Senior v. Ekster Inc.
- Rochon
- 1:23-cv-06362
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Senior v. Ekster Inc., Judge Rochon ordered the parties to meet about settlement and standing, then report whether they settled or seek next steps.
The plaintiffs and Ekster Inc., who must meet and confer, consider settlement and standing, and submit a joint letter to the court.
What happened
In Senior v. Ekster Inc., the court ordered the parties to meet for at least one hour within 30 days after the summons and complaint were served. They must make a good-faith effort to settle and discuss whether the plaintiff meets the basic legal requirement of standing to bring the case.
If the parties cannot settle on their own, they must also discuss whether mediation through the court’s program or a settlement conference before a magistrate judge would be useful. Within 45 days after service, they must submit a joint letter stating whether they settled.
If the case was not settled, the parties must ask the court either to send the case to mediation or a magistrate judge for settlement discussions, or to schedule an initial status conference. Judge Jennifer L. Rochon did not decide standing or the merits of the case in this order.
The detailed version
- Senior v. Ekster Inc. · No. 1:23-cv-06362
- Rochon
- July 27, 2023
Order
The court ordered the parties to meet and confer for at least one hour within 30 days after service of the summons and complaint. The meeting must be a good-faith attempt to settle the action. The parties were instructed to discuss whether the plaintiff satisfied the threshold requirement of standing, meaning the legal requirement to show that the plaintiff may bring the case in federal court. The order cited two Second Circuit decisions concerning standing.
If the parties could not settle the case themselves, they were also required to discuss whether additional settlement discussions through the court-annexed mediation program or before a magistrate judge would be productive at that time.
Within 15 additional days—45 days after service of the summons and complaint—the parties must submit a joint letter telling the court whether they settled. If they did not settle, the letter must request either referral to mediation or to a magistrate judge for a settlement conference, with a preference between those options, or an initial status conference.
Effect of the Order
This was a case-management and settlement order. It did not decide the standing issue, the merits of the claims, or the parties’ ultimate rights.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.