Rivera-Umpierre v. BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC
- P. Castel
- 1:22-cv-01667
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Rivera-Umpierre v. BKH Acquisition Holdco I, Judge Castel dismissed the action with prejudice after plaintiff repeatedly failed to follow orders correcting jurisdictional allegations.
Agnes Rivera-Umpierre’s action was dismissed with prejudice, and BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC and BKH Acquisition Corp. received final judgment in their favor.
What happened
In Rivera-Umpierre v. BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC, Agnes Rivera-Umpierre’s complaint relied on diversity jurisdiction but did not identify the citizenship of the members of defendant BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC. The court ordered her to correct those allegations, and later learned that three LLC members were Florida citizens, the same state as Rivera-Umpierre.
The court extended the deadline to May 4, 2022, but Rivera-Umpierre did not file an amended complaint or request another extension before the deadline expired. She later filed papers that repeated the jurisdictional defects and proposed adding another LLC without providing the required citizenship information.
Judge Castel dismissed the action with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), finding prolonged and willful disobedience of the court’s orders, significant delay, likely prejudice to defendants, and no effective lesser sanction. The Clerk was directed to terminate the pending motions and enter final judgment for defendants.
The detailed version
- Rivera-Umpierre v. BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-01667
- P. Castel
- Apr. 4, 2023
Background
Rivera-Umpierre invoked diversity of citizenship as the basis for federal subject-matter jurisdiction. In a March 8, 2022 order, the court found that the complaint did not allege the citizenship of each member of BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC. The court ordered Rivera-Umpierre to amend the complaint within 30 days and warned that the action would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if she did not do so.
The court later extended the deadline to May 4, 2022. No amended complaint was filed by that date, and Rivera-Umpierre did not request another extension before the deadline expired. She later sought additional time to serve process without mentioning the missed deadline or the jurisdictional problem. In January 2023, she moved to amend the complaint, but the proposed pleading repeated the defective jurisdictional allegations and sought to add Ambrosia PR Holdco, LLC without alleging the citizenship of that LLC’s members.
Defendants responded that three members of BKH Acquisition Holdco I, LLC were Florida citizens, the same state as Rivera-Umpierre. The court stated that this meant diversity jurisdiction had not existed when the complaint was filed or during the following months. The court issued an order requiring Rivera-Umpierre to explain why the action should not be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or, alternatively, with prejudice for failure to comply with court orders.
Analysis
The court dismissed the action under Rule 41(b), which permits dismissal when a plaintiff fails to comply with court orders or fails to prosecute the case. Applying the Second Circuit’s five-factor test, the court found that the delay was substantial: more than eight months passed between the extended compliance deadline and Rivera-Umpierre’s January 2023 filing, which still did not cure the jurisdictional defects.
The court also found that Rivera-Umpierre had notice that noncompliance could result in dismissal. It concluded that defendants had been prejudiced and could face further prejudice from lost electronically stored information and fading memories. The court balanced the need to manage its docket against Rivera-Umpierre’s opportunity to have her case heard and found that factor evenly balanced.
Finally, the court concluded that lesser sanctions would not be effective because Rivera-Umpierre had failed to comply despite an explicit dismissal warning. It also criticized the failure to disclose the missed deadline in later filings. The court considered dismissal without prejudice but rejected it as an inadequate sanction under the circumstances.
Ruling
Judge Castel dismissed the action with prejudice under Rule 41(b). The Clerk was directed to terminate the open motions and enter final judgment for the defendants. The opinion’s stated grounds were Rivera-Umpierre’s failure to comply with the March 8 order and the absence of subject-matter jurisdiction; it did not decide the underlying claims on their merits.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.