Honig v. Hansen
- Alvin Hellerstein
- 1:20-cv-05872
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Honig v. Hansen, Judge Hellerstein denied reconsideration and amendment motions and stayed the cases pending a California action.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the two federal cases are affected. The court denied the pending reconsideration and amendment motions and paused the federal proceedings while the parallel California case proceeded.
What happened
Honig v. Hansen involves two related federal cases concerning allegations about statements made during the development of cancer-treatment products. The defendants asked the court to reconsider an earlier decision based on testimony from a parallel California lawsuit, and the plaintiffs asked to file additional amended complaints.
The court denied the defendants’ reconsideration motion because later evidence from another case was not a proper basis to reconsider the earlier decision. It also denied the plaintiffs’ requests to file fifth and sixth amended complaints, finding that the proposed allegations about optimistic statements were futile because publicly disclosed trial results made those statements opinions rather than factual representations. The court then stayed both federal cases because the California case had progressed further and overlapped substantially with them.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered a status conference for June 16, 2023, and said either party could ask to lift the stay after the California case was decided.
The detailed version
- Honig v. Hansen · No. 1:20-cv-05872
- Alvin Hellerstein
- June 10, 2022
Background
The order addresses two related federal actions: Honig v. Hansen, No. 20 Civ. 5872, and a related action, No. 20 Civ. 8618. The parties were also litigating a parallel case in California. The federal court held a status conference about how the two federal cases should proceed.
Defendants’ reconsideration motion
The defendants moved for reconsideration based on testimony given later in depositions in the California case. The court denied the motion. It explained that reconsideration is meant to correct a decision based on the court’s failure to consider facts or law that were already presented when the original decision was made. If later proceedings in another case affect the merits, the court said, the proper remedy is a new motion rather than reconsideration of the earlier decision.
Plaintiffs’ motions to amend
The plaintiffs asked to file a fifth amended complaint in No. 20 Civ. 8618 and a sixth amended complaint in No. 20 Civ. 5872. The court denied both motions. It noted that the cases had been pending since 2020 and that the parties needed to proceed to discovery rather than continue with additional pleadings and motions.
The proposed amendments concerned alleged misrepresentations in 2016 and 2017 about adverse events during early clinical trials for antibodies intended to treat advanced pancreatic cancer. The plaintiffs alleged that defendants’ optimistic statements about the trials and the products’ prospects were misleading. The court found the proposed claims futile because the interim trial results had been publicly disclosed and the optimistic statements were opinions, not factual representations on which a reasonable investor could rely. The court therefore denied the motions to amend.
Stay of the federal cases
The court ordered a stay even though neither side had requested one. It found substantial overlap between the federal cases and the California action, which had progressed further, and concluded that resolving the California case would determine most, if not all, of the issues in the federal cases. The court cited the waste of judicial resources and unnecessary expense that would result from duplicative proceedings.
Disposition
The court denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration, denied the plaintiffs’ motions to file fifth and sixth amended complaints, and ordered a stay of the federal cases. It scheduled a status conference for June 16, 2023, and stated that either party could ask to lift the stay after the California case was decided.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.