Opinion
CIVIL ACTION No. 00-0475, SECTION "T" (1).
July 21, 2003.
Before the Court is a Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment [Doc. 90], pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59, filed by the Defendant Ocean Pride, Ltd. On March 31, 2003, this Court entered a judgment holding that while the February 14, 2000 arrest of the M/V OCEAN D was wrongful, the wrongful seizure was not the cause of subsequent lost fixtures by the vessel. The Court did, however, award attorney's fees to Ocean Pride for the wrongful seizure. Ocean Pride now seeks alteration or amendment to that judgment and asks the Court to determine that the wrongful seizure was in fact the cause of the missed fixtures, and also to award damages to Ocean Pride. This matter came before this Court for hearing on May 7, 2003. Having considered the law, the memoranda submitted by the parties, the record, and the applicable jurisprudence, this Court is now ready to rule. The movants' Motion to Alter or Amend is DENIED.
I. BACKGROUND:
On February 14, 2000, Pace Shipping ("Pace") requested the arrest of Ocean Pride's vessel the M/V OCEAN D. This Court on three previous occasions found Pace did not have a valid maritime lien. See Order Vacating Arrest and Reasons, Doc. No. 8, February 18, 2000; Order and Reasons, Doc. No. 18, February 22, 2000; Order, Doc. No. 43, March 5, 2001. However, the Court did not determine the merits of the alleged wrongful arrest.
Petrobras of Brazil ("Petrobras") in Rio Grande, Brazil supplied bunkers, which are the subject of the arrest, to the M/V HAIGHT, in October 1999. On November 26, 1999, Ocean Pride purchased the then MN HAIGHT renaming it the MN OCEAN D ("the vessel"). Universal Chartering, Inc. ("Universal") chartered the vessel while contracting with Pace to supply the bunkers in Brazil in October 1999. In turn, Pace contracted with 0. W. Bunker Malta Ltd. ("0. W. Bunker") to provide the bunkers in Brazil. 0. W. Bunker ultimately contracted with Petrobras for the delivery of the bunkers. Petrobras obtained payment from 0. W. Bunker for the delivery of the bunkers. However, 0. W. Bunker never received payment from Pace.
The vessel's arrest occurred while discharging cargo in port on the Mississippi River. The arrest of the vessel stopped all discharging of cargo and operations in port. Disagreement arose as to the filing of a motion allowing for the continuance of the discharge of cargo and movement in port and as to the indemnification of the U.S. Marshal. This disagreement led to a delay of more than thirty hours before the vessel again began to discharge its cargo. It is alleged that this delay prevented the vessel from timely meeting its next fixture, a cargo of corn, on the Mississippi River. The vessel remained idle for more than five days before a new charter and fixture was attained.
On June 19, 2002, this Court held an evidentiary hearing on the Motion to Deem the arrest of the M/V OCEAN D wrongful, filed by the defendant, Ocean Pride. At the hearing, live testimony was heard from Mary Giannioti, George Whitfield, and Dimitrios Gianniotis. After the hearing, the Court issued instructions to both parties to simultaneously file post-trial memoranda two weeks after the hearing date. On July, 5, 2002, Defendant filed certified English translations of two letters from the Hellenic Telecommunications [Doc. 65], which had been admitted into evidence at the evidentiary hearing as exhibits 20 and 21. The Defendant also submitted to the Court [Doc. 66], the original log book for the M/V OCEAN D, Vol. 1, previously admitted into evidence as exhibit 15(a). The Court granted leave to file, and subsequently admitted these into evidence. In accord with the direction of the Court, each party filed post-hearing memoranda [Plaintiff: Doc. 64; Defendant: Doc. 68].
II. ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES
A. Movant's Arguments in Favor of the Motion to Amend
Ocean Pride asks this Court to alter or amend its judgment of March 31, 2003, on the grounds that the Court erred as a matter of law and fact by holding that the arrest of the MN OCEAN D by Pace Shipping Services Network on February 14, 2000 did not cause the OCEAN D to lose her fixture with Corn Products, Inc., and therefore, Ocean Pride was not entitled to damages. In addition to arguments regarding the specific scheduling events which Ocean Pride alleges made the ship tardy in its availability for Corn Products shipments, movants state that the Court erred by not holding the case open so that movants could have supplied additional information on damages issues. Movants also allege that the Court not only erred by "not taking into account the full damages sustained by Ocean Pride because of the default of Pace/Universal, which was $734,289.99, but also by not considering the evidence, including hearing testimony, exhibits, and other documents received into evidence by the Court before and after the hearing.
