Lewis v. Steward

Background

Bernard Lewis, representing himself, sued Annmarie Steward, Legal Servicing, LLC, Robert T. Van De Mark, North American Process Serving, LLC, Rodney A. Giove, Robert Crandall, William Singler, Resolution Management, LLC, Mark H. Stein, Esq., JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (Chase), and Erin Capital Management, LLC. The claims arose from two state-court default judgments connected to debt from a Chase credit card.

Lewis asserted claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), along with a New York Judiciary Law § 487(1) claim and a negligence claim. Chase moved to dismiss the RICO and negligence claims against it. Lewis separately sought a preliminary injunction to stop the auction of his Bronx property and to require Giove to comply with a 2009 order from an unrelated state-court case.

Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang recommended granting Chase’s motion, denying the preliminary injunction, and denying Lewis an opportunity to amend because amendment would be futile. Lewis objected to parts of the recommendation, and Chase responded.

Chase’s Motion to Dismiss

The court reviewed the negligence and preliminary-injunction recommendations independently because Lewis specifically objected to them. It reviewed the unobjected-to RICO and amendment recommendations for clear error.

The court held that Lewis’s negligence claim failed because he did not allege that Chase owed him a duty independent of the credit-card contract. Under New York law, a breach of a contractual duty alone does not support a negligence claim. The court also held that the negligence claim was time-barred. The alleged sale of the debt occurred before the 2002 and 2005 default judgments, while Lewis filed this action in 2019. Lewis’s assertion that fraudulent concealment should extend the limitations period was conclusory and unsupported by allegations showing fraudulent conduct by Chase.

The court also held that Lewis’s RICO claim was inadequately pleaded. The complaint alleged only one act by Chase—the sale of the initial debt—which could not establish the required pattern of racketeering activity. The complaint also offered only conclusory allegations that Chase participated in a criminal enterprise. The court therefore found that the RICO claim could not plausibly proceed.

The court denied Lewis leave to amend. It found that the negligence claim’s defects were substantive and could not be cured by better pleading, and that Lewis had not identified facts that could cure the RICO claim or support another viable claim against Chase.

Preliminary Injunction

The court denied Lewis’s request to stop the auction of his property. It held that the federal Anti-Injunction Act generally barred an injunction interfering with the state-court order authorizing the sale, and Lewis did not identify an applicable exception. The court rejected as unsupported Lewis’s assertion that the state-court judge was involved in a conspiracy.

The court also denied the request to compel Giove to comply with the 2009 order from the unrelated state-court case. It described that request as frivolous and likely moot, noting that Lewis had not explained the order’s connection to this case, why it remained effective after the state case was dismissed in 2010, or why the federal court should enforce it instead of the state court.

Disposition

Judge Engelmayer adopted Judge Wang’s Report and Recommendation in full, granted Chase’s motion to dismiss, denied Lewis’s preliminary-injunction motion, and denied Lewis leave to amend the complaint. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions at docket entries 17 and 32 and to terminate Chase as a defendant. The opinion also states that several other defendants had not appeared or had filed separate matters, but this order did not resolve those defendants’ claims.