Charmaine Saunders v. Reinaldo Ojeda

── Charmaine Saunders v. Reinaldo Ojeda ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: May 05, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 26-10380 Document: 15-1 Date Filed: 05/05/2026 Page: 1 of 3 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 26-10380 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ CHARMAINE SAUNDERS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus REINALDO OJEDA, BRANDON RAFOOL, MICHAEL MCDANIEL, STACY M. BUTTERFIELD, in their individual and official capacities Defendants-Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 8:25-cv-00978-MSS-NHA ____________________ Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and KIDD, Circuit Judges. USCA11 Case: 26-10380 Document: 15-1 Date Filed: 05/05/2026 Page: 2 of 3 2 Opinion of the Court 26-10380 PER CURIAM: This appeal is DISMISSED, sua sponte, for lack of jurisdic- tion. Charmaine Saunders, proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s: June 12, 2025, order dismissing her complaint; and December 15, 2025, order denying her Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion to vacate the judgment. Because the district court did not enter a separate judgment, judgment was deemed entered on November 10, 2025. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 58(a) (requiring a judgment to be set out in a separate docu- ment), Fed. R. Civ. P. 58(c) (explaining that when an order requires a separate judgment, but a separate judgment is not entered, judg- ment is deemed entered 150 days from the entry of the order); Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7)(A)(ii) (same); Fed. R. App. P. 26(a)(1), (3). Saun- ders’s Rule 60(b) motion tolled the time to appeal the judgment, so she had 30 days from entry of the district court’s December 15 or- der denying her motion, or until January 14, 2026, to appeal the judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a); Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A); Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(vi) (explaining that, for tolling purposes, the time to file under Rule 60 is the same as the time to file under Rule 59); Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) (requiring a motion to alter or amend judg- ment be filed within 28 days of entry of the judgment). The notice of appeal, filed on January 29, 2026, is thus untimely as to the judg- ment and the post-judgment order and cannot invoke our appellate jurisdiction. See Green v. Drug Enf ’t Admin., 606 F.3d 1296, 1300 (11th Cir. 2010). USCA11 Case: 26-10380 Document: 15-1 Date Filed: 05/05/2026 Page: 3 of 3 26-10380 Opinion of the Court 3 Nevertheless, upon review of the record below, the district court is DIRECTED to transmit to this Court Saunders’s “Emer- gency Motion to Vacate,” docketed on November 26, 2025, as a notice of appeal from the district court’s June 12, 2025, order. We construe that filing as a timely notice of appeal from that order. See Rinaldo v. Corbett, 256 F.3d 1276, 1278–80 (11th Cir. 2001) (explain- ing that a document may be construed as a notice of appeal when (1) the document serves the functional equivalent of a notice of ap- peal, and (2) the document “specifically indicate[s] the litigant’s in- tent to seek appellate review”); Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S.