Lewis v. Hatem
- George Daniels
- 1:19-cv-06446
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In Lewis v. Hatem, Judge Daniels granted defendants’ dismissal motion, dismissed Lewis’s RICO claim with prejudice and state claims without prejudice, and denied his other motions.
Bernard Lewis’s claims were dismissed: the federal RICO claim with prejudice, the state-law claims without prejudice, and his other motions were denied. The defendants obtained dismissal of the action under the court’s stated rulings.
What happened
In Lewis v. Hatem, Bernard Lewis, representing himself, sued several people and a company over a dispute involving a Bronx two-family home. He asserted negligence, deceit under New York law, a federal racketeering claim, conversion, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The court adopted Magistrate Judge Katherine H. Parker’s recommendation. It dismissed claims against Albert Anthony Hatem and Statewide Abstract Corp. because Lewis admitted he had not served them, dismissed the racketeering claim because he did not plausibly allege a criminal enterprise or a pattern of racketeering activity, and declined to hear the remaining state-law claims.
Judge George B. Daniels granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The federal racketeering claim was dismissed with prejudice, the state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice, and Lewis’s motions to strike the dismissal motion, disqualify counsel, and obtain a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order were denied.
The detailed version
- Lewis v. Hatem · No. 1:19-cv-06446
- George Daniels
- Mar. 31, 2020
Background
Bernard Lewis, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Albert Anthony Hatem, Leon Simon, Grace Edward-Simon, Sophia L. Trott, Norma Edwards, Ury Abraham Leid, Ashley Mancini, and Statewide Abstract Corp. The dispute concerned a two-family home in the Bronx that Lewis said he purchased in 1995. Lewis alleged that Simon and Edward-Simon had lived at the property, later brought a New York state-court lawsuit seeking title through adverse possession, and opposed Lewis’s efforts to evict them.
Lewis asserted five causes of action: negligence against Mancini, Edwards, Trott, and Statewide; a claim under New York Judiciary Law § 487 against Hatem and Leid; a claim under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, against all defendants; conversion against Simon and Edward-Simon; and intentional infliction of emotional distress against all defendants.
Motions and Legal Standards
The Simon Defendants—Hatem, Simon, Edward-Simon, Edwards, and Statewide—moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), 12(b)(5), and 12(b)(6). Rule 12(b)(1) concerns the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, Rule 12(b)(5) concerns inadequate service of the lawsuit, and Rule 12(b)(6) concerns whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim. Lewis moved to strike the dismissal motion, sought to disqualify Hatem as counsel, and requested a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order.
Magistrate Judge Katherine H. Parker issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that the dismissal motion be granted and Lewis’s motions to strike and disqualify Hatem be denied. Lewis filed objections. The district court reviewed the objections, found them largely repetitive and therefore subject to clear-error review, adopted the Report in full, and overruled the objections.
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction
The court held that diversity jurisdiction was unavailable because Lewis and multiple defendants were alleged to live or work in New York, so complete diversity was not shown. The court nevertheless held that it had federal-question jurisdiction because Lewis invoked RICO, a federal statute.
Dismissal of Claims
The court dismissed Lewis’s claims against Hatem and Statewide under Rule 12(b)(5) because Lewis acknowledged that he had not served either defendant with a summons and complaint.
The court dismissed Lewis’s RICO claim under Rule 12(b)(6). A RICO claim requires allegations of a statutory violation, injury to business or property, and causation. For the alleged violation, the plaintiff must plausibly allege conduct involving an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. The court found that Lewis had not plausibly alleged a criminal enterprise or a pattern of racketeering activity. It also found that his accusation of a conspiracy to steal his property was speculative, that he did not identify specific predicate acts, and that he did not provide facts linking all defendants to a criminal enterprise.
Because the federal claim was dismissed, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the authority to hear related state-law claims—and dismissed Lewis’s state-law claims without prejudice. The opinion’s footnote states that the federal claim, Count III, was dismissed with prejudice, while the state-law claims, Counts I, II, IV, and V, were dismissed without prejudice.
Other Motions and Disposition
The court denied Lewis’s motion to strike, treating it as essentially an opposition to the dismissal motion. It denied his request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order because the request did not comply with the court’s local rules and sought relief barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. It also denied his motion to disqualify Hatem as counsel; the court described that request as repeating the misconduct allegations in the complaint.
Judge George B. Daniels granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The court denied Lewis’s motions to strike and to disqualify counsel and denied his request for a preliminary injunction. The clerk was directed to close the motions and mail Lewis a copy of the decision.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.