Paguada v. Kymera Body Board LLC
- Gregory Woods
- 1:22-cv-01093
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Paguada v. Kymera Body Board LLC, Judge Woods denied Kymera’s request to appear without counsel and set a telephone pretrial conference.
Kymera Body Board LLC, which was required to appear through a licensed attorney, and Josue Paguada, whose case proceeded toward a telephone pretrial conference.
What happened
In Paguada v. Kymera Body Board LLC, Kymera Body Board LLC asked the court to let its chief operating officer represent the company in its motion to dismiss. The officer also said that Paguada had sued the wrong company.
The court explained that a company cannot appear in federal court without a licensed lawyer. It noted that Kymera had already been told to hire counsel and had received additional time and deadline extensions.
Judge Woods denied the request to let Kymera represent itself, directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion, and kept the July 13, 2022 telephone pretrial conference on the schedule. The order did not decide whether the complaint should be dismissed or whether Kymera was the wrong defendant.
The detailed version
- Paguada v. Kymera Body Board LLC · No. 1:22-cv-01093
- Gregory Woods
- June 8, 2022
Background
Josue Paguada brought this case individually and on behalf of similarly situated people against Kymera Body Board LLC. The court received a notice of motion to dismiss from Adam Majewski, identified as Kymera’s chief operating officer. Majewski asked the court to let Kymera represent itself in connection with the motion to dismiss and, if the motion were denied, to give Kymera more time to obtain a lawyer because of its financial situation. He also asserted that Paguada had named the wrong company.
The opinion states that Paguada filed the case on February 8, 2022. The court had extended Kymera’s deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint until June 6, 2022, and had postponed the initial pretrial conference more than once.
Court’s ruling
The court denied the request to let Kymera represent itself. It relied on the rule that a corporation may appear in federal court only through a licensed attorney and reminded Kymera that it had previously been instructed to hire counsel. The court found that Kymera had had adequate time to locate counsel and had received several deadline extensions.
The court kept the initial pretrial conference scheduled for July 13, 2022. The conference was to occur by telephone. The parties were also directed to comply with the court’s emergency rules, submit a joint letter and proposed case-management plan by July 6, 2022, and complete mediation at least two weeks before the conference.
Regarding Majewski’s assertion that Paguada named the wrong defendant, the court stated that, when deciding a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), courts accept the complaint’s alleged facts as true and draw reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. The court did not decide that issue in this order. It directed the clerk to terminate the motion listed at Docket Number 14 and directed Paguada to serve Kymera with a copy of the order by email.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.