Hernandez v. Bozzuto's, Inc.
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:25-cv-04131
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Hernandez v. Bozzuto’s, Judge Kaplan found the removal notice deficient and set a deadline to amend or face remand.
Hugo Horacio Zuniga Hernandez, Bozzuto’s, Inc., and the other defendant identified in the caption; the removing party must address the jurisdictional deficiencies by May 29, 2025.
What happened
In Hernandez v. Bozzuto’s, Inc., the court found that the notice removing the case to federal court did not adequately show that the court had authority to hear it. The case involves Hugo Horacio Zuniga Hernandez, Bozzuto’s, Inc., and another defendant identified in the caption as “et ano.”
The court said the notice may not properly identify the citizenship of one or more individuals, corporations, partnerships, or limited liability companies. These citizenship details can be required to establish federal jurisdiction based on the parties’ citizenship.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan gave the defendants until May 29, 2025, to file an amended removal notice that adequately alleges federal jurisdiction. If they do not, the court said the action will be remanded for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The order did not itself enter the remand at that time.
The detailed version
- Hernandez v. Bozzuto's, Inc. · No. 1:25-cv-04131
- Lewis Kaplan
- May 20, 2025
Background
The action was removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The notice of removal invoked federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and 1441. Section 1332 includes diversity jurisdiction, and Section 1441 addresses removal of cases to federal court.
Jurisdictional Deficiencies
The court held that the notice of removal failed adequately to allege the existence of subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning the court’s legal authority to hear the case. The court identified possible deficiencies in the notice’s allegations concerning the citizenship of one or more natural persons, corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies. For a limited liability company, the notice also may have failed to state the entity’s exact nature and citizenship. The court’s wording—“perhaps among other things”—indicates that these may not have been the only deficiencies.
Order
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered that an amended notice of removal adequately alleging subject-matter jurisdiction be filed by May 29, 2025. The court stated that, absent such a filing, the action will be remanded for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The order therefore set a conditional deadline; it did not state that the action had already been remanded. The opinion does not identify which party filed the notice of removal.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.