Diamond v. City of New York

Full title: SUSAN DIAMOND, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants

Court: United States District Court, S.D. New York

Date published: Feb 2, 2005

03 Civ. 3703 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 2, 2005)

Opinion

03 Civ. 3703 (LAK).

February 2, 2005

ORDER

LEWIS KAPLAN, District Judge

This Section 1983 action was settled in 2003 for the sum of $75,000. In May 2004, plaintiff filed a so-called Verified Petition, evidently in the belief that this commenced a special proceeding. The petition seeks the establishment and approval of a Supplemental Needs Trust for the benefit of plaintiff pursuant to N.Y. EPTL § 7-1.12.

This Court's approval of the settlement and dismissal of the action concluded the case. The Court no longer has jurisdiction over the settlement, as no reservation of jurisdiction was sought or granted. See Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375 (1994). Moreover, the Court sees no basis of federal subject matter jurisdiction even if it were to treat the petition as commencing a new civil action.¹ Finally, counsel has not drawn the Court's attention to any provision of law that would give it authority to establish or approve such a trust, even if it had subject matter jurisdiction.

1 Special proceedings are creatures of New York practice. There is no federal counterpart. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 2.

Accordingly, the petition is denied without prejudice to any action plaintiff may take in the state courts.

SO ORDERED.