Civil Procedure — correction of judgment

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure — correction of judgment

Where the district court had held a contract unenforceable, a subsequent correction of the judgment ordering return of earnest money was proper.

“[T]he judge’s correction of her judgment just made explicit what the parties must have assumed—that with the draft agreement rescinded the earnest money had to be returned. The judge’s failure to mention Rule 60(a) when she made the correction was inconsequential. But she did rather muddy the waters when she said that Shuffle Tech’s ‘obligation to repay the earnest money arises not out of any claim by [Wolff], but out of [Shuffle Tech’s] own claim for declaratory relief. If all [Shuffle Tech] wanted out of this action was a declaration that it was not bound by the Draft Agreement, it could have limited its declaratory claim to that issue and remained silent about any obligations it believed it had under the Letter of Intent. It did not. Instead, [it] invoked the court’s authority to declare specifically that it was obligated to return the earnest money.’ This makes it seem as if Shuffle Tech wanted to refund the earnest money; obviously it did not. It merely recognized that it could not obtain rescission of the contract, as sought in its claim for declaratory relief, without acknowledging an obligation to return the earnest money, for otherwise rescission would not place the parties in the position they would be occupying had there never been a contract. Shuffle Tech’s attempt to back out of that concession, merely because the district judge had initially failed to mention it, was a tactic rightly blocked by Rule 60(a).”

Affirmed.

13-3576 Shuffle Tech Int’l. LLC v. Wolff Gaming Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Bucklo, J., Posner, J.