Kumaran v. National Futures Association
- Gregory Woods
- 1:20-cv-03668
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kumaran v. National Futures Association, Judge Woods granted counsel’s withdrawal, stayed the case for corporate plaintiffs to find counsel, and denied an emergency-stay motion as moot.
Nefertiti Risk Capital Management, LLC and the other corporate plaintiffs were required to retain counsel to continue prosecuting their claims. Attorney David Kostus was permitted to withdraw, and Samantha Kumaran’s emergency-stay motion was denied as moot.
What happened
In Kumaran v. National Futures Association, attorney David Kostus asked to withdraw as counsel for Nefertiti Risk Capital Management, LLC, one of the corporate plaintiffs. The court explained that corporate entities must appear through attorneys.
The court granted Kostus’s withdrawal and stayed the case through July 18, 2022, so the corporate plaintiffs could retain replacement counsel. It warned that Nefertiti Risk Capital Management’s claims might be dismissed for failure to prosecute if no attorney appeared. The court also stated that new counsel must file a notice of appearance by July 18, 2022, unless counsel appeared earlier.
Judge Gregory H. Woods denied Samantha Kumaran’s emergency motion for a stay as moot because the court had granted Kostus’s withdrawal and stayed the case. The order did not dismiss any claims.
The detailed version
- Kumaran v. National Futures Association · No. 1:20-cv-03668
- Gregory Woods
- June 18, 2022
Motions and ruling
The court granted attorney David Kostus’s motion to withdraw as counsel for Nefertiti Risk Capital Management, LLC (NRCM). The court also stayed the case through July 18, 2022, to give NRCM and the other corporate plaintiffs time to retain replacement counsel.
The court explained that corporate entities must appear through counsel. It directed replacement counsel for NRCM to file a notice of appearance by July 18, 2022. The order warned that, if no attorney appeared for NRCM by that date, the court might dismiss NRCM’s claims for failure to prosecute, meaning failure to move the case forward. The court stated that the stay would be lifted if new counsel appeared before July 18, 2022.
The court also noted that prior submissions filed for the corporate plaintiffs had been wholly drafted by Samantha Kumaran rather than by counsel and stated that it expected this issue not to recur with new counsel.
Emergency-stay motion
Because the court granted Kostus’s withdrawal motion and stayed the case, it denied Kumaran’s emergency motion for a stay to address concerns about Kostus’s representation as moot. A motion denied as moot is denied because the requested relief is no longer necessary. The clerk was directed to terminate the motions at Dkt. Nos. 194 and 202, remove Kostus from the docket’s list of counsel, and indicate that the case was stayed.
Date discrepancy
One sentence of the order says that replacement counsel must appear by July 18, 2012, while the stay provisions repeatedly state July 18, 2022. The opinion is dated June 18, 2022, and the surrounding stay language uses 2022.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.