Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
- John Cronan
- 1:21-cv-07209
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Judge Cronan denied reconsideration and granted Rimini permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
Thomas Rimini’s Sarbanes-Oxley employment claim against J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; the court denied reconsideration of the jurisdictional dismissal but granted permission to appeal without prepaying fees.
What happened
In Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the court had previously dismissed Thomas Rimini’s case because he did not complete required administrative steps before bringing a claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Rimini asked the court to reconsider, arguing that he did not receive the agency’s preliminary findings when they were first mailed because they went to the wrong address. The court concluded that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had later served him with the findings in 2018, and that service satisfied the applicable requirements. His objections, filed in 2021, therefore came too late.
Judge John P. Cronan denied Rimini’s reconsideration request because the court still lacked jurisdiction. The judge also granted Rimini’s application to appeal without prepaying fees.
The detailed version
- Rimini v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. · No. 1:21-cv-07209
- John Cronan
- Oct. 31, 2022
Background
The court had dismissed Thomas Rimini’s case on September 29, 2022, for lack of jurisdiction. The court relied on a Second Circuit decision holding that a person bringing a claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 must first exhaust administrative remedies.
The required process included filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). After OSHA issued preliminary findings, the person had 30 days after receiving those findings to object to an adverse finding and request a hearing before the Department of Labor’s Chief Administrative Law Judge. The court had previously determined that Rimini waited more than 30 days before filing his objections to OSHA’s finding that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had not taken adverse employment action against him.
Motion for reconsideration
Rimini asked the court to reconsider the dismissal. He argued that the OSHA findings were originally mailed to the wrong address and that he did not receive them at that time. He submitted a United Parcel Service shipment receipt showing delivery to a New York address that he said he had not lived at since before 2010.
The court stated that even if Rimini did not receive the findings when OSHA first issued them in October 2016, his objections would still have been late. Under the Department of Labor regulation in effect at the relevant time, OSHA had to send the findings by certified mail or another method allowing confirmation of receipt, notify the parties of their right to object and request a hearing, and provide the Chief Administrative Law Judge’s address.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. submitted a copy of a 2018 brief and exhibits that it had filed with the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board in another proceeding arising from Rimini’s employment at the company. The exhibits included the OSHA preliminary findings. The company’s certificate of service stated that it had served the brief on Rimini on June 4, 2018, through certified service.
The court found that the OSHA findings included the required notice of the 30-day objection period and the address for filing objections. It concluded that the company’s certified service satisfied the regulation and that Rimini’s receipt of the findings for purposes of the regulation occurred more than 30 days before he filed his objections on May 14, 2021. The court therefore concluded that the objections were untimely and that it still lacked jurisdiction over the case.
Disposition
Judge John P. Cronan denied Rimini’s motion to reconsider, Docket 78. The court also granted Rimini’s application for permission to proceed on appeal without prepaying fees, Docket 80.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.