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278 F.2d 276

Docket No. 15231.

Slavitt v. Meader

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals

Argued Feb. 12, 1960.

Decided April 14, 1960.

Petition for Rehearing En Banc Denied May 9, 1960.

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1960-04-14

3 counsel of record

Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291

Relies on Hicks v. Bekins Moving & Storage Co. · American Nat. Bank & Trust Co. v. United States · Sweeney v. Anderson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1960-04-14

How this case has been cited

Cited by 23 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1993

18 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

1601960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*277Miss Charlotte Slavitt, appellant pro se.

¶2Mr. William W. Greenhalgh, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Oliver Gasch, and Carl W. Bel■cher, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellees

¶3Messrs. Robert M. Beckman, Francis L. Young, Jr., and John P. Burke, Washington, D. C., filed a brief on behalf of the Bar Association of the District o Columbia, as amicus curiae, urging t e court to sustain the validity of Rule 13 of the Local Civil Rules of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Mr. Sheldon E. Bernstein, Washington, D. C., also entere an ap pearance for The Bar Association ot the ■L- j. ■ i u-District of Columbia.

¶4Before Edgerton, Fahy and Bastían, Circuit Judges.

¶5PER CURIAM.

¶6 On August 13, 1953, appellant ■filed in the District Court a complaint to recover damages for alleged libel and conspiracy, related to her occupational qualifications as a civilian employee of the Navy Department. Two of the three defendants were served with process and answered. One has never been served, In the intervening years the complaint was dismissed twice under Rule 13 of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.1 This occurred first on March 3, 1954, followed by reinstatement of the case April 27, 1954. The second dismissal was March 10,1959, followed on March 31, 1959, by appellant’s motl°n to vacate the dismissal and to reinstate the action. After a hearing the court denied the motion by an order containing a finding inter alia that “plaintiff has failed to prosecute this matter with due diligence.” It is from this order that the present appeal was taken. We construe the appealed action 0£ ^he COurt as including a decision made in the exercise of the court’s inherent p0wer to dismiss the action for lack of prosecution.2 That the court has this inherent power, within the bounds of a S0Und discretion, aside from the authori- . , .. . ,,, ty to dismiss granted by Rule 41, Fed.R.Civ.P., 28 U.S.C.A., or by any local rule or practice, is clear. American Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago v. United States, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 62, 142 F.2d 571; Barger v. Baltimore & O. R. R., 75 U.S. App.D.C. 367, 130 F.2d 401. See also Shotkin v. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., 10 Cir., 1948, 169 F.2d 825; Sweeney v. Anderson, 10 Cir., 1942, 129 F.2d *278756; Hicks v. Bekins Moving & Storage Co., 9 Cir., 1940, 115 F.2d 406.

¶7The history of this litigation, as shown by the record and as developed in the hearing on the motion, amply justified the court in finding that appellant had failed to prosecute her action with due diligence. For this reason it cannot successfully be contended that the District Court abused its discretion in permitting the dismissal to stand by reason of such failure.

¶8This disposition of the appeal renders it unnecessary to consider the question raised by appellant as to whether the dismissal was properly made under local Rule 13, or to reach the question of the validity of that Rule

¶9Affirmed.

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