Honeedew Investing LLC v. Abadi
- John Cronan
- 1:19-cv-08951
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 23
Honeedew Investing v. Abadi: Judge Cronan postponed the default-judgment hearing and ordered Honeedew to respond to Carlos Abadi’s letter.
Honeedew Investing LLC must respond by April 18, 2025, and the April 16, 2025 default-judgment hearing will not go forward on that date. The order also concerns Carlos Andres Abadi and the substituted defendants named in the attached letter, but it does not decide their requested relief.
What happened
In Honeedew Investing LLC v. Carlos Andres Abadi, et al., the court was considering a default-judgment hearing set for April 16, 2025. The court received an email from someone identifying himself as Defendant Carlos Andres Abadi, with a letter submitted for the substituted defendants.
The letter asked the court to deny default judgment and address claimed problems with substituting defendants after Jose Abadi’s death. It argued that Honeedew knew about the death earlier than it stated, that the substitution request was late, and that service was defective. These arguments were made by the letter’s sender; the order did not decide whether they were correct.
The court postponed the April 16 hearing without setting a new date and ordered Honeedew to respond to the letter by April 18, 2025. Judge John P. Cronan did not rule in this order on default judgment, substitution, dismissal, or the other requested relief.
The detailed version
- Honeedew Investing LLC v. Abadi · No. 1:19-cv-08951
- John Cronan
- Apr. 11, 2025
What the Order Did
The court stated that it received an April 11, 2025 email from an individual representing himself to be Defendant Carlos Andres Abadi. The email included a letter submitted on behalf of the substituted defendants in the action.
In light of that submission, the court adjourned the April 16, 2025 hearing on Plaintiff Honeedew Investing LLC’s request for default judgment. The adjournment was made without setting a new hearing date. The court ordered Honeedew to file a response to the contents of Carlos Abadi’s letter by April 18, 2025.
Arguments in the Attached Letter
The attached letter said it was submitted by Carlos Abadi on behalf of Francia Luisa Guthmann, Miguel Claudio Abadi, and Yvonne Abadi. The letter asserted that the substitution of those defendants for Jose Abadi was untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(a)(1), because the sender claimed Honeedew had notice of Jose Abadi’s death on April 30, 2023, but did not file its substitution motion until November 6, 2023. It also alleged that Honeedew’s counsel had made a materially inaccurate statement about when Honeedew learned of the death.
The letter further argued that the court should vacate its July 15, 2024 substitution order, hold an evidentiary hearing about when Honeedew received notice of the death, and find that service of the substitution motion was defective. It requested denial of default judgment, a stay of proceedings, and dismissal of the action against the substituted defendants if the substitution motion was found untimely. These were the letter’s requested arguments and relief; the April 11 order did not resolve them.
Disposition and Scope
The order did not grant or deny the default-judgment motion. It did not decide whether the substitution motion was timely, whether service was effective, whether the prior substitution order should be vacated, or whether the action should be dismissed. Judge John P. Cronan only postponed the scheduled hearing and required Honeedew to respond by April 18, 2025.
Read the full 23-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.