Enoch J. Williams v. Washington Convention Center Authority

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United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Decided April 6, 2007
No. 05-7170
ENOCH J. WILLIAMS ,
APPELLANT
v.
WASHINGTON CONVENTION CENTER AUTHORITY ,
APPELLEE
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 03cv01806)
Enoch J. Williams, appearing pro se, was on the brief for
appellant.
David B. Stratton and Deborah M. Whelihan were on the
brief for appellee.
Before: HENDERSON , ROGERS and BROWN , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM: Enoch J. Williams, acting pro se, seeks to

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appeal a decision by the district court. However, a series of
errors in the district court led him to file his notice of appeal
outside the deadlines prescribed by the federal rules,
jeopardizing his quest to pursue the merits of his age
discrimination and retaliation claims in this court. Under
Moore v. South Carolina Labor Board, 100 F.3d 162 (D.C. Cir.
1996) (per curiam), a misreading of the federal rules of appellate
procedure by the district court can ensnare even a pro se
appellant who follows the district court’s instructions diligently
if the result is an untimely notice of appeal. Accordingly, we
must dismiss Williams’ appeal.
I.
On August 28, 2003, Enoch J. Williams filed a complaint,
through counsel, alleging that the Washington Convention
Center Authority had engaged in age discrimination and
retaliation in violation of Title VII, the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act, and the D.C. Human Rights Act. In late 2004,
Williams’ counsel, a solo practitioner, died. On November 10
of that year, Williams filed a “Notice to Court” that reads in full:
I, Enoch J. Williams am requesting that the United
States District Court For The District of Columbia send
all correspondence in the above case to me until further
notice. This motion is requested due to the death of my
attorney, Janet Cooper.
Although this notice was docketed and filed, the address on the
first page of the case file was not changed. Consequently, when
summary judgment was entered in favor of the Convention
Center on March 15, 2005, and an order issued that same day
dismissing the case with prejudice, Williams was not notified by
the district court.

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According to Williams, he learned of the dismissal of his
case more than two months later, on May 23, 2005. In the
course of searching for new counsel, a legal assistant to a private
attorney checked the latest docket sheet and found the final
judgment order. A courtesy copy of the district court’s
memorandum opinion was forwarded to him by “the interested
attorneys.” The next day, Williams went to the district court and
was directed to a member of the clerk’s office. On appeal,
Williams claims that he spoke to a clerk’s office employee, who
updated the docket so that future communications would be sent
to Williams, and that after going upstairs to consult a judge, the
clerk’s office employee told Williams that he had thirty days to
file a motion in the district court to pursue an appeal.
Twenty-eight days later, on June 21, 2005, Williams filed
a Motion to File an Appeal Out of Time and Notice of Appeal.
Over the Convention Center’s opposition, the district court
granted the motion in part, ordering Williams to “file a Notice
of Appeal within thirty days of the date of this order.” The order
was dated October 31, 2005, and Williams filed his notice of
appeal on November 29, 2005.
II.
Under ordinary circumstances, an appeal must be noticed no
more than thirty days after judgment is entered. FED . R. APP . P.
4(a)(1); see FED . R. CIV . P. 58(a). The district court may extend
this deadline upon a showing of good cause, but only for an
additional thirty days. F ED . R. APP . P. 4(a)(5). Even this
extended period had expired by the time Williams learned of the
dismissal of his case.
For cases where the prospective appellant is not notified of
the judgment, the federal rules provide that the district court
may reopen the time to appeal for fourteen days when a party

