Stoutsovsky v. Brik
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-07503
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Stoutsovsky v. Brik, Judge Swain remanded Brik’s improperly removed family-court case because it belonged in the Eastern District of New York.
The order affected Ilana Stoutsovsky’s Richmond County Family Court action and Roman Brik’s attempt to move that action to the Southern District of New York.
What happened
In Stoutsovsky v. Brik, Roman Brik, representing himself, tried to move a Richmond County Family Court case to the Southern District of New York. The court considered whether that removal was proper.
The court explained that a state case may be moved only to the federal district covering the location of the state court. Richmond County is in the Eastern District of New York, so the case could not be removed to the Southern District of New York. Brik’s separate pending case did not change that rule.
The court remanded the case to Richmond County Family Court, directed the Clerk to send that court a copy of the order, and closed the federal case. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also ruled that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fee.
The detailed version
- Stoutsovsky v. Brik · No. 1:23-cv-07503
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 5, 2023
Background
Roman Brik, who was representing himself, filed a notice of removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). He sought to move a Richmond County Family Court action to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The opinion states that Brik had not paid the removal filing fee or submitted an application to proceed without paying it.
Reasoning
The court explained that federal law permits removal of a state-court case only to the federal district court covering the place where the state action is pending. Richmond County is in the Eastern District of New York. Because the Richmond County Family Court case was outside the Southern District of New York, the removal to that district was improper.
Brik pointed to a separate pending action, Brik v. Brodie, involving the assignment of self-represented cases in the Eastern District of New York. The court held that this separate action did not provide a basis for removing the Richmond County Family Court matter to the Southern District of New York.
Ruling
The court remanded the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) to the Richmond County Family Court. The Clerk was directed to send that court a copy of the order and close the federal case. The court also stated that all pending matters in the federal case were terminated.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fee. The order addressed the proper court for the case and did not decide the underlying Family Court dispute.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.