Movants argue that the Court should have held the case open so that Mr. Michael Reynan, operations manager of Maritime Endeavors, Ocean Pride's agent, could have testified on the "subject of damages, including customary port procedures, cargo discharge procedures, grain elevator and terminal procedures, loading berth delays, cancellations of charter parties, and related events." Motion to Amend, p. 3, ¶ 6.
Ocean Pride points to the alleged abandonment of the charter party, by Universal, as the catalyst for a host of events which necessarily caused the OCEAN D to be delayed outside of Southwest Pass. During this time period, arrangements were being discussed as to discharge and delivery of her cargo. Without such a delay, argue the movants, the OCEAN D would have been able to discharge her cargo, clean her holds, and make the next fixture with Corn Products. The movants assert that the Court's `logic' and analysis of the damages aspect is incomplete and does not take additional evidence and `commercial reality' into account, as "from the point of view of grain elevators and terminals, once a ship is under arrest, a grain terminal would obviously have grave concerns that that ship, even if freed from arrest, might be rearrested once alongside the elevator while she was loading." Finally, movants state that since the discharge of the cargo was down to the last few holds of materials, it is standard knowledge in the maritime industry that a reduced stevedore workforce would be used, and if Pace had not waited until the very end of the vessel's cargo discharge operations to arrest her, there would have been sufficient time to finish the discharge and to convince Corn Products that an extension for the fixture could be granted.
Movant's Motion to Alter or Amend, p. 7.
B. Respondant's Arguments in Opposition to the Motion to Amend
The respondents counter by asserting that neither of the two events described by Ocean Pride in their Motion to Alter or Amend, the December 1999 time charter and the February 2000 Corn Products, charter are related to the arrest and detention of the vessel on February 14, 2000. Therefore, damages cannot be issued for these events as they are not related. Respondents point to the testimony of Mr. Gianniotis that he was indifferent to `one or two days delay.' Pace maintains that Ocean Pride was responsible for any delays of the vessel into the mouth of the river as well as any delayed entry into port because they had not made arrangements with their receivers.
Respondent's Opposition to Motion to Alter or Amend, p. 3; Testimony of Mimis Gianniotis, p. 26, ll. 15.
III. LAW AND ANALYSIS:
A. Law on Rule 59 Amendment or Alteration of Judgement
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide that any party may file a motion for new trial, to alter or amend a judgment within ten business days after its entry. See Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 59. Under Rule 59, a district court enjoys considerable discretion in granting or denying such a motion. Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. Tool Works, Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 173 (5th Cir. 1990); First Commonwealth Corp. v. Hibernia Nat. Bank of New Orleans, 891 F. Supp. 290 (E.D. La. 1995), amended 896 F. Supp. 634, affirmed 85 F.3d 622. There are certain grounds upon which a Court may grant a Rule 59 motion for reconsideration or to alter or amend the judgment, for example: (1) intervening change in the controlling law has occurred, (2) evidence not previously available becomes available, or (3) it is necessary to correct clear error of law or to prevent manifest injustice. Database America, Inc. v. Bellsouth Advertising Pub. Corp. 825 F. Supp. 1216 (N.J. 1993). Courts in this district hold that a moving party must satisfy at least one of the following criteria to prevail on a Rule 59(e) motion: (1) the motion is necessary to correct a manifest error of fact or law; (2) the movant presents newly discovered or previously unavailable evidence; (3) the motion is necessary in order to prevent manifest injustice; and (4) the motion is justified by an intervening change in the controlling law. Craig v. U.S. Postal Service, 2002 WL 31319937 (E.D. La. 2002); See also Fidelity Deposit Co. of Md. v. Omni Bank, 1999 WL 970526, 3 (E.D. La. 1999); Jupiter v. BellSouth Telecomms., Inc., 1999 WL 796218, 1 (E.D. La. 1999); Burma Navigation Corp. v. M/V Reliant Seahorse, 1998 WL 781587, 1 (E.D. La. 1998).
