HEROD'S STONE DESIGN v. MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING COMPANY S.A..

Filing 16

OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Jose L. Linares on 9/13/2018. (jr)

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

Civil Action No. 18-6118 (JLL)

HEROD’S STONE DESIGN,
Plaintiff,

OPINION

V.

MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING COMPANY
S.A.,
Defendant.

LINARES, Chief District Judge

This matter comes before the Court by way of Plaintiff Herod’s Stone Design’s Motion for
Reconsideration. (ECF No. 10). Defendant has filed opposition. (ECF No. 1 1).’ The Court has
read the submissions of the parties and considers this matter without oral argument pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 78. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies Defendant’s
Motion.
I.

BACKGROUND

The Court hereby incorporates the factual background as set forth in its June 20, 2018
Opinion. (ECF No. 8). Defendant now asks the Court to reconsider its decision in that Opinion,
in which it granted Defendant’s request to transfer the case to the United States District Court for
the Southern District of New York pursuant to a forum selection clause in the operative bill of
lading.

Plaintiff has filed a reply brief, (ECf No. 12), but reply papers are not permitted on motions for reconsideration,
and this Court never granted Plaintiff permission to file its reply. L. Civ. R. 7.l(d)(3). As such, the Court will not
consider Plaintiff’s reply brief. In the same submission; however, Plaintiff explains the delay in filing its motion,
and the Court has considered that explanation as detailed below.

II.

LEGAL STANDARD

Local Civil Rule 7. 1(1) governs motions for reconsideration in this District. It requires a
movant to set forth “the matter or controlling decisions which the party believes the Judge or
Magistrate Judge has overlooked.” L.Civ.R. 7. 1(i). To prevail on a motion for reconsideration,
the movant must show at least one of the following: “(1) an intervening change in controlling law;
(2) the availability of new evidence; or (3) the need to correct clear error of law or prevent manifest
injustice.” Wiest v. Lynch, 710 f.3d 121, 128 (3d Cir. 2013) (quoting Lazaridis v. Welziner, 591
f.3d 666, 669 (3d Cir. 2010)).
The third prong requires “dispositive factual matters or controlling decisions of law” that
were “brought to the court’s attention but not considered.” Mason v. Sebelius, No. 1 1-2370, 2012
WL 3133801, at *2 (D.N.J. July 31, 2012) (quoting F. Schoenfeld Asset Mgint. LLC v. Cendctnt
Coip., 161 F. Supp. 2d 349, 353 (D.N.J. 2001)). A motion for reconsideration cannot be used
merely to relitigate old matters or to present evidence that was already available to the Court during
its initial consideration. A’L Inthts., Inc. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 935 F. Supp. 513, 516
(D.N.J. 1996) (citing Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 2d

§ 2810.1).

Furthermore, “[t]he fact that an issue was not explicitly mentioned by the court does not on its own
entail that the court overlooked the matter in its initial consideration.” Morton v. fauver, No. 975127, 2011 WL2975532, at *3 (D.N.J. July21, 2011) (citingAshton v. AT&TCoip., No. 03-3158,
2006 WL 690958$, at *2 (D.N.J. Feb. 2, 2006)).
In other words, reconsideration is not warranted where “(1) the movant simply repeats the
cases and arguments previously analyzed by the court; or (2) the movant has filed the motion
merely to disagree with or relitigate the court’s initial decision.” C’PS

MedA’fanagement

LLC v.

Bergen Reg’t Med. Ctr., L.P., 940 F. Supp. 2d 141, 167—68 (D.N.J. 2013) (internal citations and

quotations omitted). A motion for reconsideration is generally futile “[u]nless a court has truly
failed to consider pertinent authorities or evidence that could not with reasonable diligence have
been presented earlier.” Id. at 168.
III.

ANALYSIS

While the Court initially notes that Plaintiffs motion was untimely under Local Civil Rule
7.1(1), it excuses the delay in filing such motion due to the various medical difficulties that
Plaintiffs lawyer unfortunately suffered during the time in which he would have been required to
write and file this motion.

(ECF No. 12 at 1).

Furthermore, it is well established that the

“transferor court loses jurisdiction to reconsider its order for transfer once the records in the
transferred action are physically transferred to and received by the transferee court.” Database
Am., Inc. v. Bellsouth Advert. & Pttht’g Corp., 825 F. Supp. 1216, 1221 (D.N.J. 1993). The case
was transfen-ed to the Southern District of New York and opened there on June 26, 2018. Thus,
this Court lacks jurisdiction to consider Plaintiffs motion; however, even if the Court does have
jurisdiction. Plaintiffs motion fails on the merits.
Plaintiff first argues that this Court misapplied the law when it held that Plaintiff failed to
carry its burden to convince the Court that it should not enforce the forum selection clause under
At/antic Mctrine Construction Company v.