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entitled to notice, who did not receive the notice within twenty-
one days after entry, files a motion within 180 days or seven
days after receiving notice, whichever is earlier, so long as no
party will be prejudiced. F ED . R. APP . P. 4(a)(6) (2005)
(amended Dec. 1, 2005). What constitutes “notice” has since
been clarified by an amendment to Rule 4(a)(6). But under the
rule as it stood during the times relevant to this appeal, Williams
received notice, at the latest, on May 24, 2005, when the district
court clerk’s office confirmed the dismissal of his case with
prejudice. See Benavides v. Bureau of Prisons, 79 F.3d 1211,
1214-15 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Thus, Williams was required to file
a motion by June 3, 2005; by waiting eighteen more days, he
was too late.
The difficulty lies in the fact that Williams claims to have
acted in accordance with guidance he received from the district
court. First, after Williams learned that the district court had
failed to notify him of the judgment dismissing his case, he
alleges that an employee in the clerk’s office, who claimed to be
relaying a message from a district court judge, informed him
that he had thirty days to file his appeal. A reasonable litigant,
especially one who is proceeding pro se after notifying the
district court of the death of his attorney, would assume that the
district court itself should be able to correct its own error in
failing to notify him of the dismissal of his case by assuring the
litigant that he had thirty days to appeal. Williams would not
reasonably have second-guessed this assurance. Second, when
the district court granted his motion to late-file his notice of
appeal, he was again informed by the district court that he had
thirty days to act. Neither the clerk’s office employee nor the
district court gave Williams advice that comports with the
federal rules, as Rule 4 limits the reopening to fourteen days.
The Supreme Court has recognized a narrow exception to
the strict deadlines of Rule 4. The “unique circumstances”

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doctrine was introduced in Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry
Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U.S. 215 (1962) (per curiam), where the
Court held that a litigant does not forfeit his appeal when the
district court errantly grants a motion for an extension of time
before the original deadline and the appellant relies upon that
extension to his detriment, see id. at 217; see also Thompson v.
INS, 375 U.S. 384, 398-99 (1964). The courts of appeals,
including this court, see, e.g., Aviation Enters. v. Orr, 716 F.2d
1403, 1406 n.25 (D.C. Cir. 1983); Webb v. Dep’t of Health &
Hum. Servs., 696 F.2d 101, 106 (D.C. Cir. 1982), gradually
widened this exception to encompass other errors in the district
court. Then, in 1989, the Supreme Court held in Osterneck v.
Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169 (1989), that the unique
circumstances doctrine did not apply where the court had merely
accepted and processed an untimely notice of appeal. The
Supreme Court instructed that the doctrine extends “only where
a party has performed an act which, if properly done, would
postpone the deadline for filing his appeal and has received
specific assurance by a judicial officer that this act has been
properly done.” Id. at 164.
In 1996, this court interpreted Osterneck. In Moore, a pro
se litigant contended that he did not file his appeal within thirty
days because a staff person in the district court clerk’s office had
informed him that he had sixty days to file his appeal. 100 F.3d
at 163. Taking this allegation as true, the court determined that
the unique circumstances exception “turns on a party’s reliance
on a formal court order or ruling” and that the clerk’s assurances
could not “fairly be characterized as official judicial action.” Id.
at 164. The court stated: “[W]e conclude that the unique
circumstances exception applies only where a party who could
have filed a timely notice of appeal is lulled into missing the
deadline by a formal court order or ruling, containing specific
assurances that action which extends or postpones the deadline
has properly been taken . . . .” Id. at 162.

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Even taking Williams’ allegations as true, notwithstanding
his good-faith attempt to appeal, none of his communications
with the district court within the seven days allowed by Rule
4(a)(6) can be construed as official judicial action. See Moore,
100 F.3d at 164; see also United States v. Marquez, 291 F.3d 23,
28 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Nor can he succeed on the basis of the
district court’s order of October 31, 2005, which purported to
grant Williams’ pro se motion to reopen the time to notice his
appeal. That order came after the appeal had already been
forfeited, and a court may not enlarge the time limits for filing
the notice of appeal except as authorized by the rules. See
Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 314-15 (1988);
FED . R. A PP . P. 26(b)(1). As such, following Moore, we must
dismiss the appeal.
This court acknowledged in Moore that “[i]t is in the nature
of jurisdictional limits on appeals that occasionally a meritorious
appeal will be lost through inadvertence or from the would-be
appellant’s being misinformed.” Id. For better or for worse, this
is not such a case. Even were we able to construe the unique
circumstances doctrine to encompass Williams’ case, this court
would be unable to offer relief on the merits to Williams.
Williams has offered nothing to demonstrate error by the district
court, which ruled that he failed to create an inference of age
discrimination or to allege facts that could either rebut or show
pretext in the Convention Center’s proffer of a legitimate, non-
retaliatory explanation for its actions. See Broderick v.
Donaldson, 437 F.3d 1226, 1231-32 (D.C. Cir. 2006); Brown v.
Brody, 199 F.3d 446, 452 (D.C. Cir. 1999).
Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

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