Standing to Sue – Subject-matter Jurisdiction

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Paul Chaim Shlomo Fischer, et al. v. Magyar Allamvasutak Zrt.

Case No.: 17-3487

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Standing to Sue – Subject-matter Jurisdiction

Paul Chaim Shlomo Fischer appeals an order denying a motion to reopen an action he and other Hungarian Jews brought against an instrumentality of the Hungarian government, the national railway, under an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for harms suffered during the Holocaust. Although Fischer seeks our review of the district court’s order, he is not the individual the district court treated as filing the motion leading to the order. The district court read the motion as coming from Iren Gittel Kellner, a putative member of the class Fischer sought to have certified in the action previously ordered dismissed without prejudice to permit an exhaustion of any remedies available in Hungary. Indeed, the district court denied the motion on this precise and limited basis—Kellner’s lack of “standing” to seek to reopen an action in which a class never was certified. In these circumstances, this court, too, faces an insurmountable barrier: we lack authority to consider an appeal from a party not subject to the order sought to be challenged.

Affirmed

Full Text

Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.