Trustees of the New York Hotel Trades Council and Hotel Association of New York…

Background

The document contains a July 22, 2022 letter from counsel for RHC Operating, LLC and Roosevelt Hotel Corporation, N.V. The letter concerns the defendants’ request for a temporary stay of discovery while they prepared a motion to dismiss. The case involves claims for withdrawal liability under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and related pension-plan law.

The defendants argued that only an “employer” with an obligation to contribute to the pension plan can be assessed withdrawal liability. They said the plaintiffs relied on an industry-wide agreement to allege that RHC had such an obligation, but that the agreement’s plain language placed the obligation on the hotel’s operator rather than RHC as owner. The letter also discussed allegations concerning Roosevelt Hotel Corporation, N.V. and other defendants, but counsel stated that the collective reference to the “RHC Defendants” was only for convenience and did not concede the entities’ relationship.

Request to Stay Discovery

The defendants asked the court to stop all discovery for the limited period before the motion to dismiss was decided. They argued that the motion could dispose of the entire case, that the issues presented were legal rather than factual, and that proceeding with discovery would waste resources. They also asserted that the plaintiffs already possessed extensive documents from a separate arbitration dispute, including the industry-wide agreement, a management agreement, corporate records, financing documents, financial statements, and communications concerning the hotel’s operations.

The letter stated that the plaintiffs had agreed to the limited discovery stay while reserving the right to seek permission for specific discovery needed to respond to the anticipated motion to dismiss. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs would not suffer unfair prejudice from the short stay and contended that the plaintiffs had failed to name Interstate, which the defendants described as the hotel’s employer and operator.

Court’s Action

The text does not state that the court granted or denied the requested discovery stay. Instead, the order directs the defendants to file by August 3, 2022, any documents that might be considered at the motion-to-dismiss stage, including the 2012 version of the collective bargaining agreement and the 2015 memorandum of understanding. The order also requires a letter explaining the basis for considering those documents. Judge Lorna G. Schofield signed the order. The opinion text therefore records an order requiring additional submissions, not a final ruling on the discovery-stay request or the anticipated motion to dismiss.