DARRIN P. GAYLES, District Judge.
"[R]econsideration of a previous order is an extraordinary remedy, to be employed spar-ingly." Williams v. Cruise Ships Catering & Serv. Int'l, N.V., 320 F.Supp.2d 1347, 1358 (S.D. Fla. 2004). The only grounds for granting a motion for reconsideration, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), are (1) an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence; or (3) the need to correct manifest errors of law or fact. See Douglas Asphalt Co. v. QORE, Inc., 657 F.3d 1146, 1151-52 (11th Cir. 2011); Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007). "[A] Rule 59(e) motion [cannot be used] to relitigate old matters, raise argu-ment or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment." Michael Linet, Inc. v. Village of Wellington, 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005). "This prohibition includes new arguments that were `previously available, but not pressed.'" Wilchombe v. TeeVee Toons, Inc., 555 F.3d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Stone v. Wall, 135 F.3d 1438, 1442 (11th Cir. 1998) (per curiam)). Finally, "[a] motion for reconsideration is not an appeal, and thus it is improper on a motion for reconsideration to ask the Court to rethink what the Court has already thought through—rightly or wrongly." Armbuster v. Rosenbloom, No. 15-0114, 2016 WL 1441467, at *1 (S.D. Ga. Apr. 11, 2016) (citation and internal punctuation omitted).
The Court previously gave a comprehensive recitation of the underlying facts in its Orders (see April 11 Order at 1-7; April 6 Order at 1-3), but will provide below the relevant facts per-taining to the instant motions.
The Plaintiff, Frederick Siegmund, brought a shareholder derivative suit on behalf of Nominal Defendant Linkwell Corporation ("Linkwell") to contest a reverse-merger transaction that occurred in early 2012 but was later unwound. In 2014, Linkwell entered into a second, separate merger transaction with Leading World Corporation ("Leading World"). Once con-summated, that merger resulted in, inter alia, the cancellation of Siegmund's Linkwell shares. After discovery revealed that Siegmund no longer owned shares in Linkwell, Defendants Xuelian and Bian filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing on October 8, 2015, arguing that because Siegmund no longer had standing to maintain the derivative suit because he was no longer a Linkwell shareholder after the merger. After careful consideration of the motion and a review of pertinent governing federal and Florida state law, the Court agreed. See April 11 Order at 9-13. Siegmund timely filed his motion for reconsideration.
Siegmund argues for reconsideration on two grounds: first, that the Court "ignore[d]" a Florida appellate court case that he relied on in his opposition to the motion to dismiss and, second, that the Court did not address whether the Linkwell-Leading World merger complied with Florida law. The Court addresses each argument in turn.
The thrust of Siegmund's opposition to Xuelian and Wei's motion to dismiss for lack of standing was that this Court should create an exception to the rule that "[u]nder both federal and Florida law, a plaintiff bringing a shareholder derivative suit must be a shareholder when the action is brought and throughout the course of the litigation." Hantz v. Belyew, 194 F. App'x 897, 898 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam). Specifically, Siegmund urged the Court to adopt an exception, rec-ognized by
Siegmund takes great issue with the fact that the Court did not explicitly mention Williams in the April 11 Order. But "courts are not required to address every case cited by a litigant, and declining to distinguish a particular non-controlling decision can hardly constitute an abuse of discretion." Biltcliffe v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 772 F.3d 925, 930 (1st Cir. 2014). Granted, as this is a diversity case and no controlling decision from the Florida Supreme Court exists, the Court is "obligated to follow decisions from the Florida intermediate appellate courts unless there is some persuasive indication that the Supreme Court would decide the case differently." Raie v. Cheminova, Inc., 336 F.3d 1278, 1280 (11th Cir. 2003). That said, the Court determined that Williams is neither apposite nor controlling in this instance, because it is both factually and legally distinguishable from the issues raised by the motion to dismiss. The Court read and considered Siegmund's arguments and—following an apposite decision of the Florida intermediate appellate courts, Timko v. Triarsi, 898 So.2d 89 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005)—issued an order that addressed the material issues that bore on the proper resolution of the motion to dismiss. More is not required. See Chloe SAS v. Sawabeh Info. Servs. Co, No. 11-4147, 2013 WL 901986, at *5 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2013).
