Charles v. Lowe's of Poughkeepsie 0541
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:22-cv-05506
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Charles v. Lowe’s, Judge Karas granted substitution of the deceased plaintiff’s estate administrators and extended the filing deadline.
Richard Putsis and Joy Sari were allowed to replace deceased plaintiff Joseph Charles as the party plaintiffs in their roles as co-administrators of his estate; the defendants remain parties to the case.
What happened
Charles v. Lowe’s concerned a request to replace Joseph Charles as plaintiff after he died on July 22, 2023. Richard Putsis and Joy Sari, who were appointed co-administrators of Charles’s estate, asked to be substituted in the case and requested more time to file the motion.
The motion explained that the court had stayed the case after Charles’s death and that the estate’s administrators were appointed on December 2, 2024. The motion was filed after the usual 90-day period for substitution had passed.
Judge Kenneth M. Karas granted the motion. He ruled that Putsis and Sari were proper parties to represent Charles’s estate and found that the delay was excusable, allowing the substitution and extension requested.
The detailed version
- Charles v. Lowe's of Poughkeepsie 0541 · No. 7:22-cv-05506
- Kenneth Karas
- June 5, 2025
Background
Joseph Charles was the plaintiff in this case. According to the motion, Charles died on July 22, 2023. His attorneys notified the court two days later and requested a stay of the proceedings. Judge Kenneth M. Karas granted the stay on July 25, 2023.
Paperwork to create Charles’s estate was filed with the Dutchess County Surrogate’s Court on February 6, 2024. On December 2, 2024, that court issued a decision and decree granting limited letters of administration and naming Richard Putsis and Joy Sari as co-administrators of Charles’s estate.
Motion
Putsis and Sari asked to be substituted as the plaintiff under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25, which governs substitution after a party dies. They also asked for an extension of time under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(b)(1)(B). Rule 25 generally requires a substitution motion to be made within 90 days, but the motion argued that the delay should be excused.
Ruling
The court granted the motion. It explained that a proper substitute under Rule 25(a)(1) may include a person lawfully appointed by a state authority to represent a deceased person’s estate. Because Putsis and Sari had been named co-administrators, the court found them appropriate parties for substitution.
The court also concluded that the delay was caused by excusable neglect, meaning a legally acceptable reason for missing a deadline. The court therefore granted the motion to substitute Putsis and Sari as party plaintiffs and to extend the filing deadline. The opinion addressed this procedural request and did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.