Melo v. Eusebio

Background

Dioniso Melo and Silvia Duran filed a personal-injury case in New York State Supreme Court, Bronx County, on May 22, 2024. They sued HSG Logistics Inc., Harpreet Singh, Eric Eusebio-Rojas, and Thomas Dexter. HSG and Singh removed the case to federal court on June 21, 2024, asserting federal jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship.

Melo moved to remand, meaning to return the case to state court. He argued that complete diversity was missing because he and Eusebio-Rojas were both domiciled in New York when the lawsuit began. For purposes of diversity jurisdiction, domicile concerns a person’s permanent home, not merely where the person may reside temporarily.

Melo also argued that the removing defendants violated the rule requiring all properly served defendants to consent to removal. The removing defendants acknowledged that they had violated that rule, but argued that Melo filed his motion more than 30 days after removal, making that procedural objection too late.

Evidence about domicile

The parties submitted conflicting evidence about Eusebio-Rojas’s domicile when the case began. Melo submitted an affidavit signed by Eusebio-Rojas stating that he had lived in Florida until December 2021, then moved back to the Bronx and had not lived elsewhere since. The affidavit also explained that Eusebio-Rojas had a Florida driver’s license because it was issued while he lived in Florida.

The removing defendants relied on a police report listing an Orlando, Florida address, the Florida driver’s license, service of process by certified mail at a Florida address, and a state-court answer that did not deny an allegation that Eusebio-Rojas was a Florida resident. The answer, however, was verified by Eusebio-Rojas’s attorney based on the attorney’s information and investigation rather than by Eusebio-Rojas himself.

The parties agreed that the court could decide the remand motion based on their written submissions rather than hold an evidentiary hearing.

Court’s reasoning

The court held that the removing defendants had the burden of proving that federal subject-matter jurisdiction existed. Because jurisdiction depended on complete diversity, they had to prove that the parties were citizens of different states when the action began.

Judge Woods concluded that the removing defendants had not shown by a preponderance of the evidence—the greater weight of the evidence—that Eusebio-Rojas was a citizen of a state other than New York, particularly Florida. The affidavit signed by Eusebio-Rojas directly stated that he was living in New York when the case began. The other evidence could be explained consistently with that statement: the Florida address could have come from his driver’s license, service by mail did not definitively establish where he lived, and the attorney-verified answer could have been incorrect.

The court also ruled that the failure to obtain unanimous consent to removal was not the basis for remand. Melo had waived that procedural objection by filing his motion more than 30 days after removal. But a challenge based on lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is not subject to that 30-day limit.

Disposition

The court found that complete diversity had not been established and granted Melo’s motion to remand. The Clerk of Court was directed to close all pending motions and remand the case to New York State Supreme Court in Bronx County without delay.