Wang v. Ren

20-4216
Wang v. Ren
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION
TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS
GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S
LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH
THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 14th day of February, two thousand twenty-three.
PRESENT:
BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,
SARAH A. L. MERRIAM,
Circuit Judges.
_____________________________________
MING EN WANG, ON BEHALF OF HIMSELF
AND OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 20-4216
HAIYING REN, AKA MICHAEL REN, AKA
MICHAEL CHEN,
Defendant-Appellee.
__________________________________
For Plaintiff-Appellant: AARON SCHWEITZER (Tiffany
Troy, on the brief), Troy Law,
PLLC, Flushing, NY.
For Defendant-Appellee: DAVID S. HALSBAND, Halsband
Law Offices, Hackensack, NJ.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York (J. Paul Oetken, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
In 2017, Ming En Wang filed a putative class-action lawsuit in the Southern
District of New York, which we refer to as Wang I, against his former employer,
Yong Lee Inc. (d/b/a Spice Saigon); Spice Saigon’s manager and sole shareholder,
Jing Yang; and two unnamed defendants identified as John Doe and Jane Doe
(collectively, the “Wang I Defendants”) for alleged violations of the Fair Labor
Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and New York labor law. See Wang v. Yong
Lee Inc., No. 17-cv-9582 (JPO), 2022 WL 17756593, (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 19, 2022). Two
weeks before trial was set to begin, Wang moved to amend his complaint to
substitute Defendant John Doe with his former supervisor, Haiying Ren. The
district court denied Wang’s motion as untimely, noting that Wang had known
Ren’s identity for at least three months but nevertheless waited until the eve of
trial to make the request. Rather than wait for a final judgment in Wang I from
which to appeal the denial of leave to amend, Wang filed a separate, nearly
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identical class-action lawsuit, naming only Ren as a defendant (“Wang II”). Wang
II was assigned to the same district judge as Wang I, who dismissed Wang II as
duplicative of the then-pending Wang I. Wang now appeals from the district
court’s dismissal of Wang II, arguing that the two suits are not, in fact, duplicative
because they involve different defendants. 1 We assume the parties’ familiarity
with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.
We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision to dismiss a suit
as duplicative of another pending federal action. See Curtis v. Citibank, N.A., 226
F.3d 133, 138 (2d Cir. 2000). “As part of its general power to administer its docket,
a district court may stay or dismiss a suit that is duplicative of another federal
court suit.” Sacerdote v. Cammack Larhette Advisors, LLC, 939 F.3d 498, 504 (2d Cir.
2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is because “plaintiffs have no right
to maintain two actions on the same subject in the same court, against the same
defendant at the same time.” Curtis, 226 F.3d at 139. Like claim preclusion, the
rule against duplicative litigation applies not only where there is identity, but also
1 While Wang also spends considerable time arguing that the district court erred in denying his
motion for leave to amend his complaint in Wang I, that decision is not currently before us. We
therefore need not decide whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Wang’s
motion to add Ren as a defendant in Wang I. See, e.g., Davis v. Norwalk Econ. Opportunity Now,
Inc., 534 F. App’x 47, 49 n.1 (2d Cir. 2013) (declining to decide whether the district court had
properly denied plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint in an earlier lawsuit, where, as here,
the plaintiff appealed from the dismissal of a second-filed suit).
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where there is privity, between the parties in the first- and second-filed actions.
See Sacerdote, 939 F.3d at 506. Whether a suit is duplicative of another action also
depends on whether “the same proof is needed to support the claims in both suits
or, in other words, whether facts essential to the second suit were present in the
first suit.” Curtis, 226 F.3d at 139.
Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing this action
as duplicative of Wang I. For starters, both suits involve the same set of facts
concerning the terms of Wang’s employment at Spice Saigon, where he alleges
(among other things) that he was neither paid the minimum wage nor
compensated for overtime. The two suits assert substantially identical claims
under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York labor law. Compare App’x
at 44–49 (Wang I claims), with id. at 190–96 (Wang II claims). And while it is true
that the two suits name different defendants, there can be no doubt that Ren has a
“sufficiently close relationship” with Spice Saigon and Jing Yang to meet the
privity requirement. Cho v. Blackberry Ltd., 991 F.3d 155, 170 (2d Cir. 2021)
(internal quotation marks omitted). In his Wang II complaint, Wang alleges that
Ren was the “boss” at Spice Saigon, App’x at 183, and as such, Ren was in privity
with one or both of the Wang I Defendants. We have found privity in similar
situations and see no reason to reach a different conclusion here. See, e.g., Cho,
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991 F.3d at 170 (holding that the named defendant was in privity with defendants
named in an earlier lawsuit where each represented the same company within the
scope of his employment); Malcolm v. Rochester City Sch. Dist., 828 F. App’x 810,
812 (2d Cir. 2020) (concluding that employees of the Rochester City School District
were in privity with their employer).
Wang does not dispute any of these facts. Instead, he argues, in essence,
that in a joint employer FLSA action a plaintiff who is unhappy with a district
court’s denial of an eleventh-hour motion to add a defendant has an unfettered
right to bring a new action against that very defendant, effectively neutralizing the
district court’s ruling on the motion to amend. That, of course, is not the law.
See Sacerdote, 939 F.3d at 505 (holding that the rule against duplicative litigation
can be raised to “bar one of two suits that are both still pending”). Contrary to
Wang’s assertion, he had a “choice [other than] filing Wang II.” Wang Br. at 10.
Wang was – and perhaps still is – free to challenge the district court’s denial of his
motion to amend from the final judgment in Wang I. See, e.g., Parker v. Columbia
Pictures Indus., 204 F.3d 326, 339 (2d Cir. 2000) (reviewing district court’s decision
denying plaintiff leave to amend for abuse of discretion). Were he to avail himself
of that avenue for relief – and prevail – he would have the opportunity to bring
his claims against Ren as part of Wang I. But he is not entitled to engineer an
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end-run around the district court’s ruling in Wang I by filing a virtually identical
complaint just days after the district court had indicated from the bench that it
would deny the motion to amend. For all these reasons, we conclude that the
district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Wang II as duplicative of
Wang I. 2
We have considered Wang’s remaining arguments and found them to be
without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
2After Wang filed his notice of appeal in this matter, the jury in Wang I returned a verdict in
Wang’s favor. That development, however, does not change our analysis, as the district court
properly considered the then-pending actions under the rule prohibiting duplicative litigation,
rather than claim preclusion. See Sacerdote, 939 F.3d at 504 (explaining that the “difference
between the rule against duplicative litigation and the doctrine of claim preclusion . . . is that the
former can only be raised to bar one of two suits that are both still pending; the latter is generally
raised[] after a prior suit is resolved on the merits” (footnote omitted)).
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