In our previous adventure, we discussed a case where Marci Clark, aka romance author Marci Bolden, is suing her publisher and (one assumes) former agent, David Grishman of RedRock Literary. You may recall that there were some issues with the corporate defendants – namely, that they don’t actually exist any more. One was dissolved for failure to file annual reports and the other was transitioned from a corporation to a limited liability company.
Well, some updates:
First, the Court asked Ms. Clark to affirm that all of the defendants were from other states than Iowa, as this is required for diversity jurisdiction. She didn’t state that all of the Members of Pink Sand Press, LLC were from other states. The Court gave her two weeks to confirm this or fix it in this order:
Fourteen days was up today, but they filed a response yesterday. Since they had to do that anyway, you’d think the Plaintiff would fix some of the other issues, yes? Well, “some” is right: they did fix some, they did not fix others.
What they did fix was the Pink Sand Press issue. The Plaintiff filed a Supplemental Statement pointing out that they did not know that PSP had been dissolved when they filed the complaint, and attached a copy of the page from the MA SoS (it’s in the previous entry) showing PSP was dissolved. Here’s the Statement:
They also filed a First Amended Complaint (which, embarassingly enough, refers to itself as the “First Ameneded Complaint” but which I will refer to as the FAC) swapping out Steven Grishman, David Grishman’s father and the alleged sole Member of PSP, as “owner” of PSP, essentially treating “Pink Sand Press” as the assumed business name of a sole proprietorship. Once again, not a MA attorney, don’t know MA corporations law, but this does seem at least facially reasonable. They also assert Steven Grishman lives in Georgia, which means that all of the defendants are in fact from states other than Iowa and thus diversity is preserved. Anyway, here’s the FAC:
What they did not fix was the RedRock Literary Inc -> LLC issue. The FAC still lists RedRock Literary Inc as a defendant. No modifications at all were made related to this issue. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s not necessary under relevant law and procedure. Perhaps the Plaintiff’s attorney still hasn’t noticed. No idea.
Anyway, that’s all – still no response of any kind from any of the defendants. Further bulletins as events warrant. Thanks for reading!