Opinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 02-2576, SECTION "K"(2)
August 15, 2003
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is Defendant's Motion to Reconsider the Court's Ruling on the Motion to Dismiss. Rec. Docs. 5 13. Having considered the Motion to Reconsider, the relevant case law, and this Court's Order and Reasons issued May 21, 2003, the Court DENIES the Motion.
BACKGROUND
On August 19, 2002 Joseph Ambrose filed suit in this Court asserting claims of Jones Act negligence, unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, general maritime law of negligence, gross negligence, and wrongful discharge, against Ocean Shipholdings, Inc. ("OSI") in personam and the Lawrence H. Gainella, in rem. Ambrose was employed by OSI in August 2001 as a seaman aboard the vessel, the LAWRENCE H. GAINELLA. He had been employed by OSI on six other occasions, beginning in September 1997. Ambrose was allegedly injured when he fell over a hose left in front of a gangway while attempting to board the LAWRENCE H. GAINELLA in Algeciras, Spain.
On February 4, 2003, defendant, OSI filed a Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Court found that the parties both made very compelling arguments and ultimately found that there was personal jurisdiction because of defendant's directly contacting Ambrose on a number of occasions to work aboard the LAWRENCE H.GAINELLA. The activities mainly included phone calls to Ambrose's residence and payments directed to his home address in Louisiana. The Court stated:
[i]n the instant case, OSI may not have initially contacted the plaintiff, however, over a period of approximately four years, it arranged employment with the plaintiff through telephone calls to and from his residence in Louisiana. These activities along with mailing payroll checks and maintenance and cure payments to his residence in the forum are purposeful actions relating to employment activities in Louisiana.
Order and Reasons, p. 7. OSI requests that this Court reconsider its finding that there is personal jurisdiction over OSI.
Motion to Reconsider Standard
"Although the `Motion to Reconsider' is found nowhere in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it has become one of the more popular indoor courthouse sports at the district court level. Such pleadings are becoming an intricate part of motion practice by which the losing party to a motion obtains a second bite at the apple — a chance to reargue and sometimes submit additional argument and authority in support of his lost motion." State of Louisiana v. Sprint Communications Co., 899 F. Supp. 282, 284 (M.D.La. 1995). The Fifth Circuit typically interprets motions to reconsider dispositive pretrial orders as analogous to Rule 60(b) motions for relief from judgment or Rule 59(e) motions to alter or amend the judgment, depending on whether the motion is filed within ten days of the order's issuance. See e.g., Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. Tool Works, Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 173 (5th Cir. 1990). A motion filed within ten days of the order's issuance is construed as a Rule 59(e) motion. Id. A motion filed beyond this ten day window is considered a Rule 60 motion, Id. Because the instant motion was within 10 days from the date the Court issued the order, the Court will construe the motion pursuant to Rule 59(e).
Motions to reconsider "based on recycled arguments only [serve] to waste the resources of the court," and are not the proper vehicle to "[rehash] old arguments or [advance] legal theories that could have been presented earlier. Krim v. PCORDER.COM, Inc., 121 F.R.D. 329, 331 (W.D. Tex. 2002). These motions should serve the narrow purpose of "permit[ting] a party to correct manifest errors of law, or fact, or to present newly discovered evidence." Id.
In the case at bar, the Court finds that defendant's Motion to Reconsider is without merit. In its Motion to Reconsider, defendant argues that the Court misunderstood the employment relationship between Ambrose and OSI. According to defendant, the Court construed defendant's contacts with plaintiff as more purposeful than they actually were. OSI argues that it did not "recruit" Ambrose, but that it initially hired him thorough the AMO in New York and his employment with OSI was permanent, though intermittent, since he was first hired. OSI argues that the phone calls to plaintiff were not "recruitment" efforts, but were attempts to contact plaintiff to arrange for his schedule, work location and flight arrangements. OSI contends that plaintiffs Louisiana phone number and location in Louisiana was fortuitous and that if plaintiff had requested that OSI call his parent's residence to provide his new tour of duty information, it would have called his parent's residence. Further, OSI argues that its post-incident contacts with the plaintiff were also fortuitous and that mailing maintenance and cure payments to a plaintiffs residence is not enough to constitute purposeful activity.
The Court disagrees with OSI's characterization of the employment relationship as purely fortuitous. As stated in the May 21, 2003 Order and Reasons, "over a period of approximately four years, [OSI] arranged employment with the plaintiff through telephone calls to and from his residence in Louisiana. These activities along with mailing payroll checks and maintenance and cure payments to his residence in the forum are purposeful actions relating to employment activities in Louisiana." OSI's continuous contacts with plaintiff, in the aggregate, establish purposeful activity of maintaining employment activities with Ambrose. Ambrose contends he was contacted before each voyage to determine his ability and willingness to sail. SeeAffidavit of Joseph Ambrose. Even if the phone calls to the plaintiffs residence cannot be characterized as "recruiting," OSI's multiple phone calls directly to the plaintiff who was in Louisiana and its status as plaintiffs employer for approximately four years constitutes purposeful activity and establishes specific jurisdiction.
Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that defendant's Motion to Reconsider, Rec. Doc. 13, is hereby DENIED.