Santos v. 27 Pizza Cafe Corp.
- John Cronan
- 1:22-cv-01114
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Santos v. 27 Pizza Cafe, Judge Cronan ordered Santos to file service proof and a damages declaration, with ambiguities favoring the defaulting defendants.
David Guevara Santos, 27 Pizza Cafe Corp. doing business as Pastafina Pizza, and Hassan Ebraheim.
What happened
In Santos v. 27 Pizza Cafe Corp., the court addressed Santos’s failure to file proof that he had served the defendants with an earlier court order. The earlier order required overnight service and proof of service on the docket.
The court said the deadline had passed without the required proof. It also noted inconsistencies in Santos’s declaration, including conflicting statements about how many hours he worked for the defendants.
The court ordered Santos to file proof of service and a declaration supporting his damages request by August 16, 2022. For purposes of evaluating damages on the default-judgment motion, the court said Judge John P. Cronan would resolve inconsistencies and ambiguities in favor of the defaulting defendants.
The detailed version
- Santos v. 27 Pizza Cafe Corp. · No. 1:22-cv-01114
- John Cronan
- Aug. 15, 2022
Background
On August 5, 2022, the court ordered Plaintiff David Guevara Santos to serve Defendants 27 Pizza Cafe Corp. doing business as Pastafina Pizza and Hassan Ebraheim with a copy of that order by overnight courier within one week. The court also required Santos to file proof of service on the docket by August 9, 2022.
Court’s Order
The court stated that the deadline had passed and Santos had not filed proof of service. It ordered Santos to file, by August 16, 2022, both proof that he had served the August 5 order and a declaration supporting his request for damages.
The court also identified several inconsistencies in Santos’s declaration, including statements about the number of hours he worked for Defendants during the relevant period. In assessing damages for Santos’s motion for default judgment, the court stated that it would interpret inconsistencies or unclear statements in favor of Defendants, whom the opinion described as the defaulting parties. This order required additional filings and set the approach for evaluating damages; it did not state a damages amount.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.