Cook Harrison v. Old Republic Insurance Company
- James Oetken
- 1:22-cv-03279
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Crystal D. Cook Harrison v. Old Republic Insurance Company, Judge Oetken transferred the improperly removed case to the Eastern District of New York.
Crystal D. Cook Harrison and the defendants are affected because the case was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the Eastern District of New York; the opinion does not resolve the underlying claims.
What happened
In Crystal D. Cook Harrison v. Old Republic Insurance Company, a defendant removed the case from New York Supreme Court in Queens County to the Southern District of New York, citing federal diversity jurisdiction.
The court ruled that removal to the Southern District was improper because Queens County is within the Eastern District of New York. The court explained that the case should be transferred rather than sent back to state court for another removal.
Judge James Oetken ordered the case transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and directed the Clerk of Court to remove it from the Southern District’s docket.
The detailed version
- Cook Harrison v. Old Republic Insurance Company · No. 1:22-cv-03279
- James Oetken
- Apr. 22, 2022
Background
On April 20, 2022, a defendant removed the case from New York Supreme Court, Queens County, to the Southern District of New York. The defendant invoked federal diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.
Court’s Reasoning
The court held that the removal was improper because federal law allows removal only to the federal district covering the place where the state-court action is pending. Queens County is within the Eastern District of New York, not the Southern District of New York.
The court treated the improper removal as an improper-venue problem rather than a jurisdictional defect. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), the court determined that transfer to the proper federal district was appropriate. It explained that remanding the case to state court for a later removal to the Eastern District would cause additional delay and expense without serving a useful purpose.
Disposition
The court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The Clerk of Court was directed to remove the case from the Southern District’s docket and transfer it to the Eastern District. The opinion does not decide the underlying dispute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.