Jones v. Lee & Low Books, Inc.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:23-cv-07756
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Jones v. Lee & Low Books, Inc., Judge Caproni denied without prejudice papers seeking class certification and default-judgment relief, requiring Plaintiff to clarify his next step.
Damon Jones, the proposed class and subclasses, Lee & Low Books, Inc., and Jones’s counsel.
What happened
In Jones v. Lee & Low Books, Inc., Damon Jones asked the court to consider a proposed order related to default judgment and sought certification of a class and subclasses. The court noted that he had not filed a proper motion to certify a class.
The court explained that, without a class-certification motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, it would consider default judgment only for Jones himself. It therefore denied without prejudice the relief requested in the proposed order and supporting papers.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Jones to state whether he intends to seek class certification and, if so, to identify the applicable rule provision. She set deadlines for that letter and any class-certification motion, or alternatively for amended papers seeking default judgment only on Jones’s behalf. She also admonished his counsel to review filings more carefully.
The detailed version
- Jones v. Lee & Low Books, Inc. · No. 1:23-cv-07756
- Valerie Caproni
- Apr. 4, 2024
Background
On March 27, 2024, Damon Jones filed a proposed order to show cause concerning default judgment, along with supporting papers. Those papers also sought certification of a class and subclasses under what the court understood to be Rules 23(b)(2) and 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court noted that Jones had not filed a motion for class certification.
Court’s reasoning
The court relied on the principle that when a plaintiff has not filed a Rule 23 motion for class certification, the court will consider default judgment only for the named plaintiff. The order therefore did not consider default judgment on behalf of a class.
Order
The court denied without prejudice the relief requested through the proposed order and supporting papers at docket entries 24 through 26. The court ordered Jones to file, by April 11, 2024, a letter stating whether he intended to make a proper motion for class certification and specifying whether he would seek certification under Rule 23(b)(2) or Rule 23(b)(3). Any class-certification motion had to be filed by April 19, 2024.
If Jones chose to pursue default judgment only on his own behalf, the court ordered him to file an amended proposed order to show cause and supporting papers by April 11, 2024. Judge Valerie Caproni also admonished Jones’s counsel to review filings more carefully before submitting them.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.