GOLDA HARRIS v. STATE OF NEW JERSEY ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

GOLDA HARRIS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, ATTORNEY

GENERAL'S OFFICE, UNION COUNTY

PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, UNION

COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE,

DAVID LITTMAN, PLAINFIELD

POLICE DEPARTMENT, PETER

LIGUARI, JUDGE STUART PEIM,

UNITRIN INSURANCE COMPANY,

and PLAINFIELD HOUSING AUTHORITY,

Defendants-Respondents,

and

DAN SMITH, COURIER NEWS, LIBERTY

MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUP, MARY ANN

PRINGEL-JONES, OFICER GERALD LEE,

OFFICER FERNANDO SANCHEZ, MONIQUE

BLACKMORE-JOHNSON, TERENCE JOHNSON,

SUSAN GLEASON, JOSH MCMAHAN, DYNAMIC

RECOVERY, and LT. GREGORY TURNER,

Defendants.

-

December 7, 2015

Submitted September 29, 2015 Decided

Before Judges Hoffman and Whipple.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Middlesex County, Docket No. L-8325-10.

Golda Harris, appellant pro se.

Respondents have not filed a brief.

PER CURIAM

Plaintiff Golda Harris appeals from a November 8, 2013 Law Division order denying her motion to reinstate her complaint, and from a June 6, 2014 order denying her motion for reconsideration. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I.

Following an altercation with her boyfriend on January 1, 2007, plaintiff was arrested and charged with various offenses. A jury convicted plaintiff on multiple counts, including aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a weapon. On December 12, 2008, after appropriate mergers, the trial court sentenced defendant to seven years imprisonment with an eighty-five-percent period of parole ineligibility pursuant to the No Early Release Act (NERA), N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. We upheld her conviction on appeal. State v. Harris, No. A-4493-08 (App. Div. Sept. 30, 2011) (certif. denied, 210 N.J. 262 (2012)).

On October 21, 2010, plaintiff filed the instant lawsuit against nearly two dozen public and private defendants, asserting various causes of action including insurance fraud and malicious prosecution.1 In May 2011, plaintiff's complaint was dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution, pursuant to Rule 1:13-7(a), because she failed to serve defendants.

On October 7, 2013, plaintiff filed a motion to reinstate her complaint. In support of this motion, plaintiff argued that she was unable to prosecute her case because the Prison improperly denied her copy service in violation of N.J.A.C. 10A:6-2.6, which requires the Department of Corrections (DOC) to provide photocopies of legal materials at no charge to indigent inmates.

On November 8, 2013, a judge denied plaintiff's motion, concluding that she had not demonstrated exceptional circumstances sufficient to excuse her failure to serve defendants

Plaintiff asserted in her Notice of Motion and reiterated in her supplemental papers that she was denied access to copy services provided by the prison and therefore could not properly serve the defendants. However, offering such an argument in support of the present motion is belied by the flurry of correspondence and motion practice that occurred following the filing of the complaint. Plaintiff submitted letter memoranda to the court on January 11, 2011, February 1, 2011, and February 9, 2011. After the case was dismissed on May 6, 2011, plaintiff filed a motion for leave to appeal on June 30, 2011. During pendency of that appeal plaintiff also filed motions to enter default on July 11, 2011, and August 5, 2011 . . . .

Plaintiff plainly had the ability to litigate her interests and has not been able to prove the exceptional circumstances necessary to compel the restoration of her suit nearly two and one half years after it was dismissed for lack of prosecution. The motion to restore is denied.

On June 6, 2014, a different judge denied plaintiff's reconsideration motion, relying exclusively on the reasons set forth in the written opinion of the first motion judge as the basis for denying the motion.

II.

We review the denial of plaintiff's reinstatement motions for abuse of discretion. Baskett v. Kwokleung Cheung, 422 N.J. Super. 377, 382 (App. Div. 2011) (citing Weber v. Mayan Palace Hotel & Resorts, 397 N.J. Super. 257, 262 (App. Div. 2007)); Ghandi v. Cespedes, 390 N.J. Super. 193, 196 (App. Div. 2007). We do not, however, afford any deference to the motion judges' applications of law. Alfano v. BDO Seidman, LLP, 393 N.J. Super. 560, 573 (App. Div. 2007).

Administrative dismissals pursuant to Rule 1:13-7(a) are meant to "clear the docket of cases that cannot, for various reasons, be prosecuted to completion." Mason v. Nabisco Brands, Inc., 233 N.J. Super. 263, 267 (App. Div. 1989). In addition to setting forth appropriate grounds for dismissal, the Rule provides methods for reinstating a complaint that has been dismissed for lack of prosecution

After dismissal, reinstatement of an action against a single defendant may be permitted on submission of a consent order vacating the dismissal and allowing the dismissed defendant to file an answer . . . . If the defendant has been properly served but declines to execute a consent order, plaintiff shall move on good cause shown for vacation of the dismissal. In multi-defendant actions in which at least one defendant has been properly served, the consent order shall be submitted within 60 days of the order of dismissal, and if not so submitted, a motion for reinstatement shall be required. The motion shall be granted on good cause shown if filed within 90 days of the order of dismissal, and thereafter shall be granted only on a showing of exceptional circumstances.

[R. 1:13-7(a).]

