Rouviere has been a long and storied litigation. We have shared many parts of that story here (Zoom depositions during Covid), here (turncoat experts), here (reflections on Rambo litigation), and here (summary judgment on statute of limitations).  After six years of litigation that ended in a summary judgment that was affirmed on appeal, we thought our post one year ago was the last we would be speaking about Rouviere. But no, there’s more. Plaintiff, proceeding pro se (without her attorney husband who previously represented her), tried to get a do over by claiming that not one, not two, but three judges who handled her original case should have been recused for various conflicts—the trial judge, the magistrate, and one of the appellate judges. Fortunately, when all that smoke settled the court saw the transparent last-ditch effort for what it was—a whole lot of nothing.

 If you don’t want to take our word for how the underlying proceedings went down (in the above-referenced posts), today’s decision sets out the history nicely. Rouviere v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112077, *2-9 (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 12, 2025). Which brings us to the alleged conflicts:

• The Trial Judge: owned stock in defendant’s parent company while presiding over the case. Id. at *9-10.
• The Magistrate: while presiding over the case, he received fixed annual payments from his former law former pursuant to a “nonemployee compensation agreement” and said law firm at some point “helped” and “advised” the defendant’s parent company, “among many other major clients.”  Id. at *10-11.
• The Appellate Judge: her spouse is a partner at a firm who represented defendant in a separate case while the appeal was pending. Id. at *11.

Only one of these rose to the level of a conflict that warranted recusal—the trial judge. But since his decision was affirmed based on a de novo review, the decision did not need to be vacated.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) provides the bases on which final judgments can be vacated and includes a catch-all for “any other reason that justifies relief.” Rule 60(b)(6). That is the basis on which plaintiff brought her motion—another indication of its flimsiness. But motions under 60(b)(6) are not favored and can only be granted “upon a showing of exceptional circumstances” based on “highly convincing” evidence. Id. at *14-15. Plaintiff’s hook for her Rule 60(b)(6) motion was that the judges should have recused themselves under 28 U.S.C. §455(a) (where there is an appearance of impartiality or impartiality might be reasonably questioned) or §455(b) (where the judge knows of a financial interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding).

Applying those standards to the magistrate judge, the court concluded that his annual payments were “too remote to raise reasonable questions about his impartiality.” Rouviere, at *21.  Considering that a judge’s own prior representation of a party is not automatic grounds for recusal, his former law firm’s prior representation of a party is even more attenuated. Further it is “unrealistic to assume that every partner at [ ] a [large] law firm has a relationship—let alone an ongoing relationship—with every client that the firm has represented.” Id. at *22. Moreover, the fixed annual payments are not an interest affected by the outcome of the proceeding.  Even plaintiff had to concede that the outcome of this case was not going to bankrupt the magistrate’s former law firm.  Id. at *26.

While the trial judge’s stock ownership was grounds for recusal, it is not necessarily grounds for vacating the summary judgment order. “To reopen a case based on a violation of Section 455, a litigant must demonstrate that relief from judgment is appropriate under Rule 60(b).”  Id.at *28. Which—see above—is an extraordinary remedy. The court looks at three factors: a risk of injustice to the parties, a risk of injustice in other cases, and a risk of a hit to the public’s confidence in the judicial process. Id. The Second Circuit’s de novo review of the summary judgment ruling cuts against all three factors:

Plaintiff, accordingly, has already received what she is asking for on this motion: an independent review of her case by a different and unconflicted decisionmaker. Because there is no basis to conclude that yet another independent review “would lead to a more just outcome,” “[t]here is no reason to force the parties to relitigate the entire case, likely causing significant delay.”

Id. at *29 (citation omitted). Plaintiff tried to argue that Second Circuit’s review was not really de novo, but the court was bound by the appellate court’s order which explicitly stated otherwise. Id. at *29-30.

Which brings us to plaintiff’s final argument—that the appellate decision should essentially be disregarded because one member of the panel was conflicted. But the fact that a spouse’s law firm, not the spouse directly, represents a party in another matter is not grounds for recusal. Id. at *31-32. Even if it were, majority rules in a panel of three on the Second Circuit. So, the ruling of the other two members of the panel suffice to uphold the affirmance of summary judgment.  Id. at *32.  

We again would like to believe that we are finally saying good-bye to Rouviere, but we’ve already been fooled once. So we make no assumptions about this plaintiff who just doesn’t want to let go.