Kuznar v. Kuznar
| Decision Date | 05 January 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 12–3754.,12–3754. |
| Citation | 775 F.3d 892 |
| Parties | Thomas KUZNAR, as Administrator of The Estate of Emilia Piastowska Kuznar, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Anna KUZNAR, Defendant–Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Thomas Kuznar, As Administrator of the Estate of Emilia Piastowska Kuznar, Chicago, IL, pro se.
Adam John Augustynski, Attorney, Chicago, IL, Susan E. Morrison, Attorney, Rentrop & Morrison, P.C., Bloomfield Hills, MI, for Defendant–Appellant.
Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and SYKES and TINDER, Circuit Judges.
Mieczyslaw (“Mitchell”) Kuznar left his native Poland and moved to the United States, leaving his wife Emilia and their son Thomas behind. Once in America, he met and married Anna. But he never divorced Emilia, so his death intestate in 1995 set off a long-running legal battle over survivorship rights to his pension. Anna began collecting spousal benefits in 1995. Litigation commenced in 1997 when Thomas—now grown and also living in the United States—opened a probate case in Illinois state court seeking judicial administration of Mitchell's estate. Thomas was acting on his mother's behalf; Emilia remained in Poland.
The probate court eventually ruled in Emilia's favor, granting Thomas's motion for summary judgment and ordering Anna to pay Emilia the amount she had collected from Mitchell's pension fund. But Emilia died before this judgment was entered, so the Illinois Appellate Court vacated and remanded for entry of a new judgment. In 2011 Thomas opened a new case in probate court for the administration of Emilia's estate and then renewed his motion for summary judgment in the 1997 case, this time on behalf of his mother's estate.
To stave off near-certain defeat in the proceedings on remand, Anna tried a procedural gambit: She filed a notice of removal. Jurisdictional and procedural wrangling ensued. Anna's removal notice listed the 2011 probate case but attached Thomas's renewed motion for summary judgment, which she claimed was “in the nature of a complaint filed by the recently opened estate” but was mistakenly filed in the 1997 case.
While the district court tried to sort out the morass, Thomas simplified matters by filing a notice of voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court held the dismissal notice in abeyance to determine what exactly had been removed. At this point, and perhaps realizing that she had been outmaneuvered, Anna did an about-face, telling the judge that she had actually removed the 1997 case, not the 2011 case, and that no dismissal could be valid unless it dismissed the 1997 case in its entirety.
The district judge wasn't impressed by this argument and neither are we. Anna's initial submissions in the district court make it clear that she was attempting to remove a “new action” that she claimed was filed in the recently opened 2011 probate case. That was a doubtful characterization of Thomas's renewed motion for summary judgment, but he was entitled to accept it and voluntarily dismiss the supposed “new action” rather than dispute Anna's shifting characterization of his filings.
The complicated story of this unfortunate litigation begins in 1953, when Mieczyslaw Kuznar (known as “Mitchell”) married Emilia Piastowska in Poland. The couple had a son named Thomas. At some point—we don't know when—Mitchell moved to the United States, leaving Emilia and Thomas behind. Mitchell later married Anna, although his marriage to Emilia was never annulled or otherwise terminated. When Mitchell died intestate in 1995, Anna began collecting spousal survivorship benefits under his pension plan.
Emilia, still living in Poland, thought that she was entitled to the benefits. Thomas, now an adult and living in Illinois, took his mother's side in the dispute. In 1997 he opened a file in Illinois probate court seeking judicial administration of Mitchell's estate on his mother's behalf. Three years later he won a ruling that Emilia was Mitchell's surviving spouse. Litigation continued for another decade, and the probate court eventually granted Thomas's motion for summary judgment, ordering Anna to pay Emilia the amount she had received from Mitchell's pension fund. But Emilia died before the judgment was entered. Based on this procedural error—entering judgment in favor of a dead plaintiff—the Illinois Appellate Court vacated and remanded.
Thomas, sensing that victory was near, tried again. In 2011 he opened a new case in probate court for the administration of Emilia's estate. Then, as administrator of his mother's estate, he renewed his motion for summary judgment in the 1997 case, only this time on behalf of Emilia's estate rather than Emilia herself.
Anna immediately filed a notice of removal listing the 2011 case number in the caption of her notice and attaching the pleadings in the newly opened probate file. But she also attached Thomas's renewed motion for summary judgment in the 1997 case, arguing that the motion was really “the first pleading filed on behalf of a new entity”—i.e., Emilia's estate—and “[a]lthough erroneously filed as a motion (and erroneously filed under a case number and caption in which [Emilia's] Estate is not a party), th[e] pleading is in the nature of a complaint filed by the recently opened estate.” The stated jurisdictional basis for removal was diversity of citizenship and the presence of a federal question under ERISA.
The day after filing her notice of removal, Anna went back to the state court and asked for relief in the 1997 case. After entering judgment, the probate court had attached some of Anna's property because she was unable to post a bond pending appeal. With the judgment now vacated and the case returned to the probate court, Anna asked the judge to release her property from the attachment order. The judge granted this request and vacated the attachment.
Thomas responded to all these events by asking the federal court to remand the case and void the state court's postremoval order vacating the property attachment. Anna fought back, arguing that the attachment proceedings in the 1997 case had “absolutely nothing to do with the legal proceedings initiated [in 2011] by the Estate of Emilia Piastowska.” She continued to insist that Thomas had “inexplicably filed what has to be viewed as a new ‘complaint’ with a new party and sought to ‘place the complaint’ under the old case number—and it is this new action which was removed and which belongs in federal court.” Accusing Thomas of “crafty pleading,” she reiterated that she had removed only the “new action” he initiated in 2011 in the newly opened probate file, so the state judge was free to revisit the attachment order in the 1997 case involving Mitchell's estate.
The district judge was understandably flummoxed by all of these filings and asked for supplemental briefing to clarify what had happened in the state court. Instead of responding to the court's request and continuing to fight over the propriety of removal, Thomas chose an easier route: He voluntarily dismissed the “new action” that Anna claimed he was bringing on behalf of Emilia's estate. The judge ordered the dismissal notice “held in abeyance” to sort out the jurisdictional and procedural quagmire.
Anna vigorously challenged Thomas's maneuver. Completely changing her tune, she now insisted that the only case before the federal court was the 1997 case, not the 2011 case. After all, she pointed out, Thomas had filed his renewed motion for summary judgment in the 1997 case, and “having selected where and under what caption to file [the estate's] claim, [he] cannot be heard to argue now that the [1997] case is not before this Court.” She continued that if Thomas's voluntary dismissal was valid, then it must be construed to dismiss the 1997 case in its entirety.
The district judge rejected Anna's arguments, accepted Thomas's voluntary dismissal of the 2011 “new action,” and terminated the case. Anna's motion for reconsideration also failed, and she has appealed, trying to keep the fight in federal court.2
The first and most obvious flaw in Anna's effort to secure a federal forum for this protracted dispute is her attempt to remove a motion for summary judgment. Motions aren't removable; the removal statute permits the removal of “civil actions.” 28 U.S.C. § 1441. Anna's initial filings make it clear that she was asking the federal court to construe Thomas's renewed motion for summary judgment as a “new action” commenced in the 2011 case involving Emilia's estate. She claimed that this “new action” was cunningly—or at best, mistakenly—filed in the 1997 case, but urged the federal court to ignore the misfiling and construe the motion as a complaint in the 2011 case.
Anna...
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