Before reaching the merits of plaintiff's arguments on appeal, we first conclude that the motion judges incorrectly applied the "exceptional circumstances" standard to plaintiff's motion. This heightened standard applying only to multi-defendant lawsuits was implemented in 2008 for the express purpose of preventing situations where discovery has proceeded for non-dismissed parties and "vacation of the dismissal has the capacity of substantially delaying all further proceedings." Pressler & Verniero, Current N.J. Court Rules, comment 1.2 on R. 1:13-7(a) (2015); see also Giannakopoulos v. Mid State Mall, 438 N.J. Super. 595, 609 (App. Div. 2014) ("The higher standard in multi-defendant cases was intended to avoid delay where a case has been proceeding against one or more defendants, and the plaintiff then seeks to reinstate the complaint against a previously-dismissed additional defendant.").

Although plaintiff's action does name myriad defendants and therefore technically fits within the Rule's "exceptional circumstances" paradigm the multi-defendant scenario that the heightened standard was created to address is simply not present here. There were no non-dismissed parties remaining in the case when plaintiff filed her motion to reinstate her complaint. Therefore, reinstatement would not create the prejudicial delay contemplated by the Supreme Court when it adopted the "exceptional circumstances" standard in 2008. All claims against all defendants were dismissed pursuant to Rule 1:13-7. Because the case had not proceeded against any defendant, application of the more-rigorous "exceptional circumstances" standard was not necessary to prevent a substantial delay of further proceedings.

When interpreting our court rules, we must bear in mind that

[t]he rules . . . shall be construed to secure a just determination, simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay. Unless otherwise stated, any rule may be relaxed or dispensed with by the court in which the action is pending if adherence to it would result in an injustice.

[R. 1:1-2(a).]

This guiding principle, in conjunction with the actuality that applying the "exceptional circumstances" standard in this case would not serve the purpose that it was designed to serve, elucidate our conclusion that the motion judges should have applied the less-rigorous "good cause" standard to plaintiff's motion.

We now review the record to determine whether plaintiff provided good cause for her failure to prosecute her case in a timely manner. The "good cause" standard is difficult to precisely define. "Its application requires the exercise of sound discretion in light of the facts and circumstances of the particular case considered in the context of the purposes of the Court Rule being applied." Ghandi, supra, 390 N.J. Super. at 196 (quoting Del. Valley Wholesale Florist, Inc. v. Addalia, 349 N.J. Super. 228, 232 (App. Div. 2002)). The Supreme Court has defined "good cause" as "the presence of a meritorious [claim] worthy of judicial determination . . . and the absence of any contumacious conduct . . . ." O'Connor v. Altus, 67 N.J. 106, 129 (1975).

Plaintiff asserts that the Prison refused to make her copies of her complaint, resulting in her inability to timely serve defendants. She claims the Prison's refusal to make her copies violated N.J.A.C. 10A:6-2.6, and excuses her failure to timely serve defendants.2

Irrespective of its legal merits, plaintiff's argument has no factual support in the record. Simply put, plaintiff failed to provide any evidence to corroborate her claim that the Prison ever refused to provide copies of legal documents for her. The only written correspondence from the Prison that has been produced for review repeatedly emphasizes that plaintiff was never denied copy service. Furthermore, plaintiff's account statements show numerous charges for legal copies during the time period between when her complaint was filed and when it was ultimately dismissed nearly a year later for failure to prosecute. Plaintiff claims that these legal copies were for other cases, and that Prison personnel only refused copy service for the instant matter because plaintiff named a judge as a defendant. The record lacks any evidence to support this claim.

Plaintiff cites to her efforts to obtain copies of the complaint from a pro bono attorney in March 2013, presumably in attempt to demonstrate that she was actively trying to serve the defendants and move forward with her lawsuit. These efforts, however, were made far too late. By March 2013, plaintiff's suit had been dismissed for lack of prosecution for almost two years. Plaintiff's attempts to obtain copies of the complaint nearly two years after its dismissal, even if genuine, do not explain why she failed to pursue her case for such a prolonged period of time.

To succeed on her motion, plaintiff was required to show good cause as to why she failed to prosecute her case in a timely manner. Despite applying an incorrect legal standard, the motion judges did not abuse their discretion by denying plaintiff's requested relief, in light of the absence of good cause to support reinstatement of plaintiff's complaint. We review "orders and not, strictly speaking, reasons that support them. We have held, in other contexts, that a correct result, even if predicated on an erroneous basis in fact or in law, will not be overturned on appeal." El-Sioufi v. St. Peter's Univ. Hosp., 382 N.J. Super. 145, 169 (App. Div. 2005) (citations omitted). Here, we find no basis to overturn the orders under review.

Affirmed.

1 At all relevant times, plaintiff was serving her sentence in New Jersey State Prison (Prison).

2 N.J.A.C. 10A:6-2.6 provides, in pertinent part

(a) The Department of Corrections shall provide photocopies of legal material at no charge to the indigent inmate as defined in N.J.A.C. 10A:1-2.2, in accordance with the guidelines and limitations in this subchapter.

(b) Only legal material that must be photocopied for a legitimate purpose, related to pending litigation challenging an indigent inmate's sentence, directly or collaterally, or challenging the conditions of confinement, such as civil rights actions and/or writs of habeas corpus, will be photocopied for indigent inmates at the expense of the Department of Corrections.