Karunakaran v. BMCC/Cuny City University of New York
- Edgardo Ramos
- 1:18-cv-10723
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Karunakaran v. Borough of Manhattan Community College, Judge Ramos denied Karunakaran’s request for joint review because an appeal was pending and remand was unavailable.
The ruling directly affected Chitra Karunakaran’s request for review of the district court’s earlier order; it denied that request and left her state-law claims dismissed without prejudice.
What happened
In Karunakaran v. Borough of Manhattan Community College, Chitra Karunakaran, representing herself, asked the chief judges of the Second Circuit and the Southern District of New York to jointly review an earlier order. The earlier order had denied her request to pursue her state-law claims in state court through a remand.
Karunakaran argued that the earlier decision violated her right to due process because it did not discuss a dissenting opinion in a prior case. The court had previously explained that her appeal removed the district court’s authority to act on the matter and that the case had started in federal court, so it could not be sent back to state court.
Judge Ramos denied the motion. He said the court still lacked authority to consider it because the appeal was pending, and that no remand was needed because the state-law claims had been dismissed without prejudice, leaving Karunakaran free to pursue them in state court.
The detailed version
- Karunakaran v. BMCC/Cuny City University of New York · No. 1:18-cv-10723
- Edgardo Ramos
- June 12, 2023
Background
The court had dismissed pro se Plaintiff Chitra Karunakaran’s Second Amended Complaint on March 28, 2022. Karunakaran appealed that order to the Second Circuit on April 25, 2022, and later filed a motion asking to pursue her state-law claims in state court.
On May 31, 2023, the court denied that motion because the pending appeal deprived the district court of authority to act on the matter. The court also explained that it could not remand the case because it had originally been filed in federal court and had not been removed from state court. It further stated that the state-law claims had been dismissed without prejudice, so Karunakaran could pursue them in state court without a remand order.
Current Motion
Karunakaran then moved for the chief judges of the Second Circuit and the Southern District of New York to conduct a “joint review” of the May 31 order. She argued that the decision violated her due process rights because it did not discuss Judge Chin’s dissent in Ya Chin v. The City University of New York, in which he recommended vacating a judgment and remanding the case.
Ruling
Judge Edgardo Ramos denied the motion. The court reiterated that it could not remand a case that had never been filed in state court and that Karunakaran did not need a remand or other action by a federal court to pursue her state-law claims in state court. The court also held that it continued to lack jurisdiction—meaning legal authority to decide the motion—because the appeal was pending. Finally, the court stated that, even if the motion had been procedurally proper and the court had jurisdiction, Karunakaran had not shown that her due process rights or other rights had been limited, denied, or violated.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.