Rivera v. Sedgwick Claims Management Services
Ezequiel Rivera, Jr. v. Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Ace Fire Underwriters Insurance Company, and Nestle USA Inc.
- Laura Provinzino
- 0:24-cv-03247
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 7
In Rivera v. Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Ace Fire Underwriters Insurance Company, and Nestle USA Inc., Judge Provinzino denied plaintiff Ezequiel Rivera Jr.'s motion for relief from judgment, finding that a Wisconsin workers' compensation agency ruling awarding him disability benefits did not justify reopening his previously dismissed federal lawsuit.
Employees who have filed federal employment discrimination or benefits lawsuits that were dismissed, and who are considering whether a subsequent favorable ruling from a state administrative agency can be used to reopen the federal case under Rule 60(b). Also relevant to pro se litigants navigating venue requirements and the limits of post-judgment relief.
What happened
In Rivera v. Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Ace Fire Underwriters Insurance Company, and Nestle USA Inc., Ezequiel Rivera Jr., representing himself, sued his former employer Nestle USA Inc. and related insurance and claims management companies, alleging they conspired to deny him benefits after a workplace injury. He brought claims under three federal laws — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (covering employment discrimination), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA, which governs employee benefit plans). The court had previously dismissed his case without prejudice in July 2025, finding that his ERISA claim was inadequately pleaded and that Minnesota was not the proper place to bring his Title VII and ADA claims, which belonged in a Wisconsin federal court.
Rivera then asked the court to reopen the case, arguing that a July 2026 decision by the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission — a state agency that awarded him $18,737.95 in wrongfully withheld disability benefits — was new evidence that strengthened his federal claims. He asked the court to either let him file an updated complaint incorporating this decision or transfer his case to a federal court in Wisconsin. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) allows courts to reopen closed cases under certain exceptional circumstances, including newly discovered evidence or any other sufficiently compelling reason.
Judge Provinzino denied the motion. The court explained that the Wisconsin agency decision could not qualify as newly discovered evidence under Rule 60(b)(2) because it did not exist at the time the case was originally dismissed. As to Rivera's argument that the decision provided another compelling reason to reopen the case under Rule 60(b)(6), the court found that the agency ruling had no bearing on the original reasons for dismissal: his ERISA claim failed because he never adequately alleged he was covered by an ERISA-governed plan, and his other claims were dismissed for being filed in the wrong court — not because they lacked merit. The court also noted that Rivera had made the identical argument about the same agency decision to the Eastern District of Wisconsin just one day earlier, and that court had also rejected it, reinforcing that transferring this case to Wisconsin would simply result in another dismissal.
The detailed version
In this case, Ezequiel Rivera Jr. (proceeding pro se, meaning without a lawyer) sued Sedgwick Claims Management Services, ACE Fire Underwriters Insurance Company, and Nestle USA Inc. in the District of Minnesota, alleging the defendants conspired to deny him benefits following a workplace injury at Nestle. Rivera brought claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, prohibiting disability-based employment discrimination), and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA, a federal law governing employee benefit plans).
The court had previously dismissed Rivera's complaint without prejudice on July 7, 2025 (ECF No. 92), on two grounds: (1) Rivera failed to plausibly allege he was covered by an ERISA-eligible employee benefit plan, and (2) Minnesota was not a proper venue for his Title VII and ADA claims — the proper venue was a federal court in Wisconsin. Rather than transfer the case, the court dismissed it because Rivera had already filed two federal lawsuits in the Eastern District of Wisconsin on the same subject matter, both of which had been dismissed. Rivera subsequently moved to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and to disqualify the court under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a); both motions were denied on September 19, 2025. Rivera also filed a notice of appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which remained pending at the time of this order.
On February 11, 2026, Rivera filed the present motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), seeking relief from the dismissal judgment. Rule 60(b) allows a court to relieve a party from a final judgment for specific enumerated reasons, including: (2) newly discovered evidence that could not have been found through reasonable diligence in time to move for a new trial, or (6) any other reason that justifies relief. Rivera invoked both provisions, relying on a July 15, 2025 decision by the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (WLIRC), a state agency, which awarded him $18,737.95 in wrongfully withheld temporary total disability benefits. He argued the WLIRC decision was 'newly discovered evidence' supporting his federal claims and asked the court to either permit him to file an amended complaint or transfer the case to a Wisconsin federal court.
As a threshold matter, the court addressed Rivera's assertion that the pending Eighth Circuit appeal prevented the court from ruling on his Rule 60(b) motion, explaining that Eighth Circuit precedent (Hunter v. Underwood, 362 F.3d 468 (8th Cir. 2004)) permits a district court to consider and deny a Rule 60(b) motion even while an appeal is pending.
On the merits, Judge Provinzino denied relief on both grounds. First, Rule 60(b)(2) relief was unavailable because the WLIRC decision did not exist at the time judgment was entered — it was issued eight days after the July 7, 2025 dismissal order. Established Eighth Circuit precedent holds that Rule 60(b)(2) permits consideration only of facts that were in existence at the time of the original proceeding. Rivera acknowledged this legal point.
Second, the court rejected relief under Rule 60(b)(6), which is reserved for extraordinary circumstances. The WLIRC decision awarded Rivera disability benefits based on a narrow question — whether he had reached the end of medical healing for his knee injury for purposes of a specific time period — and said nothing about whether Rivera was covered by an ERISA-governed employee benefit plan. Therefore, it did not cure the pleading deficiency that led to dismissal of the ERISA claim. As to the Title VII and ADA claims, the court emphasized that those claims were not dismissed on the merits; they were dismissed because Minnesota was the wrong court. The WLIRC decision, even if it strengthened Rivera's retaliation theories on the merits, was irrelevant to the venue defect and the court's decision not to transfer the case.
Critically, the court observed that Rivera had filed an identical Rule 60(b) motion making the same WLIRC argument in the Eastern District of Wisconsin on February 9, 2026 (Rivera v. Nestle USA Inc., No. 23-cv-1431), in a case where similar Title VII claims had been dismissed on summary judgment and affirmed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. That Wisconsin court denied Rivera's motion on February 10, 2026 — the day before Rivera filed his motion in Minnesota. The court found this demonstrated that transferring the case to Wisconsin would simply result in the same outcome: dismissal. Accordingly, the WLIRC decision did not undermine the court's original rationale for declining to transfer the case.
Judge Provinzino denied Rivera's Rule 60(b) motion in its entirety, declaring the case over.
Reviewer note from the AI+
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.