Opinion
No. 10-3933-bk.
April 22, 2011.
Appeal from decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Hellerstein, J.) affirming an order of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Gonzalez, C.J.) denying Appellants' motion for reconsideration.
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the district court's decision is AFFIRMED.
Leo Donofrio, Stephen W. Pidgeon, Pidgeon Donofrio GP, Everett, WA, for Appellants.
Brett J. Berlin, Jeffrey B. Ellman, Beth R. Heifetz, Kevyn Duane Orr, (Corinne Ball, on the brief), Jones Day, New York, NY, for Appellee.
PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge, GUIDO CALABRESI, DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
AMENDED SUMMARY ORDER
Appellants are automobile dealers whose dealership contracts with Chrysler were terminated by Chrysler as part of its bankruptcy and restructuring. They moved the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to reconsider its decision to allow Chrysler to exclude these contracts from the assets it sold to Fiat and to then reject these contracts after the sale under 11 U.S.C. § 365. We assume the parties' familiarity with, the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues presented for review.
A motion to reconsider a judgment must be rejected if "there was an opportunity to have the ground now relied upon to set aside the judgment fully litigated in the original action." Leber-Krebs, Inc. v. Capitol Records, 779 F.2d 895, 899 (2d Cir. 1985) (internal quotation marks, omitted). Appellants present no evidence or arguments in this collateral attack that could not have been presented in a timely appeal from the bankruptcy court's original decision. Having failed to appeal from that decision, Appellants may not now attack it collaterally absent newly discovered evidence of fraud on the court. No such evidence has been presented, so Appellants' motion to reconsider was properly denied.
As to the merits of Appellants' claims, they are utterly frivolous. We reject these claims on the merits for substantially the same reasons set forth by the district court below.
The bankruptcy court and the district court correctly concluded that there was no fraud on the court. As a result, we hereby AFFIRM the district court's decision affirming the bankruptcy court's denial of Appellants' motion to reconsider.