Reynaldo v. Sudzina
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:21-cv-02976
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Reynaldo v. Sudzina, Judge Schofield remanded the case to state court because defendants’ removal notice was procedurally defective.
The parties’ case was returned to New York state court, and the federal case was closed. The opinion does not decide the underlying dispute.
What happened
In Reynaldo v. Sudzina, defendants removed the case to federal court. The removal notice did not state how long the plaintiff had been a New York citizen or when the defendants were citizens of New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The court explained that when diversity of citizenship is the only basis for federal jurisdiction, the notice must allege the parties’ citizenship both when the state-court case began and when the case was removed. The court found the notice procedurally defective.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield summarily remanded the matter to New York state court, directed the Clerk to send the state court a certified copy of the order, and directed the Clerk to close the federal case.
The detailed version
- Reynaldo v. Sudzina · No. 1:21-cv-02976
- Lorna Schofield
- Apr. 12, 2021
Background
Defendants filed a notice of removal on April 7, 2021, seeking to move the case from state court to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The notice identified the plaintiff as a citizen of New York, Kevin Sudzina as a citizen of New Jersey, and Clean Harbors Environmental Services, Inc. as a citizen of Massachusetts, but it did not allege the time periods during which those citizenships existed.
Court’s analysis
The court stated that a district court may, on its own, remand a case for a procedural defect within 30 days after the notice of removal is filed. It also explained that when diversity of citizenship is the sole basis for federal removal jurisdiction, the notice must allege that diversity existed both when the state-court action began and when removal was sought.
Ruling
The court ordered that the matter be summarily remanded to state court because the defendants’ notice of removal was procedurally defective. Judge Lorna G. Schofield directed the Clerk of Court to mail a certified copy of the opinion and order to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Bronx County, and to close the federal case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.