W.J. Deutsch & Sons Ltd. d/b/a/ Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits v. Zamora

Background

W.J. Deutsch & Sons Ltd. d/b/a/ Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits filed a petition seeking to vacate a September 23, 2021 interim arbitration award. The respondents identified in the opinion are Diego Zamora S.A. and Bodegas Ramon Bilbao S.A.

The respondents notified the petitioner that they intended to seek dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which addresses whether a pleading states a legally sufficient claim. They said the petition was untimely because the respondents had not been served by the December 23, 2021 deadline under 9 U.S.C. § 12. They also argued that service on the foreign respondents had not been completed through the required process. The opinion text describes those arguments, but the court did not decide the timeliness or service issues in this order.

The respondents asked the court to postpone motion practice concerning the petition’s merits and to handle their anticipated dismissal motion first. The petitioner had asserted that it would seek a merits determination at the same time as the dismissal motion.

Ruling

The court denied the requests for a stay and for bifurcation of the motion-to-dismiss practice. “Bifurcation” means splitting the motion practice into separate stages. The court directed that all grounds on which the respondent seeks pre-answer dismissal must be incorporated into its motion. The order states that docket entry 33 was resolved. It did not rule on the petition’s merits or decide whether the petition was untimely.