It is important to note that amendment of a judgment is an "extraordinary remedy which should be used sparingly and should not be used to re-litigate old matters, raise new arguments, or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment." Lafargue v. Jefferson Parish, No. 98-3185, 2000 WL 174899, 1 (E.D. La., Feb. 11, 2000). A court's reconsideration of a prior order is an extraordinary remedy, which should be used sparingly. Marzoni v. Hyatt Corp., 2002 WL 31319941 (E.D. La. 2002); See Fields v. Pool Offshore, Inc., 1998 WL 43217, 2 (E.D. La. 1998), aff'd, 182 F.3d 353 (5th Cir. 1999); Bardwell v. George G. Sharp, Inc., 1995 WL 517120, 1 (E.D. La. 1995). The court must "strike the proper balance between the need for finality and the need to render a just decision on the basis of all the facts ." Edward H. Bohlin Co., 6 F.3d 350, 355 (5th Cir. 1993).
B. Analysis
This Court finds that the Movants have failed to meet their burden under Craig. In its Order and Reasons of March 31, 2003, the Court considered the applicable law and facts presented to it over many memoranda and even during an evidentiary hearing. The Court concluded that, "[T]hus, the arrest by Pace of the M/V OCEAN D did not cause the loss of the next fixture for Corn Products Inc . . . Based on the material provided to this court by both parties and examined at length above, this court has determined that while the arrest of the M/V OCEAN D on February 14, 2000 was wrongful, the arrest of the vessel was not the reason for the M/V OCEAN D's failure to meet its next fixture. Thus, this court will not award any of the damages requested by Ocean Pride and listed in their Trial Exhibit 16." However, the Court found that the detention of the vessel was in bad faith, and pursuant to applicable jurisprudence, awarded attorney's fees. "As established above, the arrest of the M/V OCEAN D has been deemed by this court to be in bad faith, thus the awarding of attorney's fees is appropriate." The attorney fees matter is currently before the United States Magistrate Judge for disposition.
Order and Reasons, p. 14, March 31, 2003.
Id.
The controlling law on the issue at hand has not changed; therefore, an analysis of jurisprudential standards is not applicable. Notwithstanding, this Court is unpersuaded that it committed a manifest error of law or fact in its Order and Reasons. With the mountain of evidence presented and memoranda before the Court, an operational time-line was established which led the Court to conclude that while the seizure was indeed wrongful, it did not cause Ocean Pride to miss its fixture. In the Court's opinion, the missed fixture would have inevitably occurred. The Movant asserts, "Prior to the arrest of the OCEAN D, it was contemplated that the vessel would complete discharge on/about February 15/16, clean holds in the Ama Anchorage, and then be inspected by NCB/USDA on the evening of Friday, February 17th. This projected schedule would not have affected the vessel's Notice of Readiness to Cargill/Corn Products, because there were four-five days of delays at the Cargill loading berth in Reserve." It was the Court's understanding that Cargill/Corn Products had established a 12 noon deadline on February 17, 2000. The time/labor analysis of discharged performed by the Court centered on the deadline which had been established by Corn Products. The vessel would not have made its next fixture according to the Cargill schedule. Additionally, there is no firm basis for the Court to base its opinion and findings on the off chance that the vessel would probably be delayed for 4/5 days due to berth delays. At that rate, the delays could have been 2/3 days or even 6/7 days. In another hypothet, Ocean Pride postures that "if the OCEAN D had been able to enter port on/about January 24th/25th, instead of having to wait offshore . . .," however, Ocean Pride states within the same motion that the vessel did not even arrive off of Southwest Pass until 0300 on January 26, 2000. Furthermore, Ocean Pride argues that the Court erred by not taking into account the amount of alleged damages suffered; however, the Court has determined that the damages were not caused by the actions of Pace Shipping, thereby making the amount of alleged damages a moot issue.
Id. at 13.
Movant's Motion to Alter or Amend, p. 2.
Order and Reasons, March 31, 2003, p. 13, stated: A determination on whether the M/V OCEAN D could have made the fixture deadline but for the arrest can be made in two simple steps:
1.) subtract the number of lost hours from the completion time:
a) 10:00pm 2/17/00 minus 26 hours (2 crew day) = 7:30 pm 2/16/00
or
b) 10:00pm 2/17/00 minus 39 hours (3 crew day) = 12:00pm 2/16/00
and
2.) add the day and a half necessary to clean the holds:
a) 7:30pm 2/16/00 plus 1.5 days (18 hours) = 1:00pm 2/18/02
or
b) 12:00pm 2/16/00 plus 1.5 days (18 hours) = 7:00pm 2/17/00.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Ocean Pride's Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment [Doc. 90], be and the same, is hereby DENIED.