Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, Civil Action No.: 18-1530 (RC)

• Decision Date: 25 February 2019
• Docket Number: Civil Action No.: 18-1530 (RC)
• Parties: AKWASI BOAKYE OSEI, Plaintiff, v. STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

AKWASI BOAKYE OSEI, Plaintiff, v. STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No.: 18-1530 (RC)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

February 25, 2019

Re Document No.: 2, 15, 18, 21, 27 35, 39, 40, 41, 42 43, 45

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTIONS FOR RECUSAL AND REASSIGNMENT OF THIS CASE; GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS; DENYING ALL OTHER PENDING MOTIONS AS MOOT

I. INTRODUCTION

In this case, Plaintiff Akwasi B. Osei seeks to enforce a foreign judgment, including accrued interest and additional punitive damages, against Defendants Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered Bank New York, and Standard Chartered Bank Ghana, Ltd (together, "Standard Chartered"), and to vacate all orders and decisions obtained by Standard Chartered in prior cases in New York Supreme Court. Osei alleges that he initially obtained a $14 million judgment in the Ghanaian court system and sought to enforce that judgment in the New York Supreme Court. He separately sued Standard Chartered for tortious conduct stemming from the same underlying facts in both the New York Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. However, the cases were dismissed in both courts. In the interim, the Court of Appeals in Ghana also overturned the original damages award. Osei brings this suit under Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, claiming that Standard Chartered and its attorneys have committed fraud before the court in the prior cases in Ghana and New York. Now before the Court are Osei's motions for recusal and motions for reassignment. Also before the Court is Standard Chartered's motion to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies the motions for recusal and reassignment, grants the motion to dismiss, and denies all other pending motions as moot.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND¹

Plaintiff Akwasi B. Osei is a Ghanaian-born businessman who currently resides in the United States.² On December 11, 2014, Osei obtained a judgment against Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Ltd.³ in the Ghana High Court of Justice "award[ing] [him] damages of fourteen million US dollars." December 11, 2014 Ghana High Court Judgment, Compl. Ex. A01 65, ECF No. 1-2. The award included compensation for "wrongfully dishonor[red] che[ck]s" and for "special and general damages for . . . wrongful acts." Id. at 1. On December 18, 2014, Standard Chartered "applied to [the Ghana High Court of Justice] for an order staying the execution of thejudgment pending . . . [an] appeal." March 23, 2015 Ghana High Court Judgment, Compl. Ex. A03 85, ECF No. 1-2. On March 23, 2015, the Ghana High Court of Justice partially granted the order, requiring Standard Chartered to "pay [roughly $1.3 million USD] of the judgment debt." Id. at 86.

After Standard Chartered failed to pay, Osei filed suit in the New York Supreme Court on May 26, 2015, seeking recognition and enforcement of the $14 million judgment. Compl. ¶¶ 13-14. While the suit was pending, the Ghana Court of Appeal granted a "complete stay of execution of the judgment" of the Ghana High Court. June 22, 2015 Ghana Court of Appeals Judgment, Compl. Ex. A04 88, ECF No. 1-2. Judge Braun of the New York Supreme Court granted a stay order and later dismissed the case against Standard Chartered. See Compl. ¶ 23; Docket, Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, No. 0100923/2015 (N.Y Sup. Ct.).⁴ After Osei appealed the dismissal, the Appellate Division dismissed that appeal as untimely, denied Osei's requests for "recus[al of] Justice Braun" and "investigat[ion of] the court officers involved," and directed Osei "not to file any further motions without prior written permission." Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, M-3271, M-3274, 2016 WL 6110962, at *1 (N.Y. App. Div. Oct. 20, 2016).

On May 26, 2015, Osei separately filed a tort suit against Standard Chartered in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Compl. ¶ 41. On June 30, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Lorna G. Schofield dismissed the S.D.N.Y. suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, No. 15 Civ. 03992 (LGS), 2015 WL 4006211, at*1 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2015). Following the dismissal, Osei filed a letter that the district court "construed as a motion for reconsideration of the [dismissal]" and denied. Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, No. 15 Civ. 3992 (LGS), 2105 WL 4557345, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. July 27, 2015). After the S.D.N.Y. suit was dismissed, Osei re-filed his tort suit against Standard Chartered in the New York Supreme Court on July 2, 2015. Compl. ¶ 41. That lawsuit was also assigned to Judge Braun. See Docket, Osei v. Standard Chartered Bank, No. 0101207/2015 (N.Y. Sup. Ct.). It, too, was dismissed, and Osei's appeal was dismissed as untimely by the Appellate Division in the same order that dismissed Osei's appeal of his first state court suit. See Osei, 2016 WL 6110962 at *1.

