Lady Justice
ST. LOUIS — A federal judge in Missouri has denied a woman’s request to reopen a decade-old product-liability case and enforce its settlement against Jack Cooper Transport Company, ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction over the closed case and over the company, which was not a party to the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Henry Edward Autrey also denied a motion by Continental Indemnity Company, Jack Cooper Transport’s workers’ compensation carrier, to intervene.
Autrey issued the ruling Oct. 30 in the Eastern District of Missouri.
Deborah Taylor had asked the court to reopen the case, clarify an Aug. 19, 2016, order and enforce a settlement agreement against Jack Cooper Transport, referred to in the opinion as JTC.
The dispute followed a March 2025 ruling by the Cook Circuit Court in Cook County Ill., concerning JTC’s claimed lien on settlement proceeds tied to a workplace injury.
The Missouri case began in 2009, when Deborah and Timmy Taylor sued Cottrell Inc. and Auto Handling Corporation over injuries Timmy Taylor sustained in a 2007 workplace accident.
The suit alleged that a car-hauling rig manufactured by Cottrell was unreasonably dangerous and that Auto Handling employees failed to maintain it properly.
The plaintiffs claimed the companies were liable for Timmy Taylor’s injuries and for Deborah Taylor’s alleged loss of support and services. The Taylors did not sue JTC in that case.
Timmy Taylor was later injured at work again in 2010.
While the product-liability case was pending, he filed an Illinois workers’ compensation claim based on that later injury.
After the settlement and dismissal of the Missouri case, Timmy Taylor and JTC disputed whether JTC held a lien on the settlement proceeds.
The parties in the Missouri suit told the court on Jan. 20, 2016, that they had settled their claims.
The court vacated the trial setting and directed them to file dismissal papers or a proposed consent judgment within 60 days.
They were unable to put their agreement in writing, and the Taylors moved to enforce the settlement against Cottrell and Auto Handling.
Auto Handling disputed whether the parties had agreed on some settlement terms.
On Aug. 19, 2016, the court granted the Taylors’ motion to enforce the settlement and denied Auto Handling’s motion for declaratory judgment.
The parties later executed a written settlement and release, filed a stipulation dismissing the case with prejudice on Sept. 12, 2016, and the court closed the matter.
In March 2025, the Cook County court ruled against Timmy Taylor in the dispute with JTC, finding that JTC had not waived its lien relating to the 2010 injury and was entitled to a credit based on the settlement in the Missouri case.
Deborah Taylor then returned to federal court, alleging that JTC had breached the settlement agreement and asking the court to enforce it against the company.
Autrey concluded that the court had not retained jurisdiction to enforce the settlement after the case was dismissed.
The settlement was not incorporated into the order closing the case, the court had not expressly retained jurisdiction in another order, and the parties’ dismissal notice did not ask the court to keep jurisdiction over the agreement.
The opinion also noted that JTC was not a party to the Missouri lawsuit.
The judge said the remedy for Taylor’s allegation that JTC breached the agreement belonged in state court, where Timmy Taylor and JTC had been litigating the dispute.
The federal court therefore declined to reopen the closed case to consider the allegation against JTC.
Autrey also rejected Taylor’s request to clarify the 2016 order. The opinion said that, if the request was treated as a motion under Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it was untimely.
The court said waiting 10 years to seek amendment or clarification was not reasonable; even measuring from the March 2025 Illinois ruling, Taylor had waited more than a year to file.
The judge further found that the 2016 order needed no clarification: it granted the motion to enforce the settlement and denied Auto Handling’s motion for declaratory judgment.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division case number: 4:09-cv-00536