Siegmund also asserts that this Court has somehow "misapprehended" or "ignored" "rel-evant authority" by declining to address Williams. Quite the contrary. The Court did not mis-apprehend or ignore Williams; it just did not agree with Siegmund's argument that it should be fol-lowed to create a heretofore unrecognized exception to a common law rule. See Tersigni v. Wyeth, 817 F.3d 364, 369 (1st Cir. 2016) (stating that a federal court applying state law is "bound to apply state law as it exists, not as it may become, or as the plaintiff wishes it to be" (citing Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co. of Am., 916 F.2d 731, 744 (1st Cir. 1990) ("We have warned, time and again, that litigants who reject a state forum in order to bring suit in federal court under diversity jurisdiction cannot expect that new trails will be blazed . . . . We may, perhaps, be unadventurous in our interpretation of [state] law, but a plaintiff who seeks out a federal venue in a diversity action should seek no more." (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)))).
Siegmund's present arguments based on Williams were already made and were already rejected. He is not permitted to relitigate old matters on a motion for reconsideration, and he is certainly barred from raising new arguments or new legal theories based on Williams or any other case, because he has not established that any of those arguments could not have been made prior to entry of the April 11 Order. See Michael Linet, Inc., 408 F.3d at 763.
Siegmund's second proposed ground for reconsideration is that the Court failed to address whether the Linkwell-Leading World merger complied with Florida law. He argues now that the merger is void or voidable.
In his opposition to the motion to dismiss, Siegmund alleged that Linkwell failed to provide Siegmund notice of the Special Meeting of Shareholders prior to the merger, in contravention of Fla. Stat § 607.1103 and § 607.0705. He argued that the failure to satisfy the notice requirement of those statutes "warranted" application of the Delaware exception to Florida's continuous ownership rule. See [ECF No. 333 at 12-14]. This recitation constitutes the entirety of Siegmund's argu-ment on the issue. He never argued that the Linkwell-Leading World Merger was invalid, and he never once used the words "void" or "voidable."
The governing standard on a motion for consideration is clear that the prohibition on rais-ing argument that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment "includes new arguments that were previously available, but not pressed." Wilchombe, 555 F.3d at 957 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). "There is no burden upon the district court to distill every potential argument that could be made based upon the materials before it . . . ." Resolution Trust Corp. v. Dunmar Corp., 43 F.3d 587, 599 (11th Cir. 1995). Indeed, a "party who aspires to oppose a . . . motion must spell out his arguments squarely and distinctly, or else forever hold his peace." Higgins v. New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., 194 F.3d 252, 260 (1st Cir. 1999). The onus is not on the Court to have inferred an argument that the Linkwell-Leading World merger should be held void or voidable based solely on Siegmund citing to the notice statute in his opposition and citing Linkwell's lack of compliance with that specific provision as support for the unrelated argument that the Court should adopt Delaware's exception to the Florida continuous ownership rule. Assuming arguendo that an argument regarding the validity of the merger was previously available to Siegmund, he failed to raise it then, and he is not permitted to raise it now.
Moreover, to the extent Siegmund claims that "newly discovered evidence" justifies re-consideration of the motion to dismiss on this ground, that claim fails. "[W]here a party attempts to introduce previously unsubmitted evidence on a motion to reconsider, the court should not grant the motion absent some showing that the evidence was not available during the pendency of the motion." Mays v. U.S. Postal Serv., 122 F.3d 43, 46 (11th Cir. 1997).
The emails and other documents Siegmund cites as "newly discovered evidence" were all sent or created between September and November 2014. The original motion to dismiss for lack of standing was not filed until
To the extent any of this evidence was previously included in his opposition to the motion to dismiss, this also does not provide grounds for reconsideration. Again, it is not the Court's burden "to distill every potential argument that could be made based upon the materials before it." Resolution Trust Corp., 43 F.3d at 599. Accordingly, the motion to reconsider the April 11 Order shall be denied.
