Fometal S.R.L. v. Admiral Metals Servicenter Company Incorporated
- Katherine Failla
- 1:22-cv-01928
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Fometal S.R.L. v. Admiral Metals Servicenter Company Incorporated, Judge Failla entered default liability judgment for breach of contract but denied other claims.
Fometal S.R.L. obtained a liability judgment on its breach-of-contract claim against Keili Trading LLC and Mendel Levitin, but did not obtain default judgment on the other identified claims and theories. The amount of damages remains unresolved, and the timing of that determination depends on the case against the non-defaulting defendants.
What happened
In Fometal S.R.L. v. Admiral Metals Servicenter Company Incorporated, Fometal sought a default judgment against Keili Trading LLC and Mendel Levitin, who did not defend the case or attend the hearing. The court treated the complaint’s properly stated factual allegations as true but independently reviewed whether they established legal liability.
The court granted Fometal judgment of liability against Keili and Levitin for breach of contract under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. It denied default judgment on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claim, civil conspiracy, veil-piercing, fraud, conversion, unjust enrichment, tortious interference, vicarious liability, and account stated because those claims were inadequately pleaded or duplicated the contract claim.
Judge Failla did not decide damages. She deferred that issue until the claims against the non-defaulting defendants were resolved, because the defendants could potentially share responsibility for the same damages. The court also directed the Clerk to terminate Fometal’s default-judgment motion.
The detailed version
- Fometal S.R.L. v. Admiral Metals Servicenter Company Incorporated · No. 1:22-cv-01928
- Katherine Failla
- Dec. 7, 2022
Background
Fometal moved for default judgment against Keili Trading LLC and Mendel Levitin, also known as Mendy Levitin. The opinion calls them the “Defaulting Defendants.” They failed to plead or otherwise defend, and the Clerk entered a certificate of default under Rule 55(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Fometal served the motion and the court’s order requiring the defendants to explain why default judgment should not be entered. Neither defendant responded to the motion or appeared at the December 1, 2022 hearing.
A default admits the complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations, but the court must still decide independently whether those allegations establish legal liability. The court therefore accepted Fometal’s properly stated factual allegations as true while reviewing each asserted theory of liability.
Rulings on Liability
The court granted Fometal judgment of liability against Keili and Levitin for breach of contract under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
The court denied default judgment on Fometal’s civil claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act because Fometal had not adequately pleaded the required elements. The court also denied default judgment on the civil conspiracy and veil-piercing theories because those theories were inadequately pleaded.
The court further denied default judgment on conversion, unjust enrichment, tortious interference, vicarious liability, and account stated. It found those claims duplicative of the breach-of-contract claim because they arose from the same facts and sought damages for the same alleged injury. The court likewise denied default judgment on the common-law fraud claim because the alleged misrepresentations concerned promises to pay under the contracts and were not separate from the alleged contractual breach.
Damages and Disposition
The court made no finding about the amount of damages. Fometal had referred to damages of at least $1 million, while identifying $223,617.07—the cost of the contracts—as the basis for recovery on several claims. The court noted that the Defaulting Defendants and non-defaulting defendants might ultimately be jointly and individually responsible for the same damages. To avoid inconsistent results, it deferred the damages determination until the case against the non-defaulting defendants was resolved and directed that the damages inquiry for the Defaulting Defendants be handled with the damages portion of the trial against the other defendants.
The court directed the Clerk to terminate the pending default-judgment motion at docket number 68. The opinion therefore entered liability judgment only on the breach-of-contract theory, denied default judgment on the other identified claims and theories, and deferred damages.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.