US. District Court for the Western District of Texas,

571 U.S. 49 (2013). (ECF No. 10-I at 10—11).

Plaintiff believes that the burden rested on

Defendant, as it “is solely the burden of the party moving to transfer the case to establish that the
balancing of appropriate interests at play in the case favor such transfer.” (ECF No. 10-1 at 11).
Plaintiffs argument is based on the straightforward application of a 2$ U.S.C. Section 1404
analysis for a i-notion to transfer venue. However, that it is not what the Court was dealing with,

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and the presence of a forum selection clause alters the Court’s Section 1404 analysis, shifting the
burden to the party opposing the enforcement of the clause. See Jumara v. Stctte fctrm

Ins.

Co.,

55 f.3d 873, 880 (3d Cir. 1995) (describing the effect of a valid forum selection clause on a court’s
Section 1404 analysis). Thus, the Court did not err in ascribing the burden to Plaintiff.
Plaintiff never even opposed Defendant’s motion to transfer, and instead filed a crossmotion to remand. The Court considered Plaintiffs cross-motion and determined that it did not
raise any public policy arguments that would require that this Court not enforce the forum selection
clause. (ECF No. 8 at 7). Plaintiff now asks the Court to consider public policy arguments it has
made in its Complaint. (ECF No. 10-1 at 12—13). This is not appropriate for a motion for
reconsideration, as such motions “may not be used to relitigate old matters, or to raise arguments
or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry ofjudgment.” NL Indus., 935 F.
Supp. at 516.
Plaintiff next argues that the Court failed to consider the New Jersey state law cases that
would support the invalidation of the forum selection clause, including the New Jersey Supreme
Court’s decision inAtalese v. U.S. Legal Services Group, L.P., 219 N.J. 430 (2014). This Court’s
previous Opinion directly addressed the issue of whether cases such as this are governed by state
law or by admiralty law and concluded that under the Supreme Court’s decision in Noiolk

Southern Railway Co. v. Kirby, 543 U.S. 14 (2004). the contract at issue was governed by admiralty
law and invoked federal court jurisdiction. (ECF No. 2 at 4—5). The Court thus declines to address
Plaintiffs argument that state law substantively invalidates the contract of calTiage between
Plaintiff and Defendant in a motion for reconsideration. In fact, the Kirby Court specifically stated
that, “[a]pplying state law to cases like this one [i.e. cases involving “maritime service or maritime
transactions”] would undermine the uniformity of general maritime law,” and thus, it “could not

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have been the intention to place the rules and limits of maritime law under the disposal and
regulation of the” states. 543 U.S. at 24, 28.
Plaintiff then asks that this Court reconsider whether it properly possessed diversity
jurisdiction in this matter. (ECF No. 10-1 at 17—19). While Defendant is correct that reference to
“a” principal place of business rather than “its” principal place of business has been considered
insufficient to invoke diversity of citizenship, see, e.g., S. freedman and Co. v. Raab, 180 F. App’x
316, 320 (3d Cir. 2006), the Court’s decision on the existence of diversity jurisdiction was not
determinative of its possession of subject matter jurisdiction over the case, as it determined that it
possessed admiralty jurisdiction in the first instance. See 28 U.S.C.

§ 1333. Moreover, Plaintiff

describes itself as “a corporation organized and existing by virtue of the laws of New Jersey with
an office and place of business located at 1600 Tonnelle Aye, North Bergen, NJ 07047.” Nor has
it given any indication that it operates its principal place of outside of the United States—the only
scenario that would defeat diversity here. The Third Circuit itself has determined that the district
court had diversity jurisdiction with the use of “a principal place of business” rather than “its.”
Morganroth & Morganroth v. Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus, P.C., 331 F.3d 406,410 n.l (3d Cir.
2003) (“Morganroth & Morganroth is a Michigan partnership with its principal place of business
in Michigan. Plaintiff Mayer Morganroth is a citizen of the state of Michigan and has a principal
place of business in Michigan. All the defendants are from New Jersey.”).
Lastly, Plaintiff argues again that this Court lacks admiralty jurisdiction. Plaintiff cites
extensively to M3 Midstream, LLC v. South Jersey Port Corp., I F. Supp. 3d 289 (D.N.J. 2014).
This case does not change the Court’s analysis, as it did not involve an intemiodal contract of
catriage. In fact, the Court in M3 specifically distinguished the facts from those in Kirby, noting
that “nothing in Kirby answers the question of whether parties may confer federal subject matter

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jurisdiction on this Court by way of contract for purposes of removal and then invoke the
protections of contractual liability limitations

against

ct third—party buyer who did not negotiate

any bills of lctding and did not consent to any liability limitations with respect to damage occurring
a/icr conclusion of offloading.” 1 F. $upp. 3d at 298 (emphasis added). The case at issue here
involved an intermodal contract of carriage with parties who negotiated to and contracted under a
bill of lading that governed the carriage of goods from China to New York, and thus M3 does not
compel that this Court reach a different result with respect to its application of admiralty
jurisdiction.
IV.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, the Court denies Plaintiffs Motion for Reconsideration. An
appropriate Order accompanies this Opinion.

DATED: September I(, O1 8
Chief Judge, United States District Court

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