Timothy M. Mayberry v. Case Manager Dewyer

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted June 30, 2026*
Decided July 1, 2026
Before
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 25-1892
TIMOTHY M. MAYBERRY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CASE MANAGER DEWYER, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, South Bend Division.
No. 3:22-CV-77 DRL-MGG
Damon R. Leichty,
Judge.
O R D E R
Indiana prisoner Timothy Mayberry lost a lawsuit challenging the prison’s legal-
mail policies. Two years after entry of judgment, he sought relief under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 60(b). The district court denied Mayberry’s motion, concluding that it
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

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No. 25-1892 Page 2
was untimely and that he had not established relief from judgment was warranted. The
court later denied Mayberry’s motion to reconsider that decision. We affirm.
Mayberry’s underlying suit concerns the implementation of Indiana Department
of Corrections Policy 02-01-103, which requires prison officials to copy incoming legal
mail, shred the original, and give prisoners the copy. Mayberry alleged that in 2021,
while he was housed at the Miami Correctional Facility, a case manager brought him
legal mail, and he objected to the original being shredded. Because Mayberry refused to
consent to the policy, the case manager did not deliver his mail. Mayberry alleged that
similar incidents happened several more times.
In 2022, Mayberry sued, alleging the prison officials’ actions violated his right to
due process because his property—the original legal documents he received in the
mail—was destroyed without due process. The district court screened his complaint
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and dismissed it for failure to state a claim. The court gave
Mayberry the opportunity to amend his complaint, but Mayberry failed to do so, even
after the court extended his deadline twice. The court entered judgment in August 2022.
Several months later, Mayberry filed two motions claiming to have filed an amended
complaint in June 2022. The district court notified him that an amended complaint was
never received.
Over two years after entry of judgment, in February 2025, Mayberry filed a
Rule 60(b) motion, asserting that prison officials had negligently failed to deliver his
amended complaint to the court. The court denied the motion, concluding that the
prison staff’s failure to deliver Mayberry’s amended complaint fell under Rule 60(b)(1),
and thus his motion for relief from judgment was untimely under Rule 60(c)(1)’s
one-year deadline. Mayberry then filed a motion to reconsider, arguing that under
Tanner v. Yukins, 776 F.3d 434 (6th Cir. 2015), his motion fell under Rule 60(b)(6) or,
alternatively, the court could reopen his time to appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 4(a)(6). The district court rejected both arguments, concluding that Mayberry
had not shown the level of extraordinary circumstances needed to apply Rule 60(b)(6)
and that it was too late for him to move to reopen his time to appeal under Rule
4(a)(6)(B)’s 14-day deadline.
Mayberry appeals. We review the denial of a Rule 60 motion under an
“extremely deferential” abuse of discretion standard. In re Cook Med., Inc., 27 F.4th 539,
542 (7th Cir. 2022) (quoting Eskridge v. Cook County, 577 F.3d 806, 808 (7th Cir. 2009)).

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No. 25-1892 Page 3
Mayberry first reasserts his argument that his motion should have been
construed under Rule 60(b)(6) rather than Rule 60(b)(1). But we find no abuse of
discretion here. Rule 60(b)(1) includes all grounds for relief based on “mistake,
inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.” In his Rule 60(b) motion, Mayberry
specifically identifies “the negligence of prison officials” as the reason the district court
did not receive his amended complaint. The district court did not abuse its discretion in
categorizing Mayberry’s arguments as implicating “excusable neglect” under Rule
60(b)(1), because it adopted Mayberry’s own framing of the issue. And, because Rules
60(b)(1) and 60(b)(6) are mutually exclusive, Blitch v. United States, 39 F.4th 827, 833–34
(7th Cir. 2022) (collecting authority), the one-year time limit applicable to motions
under Rule 60(b)(1) applies, FED. R. C IV. P. 60(c)(1), and Mayberry’s motion was
untimely.
Mayberry also argues that Rule 60(b)(1) is applicable only to the mistakes of
parties of record, but this is not correct. See FED. R. C IV. P. 60(b) advisory committee’s
note to 1946 amendment (Rule 60(b)(1) “should include the mistake or neglect of
others”); see also Kemp v. United States, 596 U.S. 528, 534 (2022) (holding Rule 60(b)(1)
includes a judge’s legal errors).
Mayberry also maintains that because he timely submitted both his amended
complaint and his motion to the prison mail room, the prison mailbox rule applies and
the district court erred in entering final judgment without considering the documents
he had filed. But the prison mailbox rule cannot help him here.
We have noted that in cases where the purported filing is not received by the
court, application of the prison mailbox rule is constrained by a “limiting principle.”
Ray v. Clements, 700 F.3d 993, 1011 (7th Cir. 2012) (habeas context). A prisoner needs to
provide the district court with a sworn declaration that “identif[ies] the who, what,
when, where, how, and why of his alleged delivery to a prison official … plus some
other corroborating evidence.” Id. (emphasis in original). Here, Mayberry attests that he
submitted his motion to prison officials in February 2023 and January 2024. But he did
not provide evidence to corroborate his claimed timely filing. Thus, the district court
did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Mayberry’s unsupported assertions of
timeliness.
AFFIRMED

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