Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
- John Cronan
- 1:21-cv-07209
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase, Magistrate Judge Cave denied reconsideration of an amendment request and denied JPMC’s fee request.
Thomas Rimini’s request to add JPMorgan Securities as a defendant remained denied, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. was not awarded fees for responding to the reconsideration motion.
What happened
In Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Thomas Rimini, who represented himself, asked the court to reconsider its earlier refusal to add JPMorgan Securities as a defendant. The earlier refusal had relied on Rimini’s delay and bad faith in seeking the amendment.
Rimini said he had been mistaken about which corporate entities employed him and that he did not understand the identity of the proper defendant was important until later in the case. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. argued that he had not shown a legal or factual error that justified reconsideration and asked for reimbursement of its fees.
The court found that Rimini had not shown the exceptional circumstances required for reconsideration because the employment-entity issue did not explain his delay. Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave denied Rimini’s motion and also denied the company’s request for fees.
The detailed version
- Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. · No. 1:21-cv-07209
- John Cronan
- Apr. 14, 2022
Background
Thomas Rimini, proceeding without a lawyer, asked the court to reconsider its March 18, 2022, order denying his request to amend the case caption to add JPMorgan Securities as a defendant. Rimini had previously asserted that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. was JPMorgan Securities’ bank-holding-company parent and that he had worked for both entities. In the reconsideration motion, he said that statement was mistaken and identified JPMorgan Chase Bank, JPMorgan Securities, and Bear Stearns as the entities listed in his employment records from 2002 through 2008.
The earlier order treated Rimini’s request as a motion for permission to amend under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 and found that his delay and bad faith provided good reason to deny it. Rimini argued that he did not know the identity of the proper corporate defendant would matter until a December 20, 2021, court conference. He also said that the documents available to him did not clearly resolve which entity had employed him.
Legal standard
The court applied Local Civil Rule 6.3 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which govern requests to reconsider or obtain relief from a court order. The court explained that this relief is extraordinary and generally requires exceptional circumstances, such as an overlooked controlling decision or evidence that could reasonably change the prior result. A reconsideration motion is not a chance to repeat rejected arguments or present new facts and arguments that could have been raised earlier.
Discussion
The court held that Rimini had not shown exceptional circumstances warranting reconsideration. It reasoned that any uncertainty about which entity employed Rimini did not undermine the earlier findings concerning his delay and bad faith. The court also noted that Rimini knew J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and JPMorgan Securities were entities he could name as defendants because he had named one or both in multiple lawsuits. Even if Rimini had mistakenly stated that he worked for both entities, the court concluded that the mistake did not explain his delay in seeking permission to amend. The court viewed his suggestion that he did not know which entity to name with skepticism because of his extensive litigation against the two entities.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. separately requested reimbursement of the fees it incurred responding to the reconsideration motion. The court denied that request because it was unsupported by any citation to legal authority.
Disposition
The court denied Rimini’s reconsideration motion, ECF No. 59, and denied J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s request for fees. The clerk was directed to close the motion and mail a copy of the order to Rimini.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.