Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 1 of 12 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 26-10006 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ ANGELA DEBOSE, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA BOARD OF TRUSTEES, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 4:22-cv-00439-RH-MAF ____________________ Before ABUDU, KIDD, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Angela DeBose, a Wisconsin-licensed attorney representing herself, appeals the district court’s denial of her Federal Rule of USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 2 of 12 2 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 Civil Procedure 60(b) motion for relief from its judgment of dismis- sal for improper venue. She argues that newly discovered evidence justifies vacating or modifying the filing injunction against her in the Middle District of Florida. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discre- tion in denying DeBose’s Rule 60(b) motion. Her motion was filed more than one year after the entry of judgment, so she cannot seek relief under Rule 60(b)(2), nor can she seek relief under Rule 60(b)(5) because the judgment below has no prospective effect. Fi- nally, she cannot seek relief under Rule 60(b)(6) on grounds that are covered in another Rule 60(b) provision. We therefore affirm the district court’s order. I. BACKGROUND DeBose filed suit against the University of South Florida Board of Trustees (“USFBOT”), her former employer, in the Northern District of Florida on December 8, 2022. She brought seven claims, including violations of Title VII, tortious interference with a business relationship, and civil-rights violations. At the time she filed suit, DeBose was subject to a filing injunction entered by the Middle District of Florida that prohibited her from filing any action concerning her employment with USF without the signa- ture of an attorney admitted to practice in that district. That court recounted DeBose’s seven-year history of filing claims against USF and related parties, the dismissal of those claims, and DeBose’s at- tempts to appeal or procure relief from those judgments. USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 3 of 12 26-10006 Opinion of the Court 3 In her complaint, DeBose acknowledges that venue was oth- erwise proper in the Middle District but asserts that she was barred from filing there and was “applying for jurisdiction in” the North- ern District to obtain an adequate federal forum in which she could access the courts. USF moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, arguing that venue was improper and that DeBose had filed in the Northern District to circumvent the Middle District’s filing injunction. USF then contended that dismissal, rather than transfer, was proper because transfer to the Middle District would “contra- vene [the] ruling enjoining DeBose from filing further lawsuits without meeting the Court’s conditions.” DeBose herself acknowl- edged that she had filed in the Northern District to “intentionally circumvent [the] injunction order.” A magistrate judge recom- mended dismissal rather than transfer because the defendant re- sided in the Middle District and all events relevant to DeBose’s claims occurred there. The district court adopted that recommen- dation in the interests of justice. DeBose subsequently filed several motions seeking relief from judgment, as well as two mandamus proceedings in this Court. The district court denied those requests, and this Court dis- missed or denied the corresponding mandamus petitions for lack of prosecution. DeBose then filed a Rule 60(b) motion seeking relief under subsections (b)(2), (b)(5), and (b)(6). She relied principally on a March 2025 letter from the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 4 of 12 4 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 (“OLR”), arguing that the letter constituted newly discovered evi- dence undermining the basis for the Middle District’s filing injunc- tion and warranting relief from the Northern District’s judgment. In the letter, OLR made an official finding of “no misconduct[.]” DeBose avers that this letter was “authoritative and dispositive proof that the alleged misbehavior never occurred.” Separately, DeBose argues in her Rule 60 motion that the defendant’s attorney, one of USF’s attorneys, was disqualified as a “potential witness and defendant in related matters” under the newly “changed (or [ ] clar- ified)” Rule 4-3.7 of the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct, en- titling her to relief under Rule 60(b)(5) or (b)(6). The district court denied this motion, concluding that none of DeBose’s asserted newly discovered evidence “ha[d] anything to do with the grounds on which this action was dismissed,” and that “[t]he motion for re- lief from the judgment [was] frivolous.” DeBose timely appeals the district court’s denial of her Rule 60(b) motion. II. STANDARD OF REVIEW We generally review the denial of a Rule 60(b) motion for abuse of discretion. Am. Bankers Ins. Co. of Fla. v. Nw. Nat’l Ins. Co., 198 F.3d 1332, 1338 (11th Cir. 1999). The district court abuses its discretion when it “applies the wrong law, follows the wrong pro- cedure, bases its decision on clearly erroneous facts, or commits a clear error in judgment.” McNair v. Johnson, 143 F.4th 1301, 1307 (11th Cir. 2025) (quotation omitted). “An appeal of a ruling on a Rule 60(b) motion, however, is narrow in scope, addressing only USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 5 of 12 26-10006 Opinion of the Court 5 the propriety of the denial or grant of relief and does not raise issues in the underlying judgment for review.” Am. Bankers Ins. Co., 198 F.3d at 1338. Rule 60(b) motions allow district courts “to reconsider mat- ters so that [they] can correct obvious errors or injustices and so perhaps obviate the laborious process of appeal.” Carter ex rel. Carter v. United States, 780 F.2d 925, 928 (11th Cir. 1986) (citation modified). Motions under Rule 60(b) must be made within a rea- sonable time, though motions under subsections (1), (2), or (3) must be brought “no more than a year after the entry of the judg- ment or order or the date of the proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(c)(1). Rule 60(b)(2) allows a court to grant relief from a final judg- ment due to newly discovered evidence which, by due diligence, could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b). Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(2). To warrant relief under Rule 60(b)(2), the movant must satisfy a five-part test: (1) the evi- dence must be newly discovered since the trial; (2) the movant used due diligence to discover the new evidence; (3) the evidence is not merely cumulative or impeaching; (4) the evidence is material; and (5) the evidence is such that it would probably produce a new re- sult. Toole v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 235 F.3d 1307, 1316 (11th Cir. 2000). Evidence that would not produce a new result does not meet these requirements. Willard v. Fairfield So. Co., 472 F.3d 817, 824 (11th Cir. 2006). USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 6 of 12 6 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 Rule 60(b)(5) permits a party to obtain relief from an order if, among other things, “applying [the order] prospectively is no longer equitable[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5). We have held that this rule “applies only to judgments that have prospective effect as con- trasted with those that offer a present remedy for a past wrong.” Griffin v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 787 F.3d 1086, 1091 (11th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). A judgment operates prospectively if it “involve[s] the supervision of changing conduct or conditions[,]” the classic example being a continuing injunction. Id. (quotations and citation omitted). A dismissal is not prospective because such a judgment is “final and permanent.” Id. at 1092 (quotations omit- ted). Rule 60(b)(6) is a catchall provision that authorizes relief for “any other reason that [is] justifie[d].” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). “Rule 60(b)(6) motions must demonstrate that the circumstances are sufficiently extraordinary to warrant relief. Even then, whether to grant the requested relief is a matter for the district court’s sound discretion.” Cano v. Baker, 435 F.3d 1337, 1342 (11th Cir. 2006) (quo- tation marks and ellipsis omitted). Rule 60(b)(6) “permits reopen- ing when the movant shows any reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment other than the more specific circum- stances set out in Rule 60(b)(1)–(5).” Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 529 (2005) (quotation marks and ellipsis omitted). Parties “subject to an injunctive order issued by a court with jurisdiction are expected to obey that decree until it is modified or reversed, even if they have proper grounds to object to the order.” USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 7 of 12 26-10006 Opinion of the Court 7 Alley v. U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Servs., 590 F.3d 1195, 1203 (11th Cir. 2009). A party seeking to vacate or modify an injunction must challenge it directly, rather than file a collateral attack. Id. at 1204. When a court is confronted with an action that would involve it in a serious interference with or usurpation of another court’s continuing power to supervise and modify its injunctions, considerations of comity and orderly administration of justice demand that the non-rendering court should decline jurisdiction and remand the parties for their relief to the rendering court, so long as it is apparent that a remedy is availa- ble there. Mann Mfg., Inc. v. Hortex, Inc., 439 F.2d 403, 408 (5th Cir. 1971) (ci- tation modified). 1 If a case is filed in a district where venue is not proper, the district court “shall dismiss, or if it be in the interest of justice, trans- fer such case to any district or division in which it could have been brought.” 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). Although pro se pleadings are normally liberally construed, that rule does not apply to licensed attorneys representing them- selves. Olivares v. Martin, 555 F.2d 1192, 1194 n.1 (5th Cir. 1977). 1 In Bonner v. City of Pritchard, we adopted as precedent decisions of the former Fifth Circuit rendered prior to October 1, 1981. 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc). USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 8 of 12 8 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 Generally, we will not review issues on appeal that were not presented to the district court, but “there is a difference between raising new issues and making new arguments on appeal.” In re Home Depot Inc., 931 F.3d 1065, 1086 (11th Cir. 2019). In other words, on appeal, parties may offer new arguments in support of an issue that was properly raised in the district court. Id. Any issued not clearly identified in an initial brief on appeal is considered aban- doned. