Young Sung Lee, et al. v. Katelyn Garvey

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, by Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith, dismissed petitioners’ personal injury claim on a Rule 50(a) motion for dismissal after petitioners’ case was presented, based upon an unsettled body of New York State common law, and unsettled interpretations of the New York State Insurance Law, regarding “permanency” of injury. The lower courts permitted the Magistrate Judge to cherry pick between two competing bodies of state law on a diversity case, on an erroneous concept of a Rule 50(a) motion for directed verdict based upon facts that were not properly viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. The questions before the Court are:

1. Whether the Magistrate Judge erred as a matter of law in granting a Rule 50(a) motion for directed verdict when (a) both parties’ experts agreed that petitioners were permanently injured; (b) the state law supports Petitioners’ position.

2. Whether, given the state law split, should the courts have permitted the case to be decided by the jury or refer it to the highest court for settlement of the conflicting case law.

3. Whether the federal court has no power to invalidate one branch of state case law created by trial and intermediate appellate courts, while sitting in diversity.