During this entire ordeal, Osei alleges that Standard Chartered committed a variety of frauds, including assisting in fraudulently taking his property in Ghana, scheming to evict his family from their apartment in Chicago, and filing fraudulent letters to the courts in both Ghana and New York. Compl. ¶¶ 8-12, 15, 23, 27. Osei claims that he has filed official complaints regarding the fraudulent conduct with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Id. ¶¶ 37-38.

Osei filed this suit on June 27, 2018, seeking to vacate the orders from the New York Supreme Court and to obtain payment of the original judgment from the Ghana High Court, including all accrued interest, in addition to $30 billion in punitive damages. Compl. ¶¶ 44-48. After this Court twice denied default judgment and issued a minute order granting an extension of time for Standard Chartered to respond to the Complaint, Osei filed a motion for recusal claiming "violations of . . . judicial duty and . . . fraud upon [the Court]." Pl.'s Mot. Recusal ¶ 3, ECF No. 18. On September 12, 2018, Standard Chartered filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter and personal jurisdiction. Defs.' Mot. Dismiss 1, ECF No. 21. In the months following, Osei has filed six motions for reassignment. Pl.'s Request for Reassignment("Reassign. Request A"), ECF No. 39; Pl.'s Renewed Request for Reassignment ("Reassign. Request B"), ECF No. 40; Pl.'s Renewed Request for Reassignment ("Reassign. Request C"), ECF No. 41; Pl.'s Renewed Request for Reassignment ("Reassign. Request D"), ECF No. 42; Pl.'s Renewed Request for Reassignment ("Reassign. Request E"), ECF No. 43; Pl.'s Renewed Request for Reassignment ("Reassign. Request F"), ECF No. 45. Osei has also filed two renewed motions for default judgment. Pl.'s Mot. Default J., ECF No. 27; Pl.'s Renewed Mot. Default J., ECF No. 35.

III. ANALYSIS

The Court first reviews Osei's motion for recusal and motions for reassignment, before addressing the pending motion to dismiss. Because Osei fails to meet the standard for recusal, the Court denies the motion for recusal and motions for reassignment. And because the Court finds that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider Osei's claims, the Court grants the motion to dismiss. Having dismissed this case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court denies as moot all remaining pending motions.

A. Motion for Recusal and Motions for Reassignment

Osei's motion for recusal does not indicate pursuant to what law the requests for recusal and reassignment are brought. See generally Pl.'s Mot. Recusal. Construing pro se pleadings liberally, recusal can be sought under either constitutional or statutory authority. Additionally, Osei's six motions for reassignment raise substantially similar arguments as his motion for recusal. See generally Reassign. Request A; Reassign. Request B; Reassign. Request C; Reassign. Request D; Reassign. Request E; Reassign. Request F. Because the arguments raised in the motions for recusal and reassignment overlap to a significant degree, the Court will discussthe motions for reassignment within the analytical framework for the recusal motion.⁵ The Court denies the motions for recusal and reassignment because neither constitutional nor statutory authority warrant recusal.

"The United States Constitution, federal statutory law, and codes of judicial conduct each prescribe recusal standards under which a judge may—or, under limited circumstances, must—remove himself from a case to safeguard the integrity of the proceedings." Jordan v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 308 F. Supp. 3d 24, 31 (D.D.C. 2018); see also Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868, 876-77 (2009); United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 113-15 (D.C. Cir. 2001). First, "[d]ue process guarantees 'an absence of actual bias' on the part of a judge." Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S. Ct. 1899, 1905 (2016) (quoting In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136 (1955)). Complying with Due Process requires a judge to recuse himself "when objectively speaking, 'the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.'" Rippo v. Baker, 137 S. Ct. 905, 907 (2017) (quoting Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975)). The Supreme Court has only recognized a few circumstances where the appearance of bias requires recusal. See, e.g., Caperton, 556 U.S. at 872 (requiring recusal where a party was a substantial donor to a judge's election campaign); Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 466 (1971) (holding that it may violate due process when a judge presides over a criminal contempt case that resulted from the defendant's hostility toward the judge); Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 523, 531-532 (1927) (establishing that a judge may notpreside over a case in which he has a "direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest"). "Certainly only in the most extreme of cases would disqualification on [the] basis" of allegations of bias by the judge "be...