The lawsuit is a quest for Bronfman money.
Seagram’s heiress, and NXIVM financier, Sara Bronfman, filed a motion asking Judge Eric Komitee to dismiss the lawsuit against her in Edmondson et al v. Raniere et al.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The basis of Bronfman’s motion is that the complaint is a “shotgun” complaint.
A shotgun, also known as impermissible group pleadings, is where a group of plaintiffs asserts multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which defendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, often using vague and immaterial facts in the counts.
The law firm Kohn Swift, with lead attorney Neil Glazer, represents the plaintiffs. Glazer first filed a complaint in January 2020.
Presently 70 former NXIVM plaintiffs are suing Bronfman and her currently incarcerated sister, Clare Bronfman, plus a few far less wealthy NXIVM co-defendants who are there to tie bad conduct to the two sisters.
Clare Bronfman is one of two key targets in the lawsuit.
The remaining defendants have little or no money, and this is litigation seeking money.
The other defendants are NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, now incarcerated; Allison Mack, also incarcerated; Kathy Russell, who is on probation; Danielle Roberts and Brandon Porter, who both lost medical licenses for NXIVM-related conduct.
Throughout the three years of the case, the plaintiffs have dismissed claims against NXIVM leaders Nancy Salzman [now incarcerated], Lauren Salzman [on probation], and Karen Unterreiner, and first-line masters from NXIVM’s sorority, DOS, Daniela Padilla, Rosa Laura Junco, Loreta Garza, and Monica Duran. Lauren Salzman was also a first-line master in DOS.
On August 13, 2021, the Plaintiffs filed a 217-page First Amended Complaint, asserting 16 claims against various defendants on behalf of over 80 plaintiffs.
On October 15, 2021, Judge Komitee held a conference and asked whether Glazer would like to amend his complaint before the defendants filed motions to dismiss.
On October 28, 2021, Sara Bronfman and other defendants submitted letters regarding proposed motions to dismiss.
On November 12, 2021, Glazer said he would “move forward with the current Complaint.”
At a status conference on November 30, 2021, Judge Komitee again asked Glazer if he intended to amend. Judge Komitee cautioned him that group pleading could “determine whether any dismissal, if one occurs, should be with prejudice or without prejudice.”
Glazer told Judge Komitee that he did not believe “it would be productive . . . to amend the complaint in any way.”
On February 25, 2022, Glazer filed a Second Amended Complaint, naming and removing several plaintiffs but not altering the complaint.
On February 1, 2023, Judge Komitee held an oral argument on the motions to dismiss. For the first time, Glazer did not appear for a hearing.
Kohn, Swift lawyers Craig W. Hillwig, Zahra R. Dean, William E. Hoese, and Aarthi Manohar, and Zuckerman Spaeder lawyers Aitan D. Goelman and Bryan M Reines represented the plaintiffs.
The judge asked the plaintiffs’ attorneys if they would like to simplify the 217-page Second Amended Complaint to make it “easier for everybody to understand what they’re accused of.”
He said he would allow the plaintiffs to submit a proposed Third Amended Complaint, adding that he was less likely to dismiss the case if the plaintiffs simplified and streamlined it.
He would also allow the defendants to object to its filing and then decide whether to let the case proceed, subject to further motions to dismiss by the defendants.
While her sister Clare chose not to challenge the plaintiffs’ motion asking leave to file an amended complaint, Sara Bronfman has submitted a memorandum of law opposing the Plaintiffs’ motion.
Robin A. Henry, Anne S. Aufhauser, Alexis R. Casamassima, and James D. Wareham of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson represent Bronfman.
Henry wrote:
Plaintiffs have been on notice of the deficiencies of their complaint since October 2021… In the 17 months since, Plaintiffs have repeatedly declined the Court’s invitations to meaningfully amend their complaint.
Their proposed Third Amended Complaint… engages in impermissible group pleading, lumping individual Defendants together into a convenient “Inner Circle,” and continuing to assert claims on behalf of 70 plaintiffs without identifying how each individual Defendant is responsible for the alleged harm to each individual plaintiff.
At 112 pages and attaching a 17 page chart identifying Plaintiffs, the proposed Third Amended Complaint can hardly be called a “short and plain statement” consistent with Rule 8.2…
Plaintiffs’ brief identifies only one instance in which they added
information about Sara Bronfman (pertaining to a RICO predicate act), and their remaining “new” allegations merely invite speculation that Sara Bronfman had to have known about or must have participated in alleged wrongdoing simply because she held titles in and participated in an organization — an organization in which many Plaintiffs also held titles and leadership roles….The [Proposed Third Amended Complaint] re-pleads six counts against Sara Bronfman without remedying any of their fatal infirmities…. by engaging in impermissible group pleading….
With respect to group pleading of the Defendants, the PTAC… lumps Sara Bronfman into Raniere’s purported “Inner Circle,” alleging that, as a member of the so-called Inner Circle, she “operated and furthered” DOS without making any specific allegations specifying how, when, or to what extent she did so….
Instead, Plaintiffs make sweeping allegations about the Inner Circle’s purported misconduct without stating whether all supposed members engaged in all alleged conduct. For example, the PTAC alleges that “Defendant Mack and other Inner Circle members had edited the video [of the DOS branding] to make it appear as though Edmondson had consented to the branding…”
It does not clarify who these “other Inner Circle members” are, and whether they purportedly include Sara Bronfman.
The Second Circuit squarely rejects this type of group pleading.
If the judge dismisses the claims against Sara Bronfman, this civil case will have lost a large slice of its value. While the claims against Clare Bronfman are more severe than against her sister, both women willfully financed the demonic enterprises of Raniere, hardly caring who they hurt.
If the judge dismisses the claims against Sara because of shotgun or group pleadings, will he dismiss the claims against Clare too?
Some say this lawsuit is not about money. It’s about justice. That may be true for some plaintiffs. But for the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, this is about money. They are not victims. They are lawyers, and this is their living. They are not offering their services pro bono. They take a neat one third of the award, if any. And if there is none, they spent years working on a case for nothing.
If the judge dismisses the claims against the two Bronfmans, this lawsuit will end in two minutes. The battery of lawyers from two law firms representing the plaintiffs will not come from Philadelphia and Washington DC to Brooklyn to show what a rat’s ass Keith Raniere is or collect money from Kathy Russell.
This lawsuit is a quest for Bronfman’s money, and the judge made it clear in February that he would dismiss the case if they did not cure their shotgun pleadings.
They came back with another complaint that, if it is not a shotgun, it seems to smell a little like gun smoke.
What the judge decides on this motion may tell the whole story of this case.
