Marie Assa'ad-Faltas v. City of Columbia, No. 12-1774 (4th Cir. 2012)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 12-1774 MARIE THERESE ASSA AD-FALTAS, MD MPH for herself and for all similarly situated persons, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. CITY OF COLUMBIA, South Carolina; MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL; JEANNETTE MCBRIDE, Richland County Clerk of Court; DANA DAVIS TURNER, Chief Administrator of the City Municipal Court; ANGELA LADSEN, Ministerial Recorder for the City; SANDI MYERS, Parking Officer for the City; ALL PARKING OFFICERS, past present and future for the City; MARION HANNA, Judge for Columbia s Municipal Court; G. THOMAS COOPER, JR.; JAMES R. BARBER, JR.; SOUTH CAROLINA CIRCUIT JUDGES, and all other presently unknown persons and entities necessary for adjudication of this case all solely in the official capacities and solely for injunctive relief, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia. Terry L. Wooten, District Judge. (3:10-cv-03014-TLW) Submitted: November 20, 2012 Before TRAXLER, Judges. Chief Judge, Decided: November 26, 2012 and SHEDD and FLOYD, Circuit Dismissed in part and affirmed in part by unpublished per curiam opinion. Marie Therese Assa ad-Faltas, Appellant Pro Se. Holly Palmer Beeson, OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 2 PER CURIAM: Marie Assa ad-Faltas appeals the district court s order adopting the magistrate judge s recommendation to dismiss her claims arising out of a parking ticket she received in 2010, as well as its order denying her self-styled Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion. We dismiss Assa ad-Faltas s appeal in part because she failed to timely appeal the district court s order dismissing her claims, and affirm the district court s order denying her motion for reconsideration. Parties in a civil action in which the United States is not a party have thirty days following entry of judgment in which to file a notice of appeal. Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A). [T]he timely filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case is a jurisdictional requirement. Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205, 214 (2007); see United States v. Urutyan, 564 F.3d 679, 685 (4th Cir. 2009) (discussing Bowles and the appeal periods under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)). Assa ad-Faltas s notice of appeal, filed more than thirty days after the district court entered its order granting Defendants motion to dismiss, was untimely filed. Moreover, we find that Assa ad-Faltas s motion for reconsideration, which was filed more than twenty-eight days after the district court s order granting Defendants motion to dismiss, did not toll the time for filing a notice of appeal 3 of the underlying order because it was not a timely filed Rule 59(e) motion. See Panhorst v. United States, 241 F.3d 367, 369-73 (4th Cir. 2001). Although the district court did not explicitly construe Assa adFaltas s motion for reconsideration as a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion, we nonetheless find that Assa ad-Faltas s motion failed to establish that she was entitled to Rule 60(b) relief. * See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b). Based on the foregoing, we dismiss Assa ad-Faltas s appeal of the district court s order granting Defendants motion to dismiss and affirm the district court s denial of Assa adFaltas s motion for reconsideration. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED IN PART; AFFIRMED IN PART * Because Assa ad-Faltas s Rule 60(b) motion was not the functional equivalent of a notice of appeal, see Fed. R. App. P. 3, we decline to construe the motion as a notice of appeal. 4
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