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir. 2014). III. DISCUSSION We begin by considering the scope of our review of the dis- trict court’s denial of DeBose’s Rule 60(b) motion. We next explain why DeBose’s challenges to the dismissal of her action and the Mid- dle District’s filing injunction are not properly before us. Finally, we address whether the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation’s finding of “no misconduct” warrants relief under Rule 60(b)(2), (5), or (6). DeBose argues that the district court abused its discretion by dismissing her case rather than transferring it because doing so cre- ated a procedural “dead zone.” Since the Northern District court knew she was subject to a filing injunction in the Middle District, she contends, it “transformed a simple venue error into a terminal sanction.” She also argues that the OLR letter’s finding of “no mis- conduct” undermines the basis of the Middle District’s injunction. USFBOT, on the other hand, claims that DeBose’s arguments con- cerning dismissal, transfer, and the filing injunction are not USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 9 of 12 26-10006 Opinion of the Court 9 properly before this Court and that the OLR letter does not war- rant Rule 60(b) relief. In reply, DeBose asserts that her motion for relief was timely because, while Rule 60(b)(2) has a one-year limit, Rule 60(b)(5) and (b)(6) motions need to be filed only within a rea- sonable time. As an initial matter, DeBose does not raise on appeal her ar- gument below that a change in Florida’s Rule of Professional Con- duct disqualified the defendant’s attorney. She has, therefore, aban- doned any argument related to that issue. See Sapuppo, 739, F.3d at 680. DeBose next challenges the district court’s decision to dis- miss her case rather than transfer it to another court. But she made no argument in her Rule 60(b) motion that the district court erred by dismissing her case instead of transferring it to another district. Accordingly, we need not reach that argument in this appeal. See Am. Bankers Ins. Co., 198 F.3d at 1338. In any event, DeBose is at- tempting to challenge the underlying judgment, which is not be- fore us on appeal. Even if the issue were properly before us, the district court did not abuse its discretion by choosing to dismiss her case instead of transferring it to another court. Section 1406(a) provides that a district court “shall dismiss, or if it be in the interest of justice, trans- fer such case to any district or division in which it could have been brought.” 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). We have recognized that district courts have broad discretion in determining whether to transfer or dismiss a case. See England v. ITT Thompson Industries, Inc., 856 F.2d USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 10 of 12 10 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 1518, 1520 (11th Cir. 1988). DeBose conceded that venue was im- proper and that she was essentially filing in the Northern District as an attempt to circumvent the Middle District’s filing injunction. Thus, even apart from the fact that DeBose did not raise her trans- fer argument in her Rule 60(b) motion, the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing rather than transferring the case. See McNair, 143 F.4th at 1307. We next consider DeBose’s argument that the OLR letter warrants relief under Rule 60(b). DeBose argues that the district court’s dismissal resulted from a misunderstanding of the connec- tion between the OLR letter and the Middle District’s injunction. Because the injunction was based on her alleged professional mis- conduct, she asserts that OLR’s finding of “no misconduct” directly rebuts the basis of the restriction. She further argues that the Mid- dle District injunction’s attorney-signature requirement acts as a complete foreclosure of her statutory right to represent herself in court. Because “private counsel is often unavailable for these spe- cific, complex claims,” she argues that the injunction functions as an absolute bar to her pursuing her claims. As to Rule 60(b)(2), DeBose filed her motion more than one year after entry of judgment. Rule 60(b)(2) relief is therefore una- vailable to her. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(c)(1). Nor may DeBose recast her Rule 60(b)(2) motion as one under Rule 60(b)(6) to circumvent the one-year time limit. Rule 60(b)(6) applies only to reasons for relief “other than the more specific circumstances set out in Rules 60(b)(1)–(5).” Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 528–29. Because DeBose relies USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 11 of 12 26-10006 Opinion of the Court 11 on the OLR letter as newly discovered evidence, her argument falls within Rule 60(b)(2). The OLR letter likewise does not undermine the basis for the Middle District’s filing injunction. Indeed, the Middle District imposed the injunction because it found DeBose’s “duplicitous lawsuits relitigating the same issues against the same defendants” to be vexatious. The injunction therefore rested on DeBose’s litiga- tion history, not on a finding of professional misconduct. A panel of this Court recently concluded that the OLR letter “is immaterial to the injunction’s original aims.” To the extent DeBose argues she is entitled to relief under Rule 60(b)(5), such relief is not applicable to dismissals because they are “final and permanent.” Griffin, 787 F.3d at 1092. While the Mid- dle District’s filing injunction against her may be considered “pro- spective” within the meaning of Rule 60(b)(5), any challenge to the injunction itself must be brought in that court, not through a col- lateral attack in another district. Alley, 590 F.3d at 1204. Because the Middle District retained continuing authority to supervise and modify its injunction, the Northern District’s vacatur or modifica- tion of that injunction would have “involve[d] it in a serious inter- ference with or usurpation of another court’s continuing power to supervise and modify its injunctions.” Mann Mfg., Inc., 439 F.2d at 408. The Middle District filing injunction only bars DeBose from filing new complaints, petitions, or claims against USF or related to her employment with USF and ensuing litigation. Accordingly, USCA11 Case: 26-10006 Document: 27-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 12 of 12 12 Opinion of the Court 26-10006 nothing in the injunction prevents DeBose from challenging its va- lidity in the Middle District. Finally, DeBose has not shown that the circumstances are “sufficiently extraordinary to warrant relief” under Rule 60(b)(6), Cano, 435 F.3d at 1342. The district court did not abuse its discre- tion in denying DeBose’s Rule 60(b) motion. See McNair, 143 F.4th at 1307. IV. CONCLUSION We AFFIRM the district court’s order denying DeBose’s motion for relief from judgment.