Bechuck v. Home Depot USA, Inc., No. 15-20219 (5th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseAfter plaintiff sustained injuries from a fall off a chair at a Home Depot, he filed suit in state court against Home Depot and the general manager of the store he was injured in. A month later, Home Depot removed to federal court. Plaintiff then filed an amended complaint, omitting the general manager and adding SMI as a defendant. After serving SMI, plaintiff learned that ASM, not SMI, was the distributor of the chair and therefore plaintiff filed a second amended complaint replacing SMI with ASM as defendant. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's order dismissing, without prejudice, Home Depot and ASM and requiring that any suits that plaintiff refiles against those parties be brought in the same court. The court agreed with plaintiff that the district court lacked jurisdiction to impose the refiling restriction on ASM. The court also agreed with plaintiff that the district court erred in dismissing Home Depot, but concluded that the error, being without prejudice, was harmless. Finally, the court agreed with plaintiff that the imposition of the refiling restriction with respect to Home Depot was an abuse of discretion and therefore affirmed the judgment as modified to omit that condition.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on February 18, 2016.
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