Judge denies Perkins Rowe motion to dismiss

A federal judge denied Perkins Rowe’s motion late Friday to dismiss the foreclosure lawsuit against it from federal court. In what some legal observers viewed as a stalling tactic, attorneys for Tommy Spinosa’s mixed-use development had tried to get the $170 million foreclosure lawsuit thrown out of federal court on the grounds that it lacked true geographic diversity among the plaintiffs in the case. Citing the participation of Bank of New Orleans as one of the lenders in the consortium, they suggested the suit should be remanded to state court. But lawyers for KeyBank National Association, the main lender on the project, argued that there is true diversity in the case, as eight of the nine banks in the consortium of lenders are from out of state. What’s more, they pointed out that BNO has less than a 1% share of the construction loan. In his written opinion, U.S. District Judge James Brady agreed, saying that KeyBank is an appropriate party on which to base the diversity jurisdictional citizenship analysis, adding that “because KeyBank is completely diverse from Perkins Rowe, the federal Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this case.”—Stephanie Riegel