, filed one day after the Rule's 28-day deadline, failed to toll the time to appeal the entry of summary judgment.

Patricia Banks, a former high-school teacher in Chicago, brought a Title VII claim against the Chicago Board of Education. The district court granted the Board's motion for summary judgment. Banks then filed a motion to alter the judgment under Rule 59(e), in essence arguing that the district court was wrong on the merits of her claims, one day after Rule 59(e)'s 28-day deadline. The district court denied the motion six days later.

The Seventh Circuit doesn't disregard late Rule 59(e) motions altogether. Those familiar with the Seventh Circuit no doubt recall that, under Justice v. Town of Cicero, 682 F.3d 662 (7th Cir. 2012) (where the appellant filed the motion electronically at 3:00 a.m. on the 29th day, prompting the court to invoke a reference to Cinderella and what happened to her at midnight), the court treats a late Rule 59(e) motion as a motion under Rule 60(b), regardless of what the movant and, in this case, even the district court calls it.

The problem...