On April 9, 2015, Judge Turnoff issued an order granting Siegmund's motion to compel Xuelian and Wei to respond to requests for production of Linkwell corporate documents. See [ECF No. 265]. Xuelian and Wei filed objections to this order, arguing that they do not have "control" of the documents under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 because they resigned as of-ficers and directors of Linkwell more than six months prior to the date Siegmund propounded his original request for production. After careful consideration, this Court held that "[a] former di-rector's apparent ability to request documents from his former corporation (or from the appropri-ate custodian at that corporation) is not the same as the
Because the April 6 Order "adjudicate[d] fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties," Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b), it is interlocutory in nature and, as such, a district court, in general, "at any time before final decree may modify or rescind it," John Simmons Co. v. Grier Bros. Co., 258 U.S. 82, 88 (1922). But a district court "possesses" this "inherent procedural power to reconsider, rescind, or modify an interlocutory order for cause seen by it to be sufficient"
Even if the Court
In fact, there were no factual determinations that this Court even theoretically
Furthermore, Siegmund's argument that the Court should reconsider its conclusion that the Magistrate Judge's order was contrary to law is barred. As the Court has already stated, "it is improper on a motion for reconsideration to ask the Court to rethink what the Court has already thought through—rightly or wrongly." Armbuster, 2016 WL 1441467, at *1 (citation and internal punctuation omitted). While Siegmund certainly argues with more force that this Court should have applied his interpretation of "control" under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, or that Xuelian and Wei's representation that they were no longer Linkwell directors was somehow deficient in an eviden-tiary sense, he does nothing more than attempt to relitigate issues the Court has already ruled upon.
Siegmund also argues, referring to the Court's statement from the April 6 Order that "Plaintiff has not established that the requested information could not be obtained directly from Linkwell, yet . . . seeks that information from Linkwell's former directors," April 6 Order at 5, that the April 6 Order "misapprehends or ignores evidence establishing Plaintiff's inability to obtain discovery from Linkwell," [ECF No. 371 at 10]. The Court recognizes the mistake apparent in the complained-of statement. As Siegmund dutifully pointed out, the Clerk issued an Order of Entry of Default against Linkwell on March 24, 2015 [ECF No. 252], and on September 29, 2015, this Court entered an Endorsed Order adopting the Magistrate Judge's recommendation that Siegmund's motion for an order of contempt against Linkwell be granted for failure to comply with discovery orders [ECF No. 322], adopting in part [ECF No. 258].
Finally, to the extent Siegmund argues that newly available evidence he attached to his motion, and other "newly available evidence" that he attached to his reply, confirms the allegation that Xuelian and Wei "always maintained control and access to documents sought in the requests," that argument fails. [ECF No. 371 at 11]; [ECF No. 380 at 8-10]. In his motion, Siegmund states that the law firm Sidley Austin—subsequent to an order by the Magistrate Judge on February 10, 2016, granting Siegmund's own motion to compel—"produced certain documents . . . which con-firm that Xuelian and/or Wei, at all relevant times, possessed the practical ability to obtain the documents sought in the Requests." [ECF No. 371 at 16]. In his reply, Siegmund states that "in November 2014, almost four (4) months after the effective date of Defendants' resignations, Xuelian executed Statements on Lost Share Certificate (`Statements') on behalf of Linkwell," and attaches emails created on January 14 and 15, 2015, in support of the new allegation that Xuelian and Wei falsely represented to the Court that they had resigned from Linkwell in July 2014. [ECF No. 380 at 8-10].
The Court's analysis in Section I.B., supra, applies equally here. Siegmund has made no showing that the documents he contends "confirm" his allegations regarding control were unavail-able to him prior to the Court's April 6 Order or that they could not have been discovered with reasonable diligence. See M.G., 741 F.3d at 1262; Mays, 122 F.3d at 46. Assuming all of these documents were produced by Sidley Austin in compliance with the Magistrate Judge's February 10, 2016, order, at no time in the weeks between their production and this Court's issuance of the April 6 Order did Siegmund report to the Court that these documents had been produced, nor did he file any briefing (or request therefor) based on the contents of these documents that could have informed the Court's review of the Magistrate Judge's order on the motion to compel.
Based on the foregoing, it is