Laurino

James Laurino appeals the district court’s order denying his Rule 60(b) motion to reinstate his case and the final judgment of dismissal and award of attorneys fees. Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b). Concluding that the district court abused its discretion, we reverse and remand with directions.

Laurino filed this action against Syringa General Hospital and others challenging the termination of his hospital privileges. Defendants served their answer to the amended complaint on March 30,1999, and served document requests and interrogatories on May 24, 1999. Settlement discussions between counsel began on July 2, 1999, and continued until October 11, 1999, consuming about ten hours of defense counsel’s time. During this period defendants granted repeated extensions to comply with discovery requests. On October 12,1999, following the breakdown of settlement talks, defense counsel asked for a response to their discovery requests. Laurino’s attorney, Brian Donesley, then moved to withdraw, and on November 4, 1999, the court granted the motion by an order providing that under Idaho Civil Local Rule 83.6(c), failure by plaintiff to appear with another attorney or in pro per within twenty days would…

dissenting.

1. As the majority recognizes, we review the denial of a rule 60(b) motion for abuse of discretion. The first step in this process is to identify the order appealed from and the district court’s reasons therefor. It is an abuse of our discretion to attribute to the district court reasons on which it did not rely or reverse for errors the district court did not commit. The majority does both.

The opinion states: “While the district court seemed to acknowledge that a five-week delay itself would not warrant dismissal, it found that the delay was substantially longer by including the earlier period when Laurino failed to communicate with his attorney.” Maj. Op. at 753. Neither half of this sentence is true: The district court did not acknowledge that plaintiffs five-week delay was insufficient to support dismissal, nor did it measure plaintiffs delay by tacking on the earlier period during which plaintiff failed to communicate with his lawyer. Nor, as the majority claims later in its opinion, did the district court deny the 60(b) motion because plaintiff failed to answer interrogatories and produce requested documents. See Maj. Op. at 753.

A glance at the February 7,…