On May 6, 2013, in a case of first impression in the circuit, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in Shuler v. Garrett, reversing a lower court opinion and holding that an electronically filed motion to amend an order of dismissal under FRCP 59 received by the clerk of the court within the specified time period should be considered timely even when filed under an incorrect docket number.

On August 8, 2012, the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee dismissed the plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim. Under FRAP 4(a)(1), a party has 30 days to file a notice of appeal to a judgment. However, if a party files a motion under FRCP 59 to alter or amend a judgment, the time to file a notice of appeal is tolled if the motion under FRCP 59 is timely filed (FRAP 4(a)(4)(A)(i)). A motion to alter or amend a judgment is timely if it is filed within 28 days of the judgment (FRCP 59(e)).

In this case, the plaintiff filed a motion under FRCP 59 on September 5, 2012, the final day of the 28-day period permitted under the rule. However, the plaintiff entered an incorrect docket number into the ECF system when filing the motion, causing the motion to be filed in a different case. After realizing her error, the plaintiff filed a notice of ECF correction the following day and refiled the motion under the correct docket number on September 12, 2012. The district court denied the plaintiff's motion under FRCP 59 as untimely on October 12, 2012 and the plaintiff appealed to the Sixth Circuit on October 16, 2012.

The defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiff's appeal as untimely because the plaintiff filed the motion under FRCP 59 under an incorrect docket number on the last day possible to file such a motion. The defendants argued that by filing the motion under the wrong docket number, the plaintiff had effectively not filed a motion at all and thus, the time to appeal had not been tolled.

The Sixth Circuit disagreed and reversed the lower court opinion, ruling that electronically filed motions received by the clerk within the specified time limit are considered to be timely, even if they contain an incorrect docket number. The Sixth Circuit cited several other US courts of appeals that issued opinions concerning similar subject matter, including:

Because the court found that the plaintiff's clerical error did not make the motion under FRCP 59 untimely, the plaintiff's notice of appeal was also timely filed since the motion under FRCP 59 tolled the 30-day filing period. Furthermore, the defendants did not suffer any prejudice and the motion had been timely received by the clerk of the court. Therefore, the court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the appeal.