Carrillo v. Kay Waterproofing Corp.
- John Cronan
- 1:19-cv-01365-JPC
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Carrillo v. Monster Construction, Judge Cronan ordered plaintiffs to clarify service on Ronald E. Duarte-Lopez and Saul Sosa before pursuing default judgment.
The order affected the plaintiffs and defendants Ronald E. Duarte-Lopez and Saul Sosa by requiring the plaintiffs to clarify service and their plans for pursuing default judgment or dismissing the claims against those defendants.
What happened
In Carrillo v. Monster Construction, plaintiffs sought default judgment, and a hearing was scheduled for March 29, 2022. The court reviewed whether defendants Ronald E. Duarte-Lopez and Saul Sosa had been properly served.
The court explained that a plaintiff must serve both the summons and the complaint. Proper service is required before the court can exercise authority over a defendant, and the defendant’s actual notice of the lawsuit does not by itself fix defective service. The docket showed service of the First Amended Complaint on Duarte-Lopez and Sosa, but did not show service or issuance of summonses for either defendant.
The court ordered plaintiffs to state by March 18, 2022, whether they still intended to seek default judgment against Duarte-Lopez and Sosa. If so, they had to address whether summonses had been served and whether they wanted more time to serve the summonses and amended complaint; otherwise, they had to address whether they intended to dismiss the claims against those defendants. Judge John P. Cronan also ordered plaintiffs to state whether they sought to adjourn the default-judgment hearing.
The detailed version
- Carrillo v. Kay Waterproofing Corp. · No. 1:19-cv-01365-JPC
- John Cronan
- Mar. 14, 2022
Background
Plaintiffs had filed a motion for default judgment, and a hearing was scheduled for March 29, 2022. The order focused on defendants Ronald E. Duarte-Lopez and Saul Sosa.
The docket showed that Duarte-Lopez was served with the First Amended Complaint on November 3, 2020, and that Sosa was served with the First Amended Complaint on November 5, 2020. It did not show that either defendant was served with a summons, or that a summons had even been requested and issued for either defendant.
Legal standard
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(c)(1) requires a summons to be served with a copy of the complaint. Effective service of process is required before a court may exercise personal jurisdiction, meaning its legal authority over a defendant. Actual notice of a lawsuit does not, by itself, cure defective service. A court may not enter default judgment unless it has personal jurisdiction over the defendant, including through effective service of process.
Order
The court ordered plaintiffs, by March 18, 2022, to advise whether they still intended to seek default judgment against Duarte-Lopez and Sosa. If plaintiffs intended to continue seeking default judgment, they had to state whether the defendants had been served with summonses and, if not, whether they requested an extension under Rule 4(m) to serve the summonses and amended complaint. If plaintiffs did not intend to seek default judgment, they had to advise whether they intended to dismiss the claims against those defendants. Plaintiffs also had to state whether they requested an adjournment of the March 29, 2022 hearing.
The order did not grant or deny the default-judgment motion and did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.