Only in the presence of exceptional circumstances should a federal court relinquish its obligation to adjudicate a controversy properly before it. In the present action, there is no disputed res or property over which either court has jurisdiction. In considering whether abstention is appropriate, the lack of a disputed res is at best neutral, and may even favor the exercise of jurisdiction, See Evanston Ins. Although the defendant maintains its headquarters in New York and many of the documents relevant to this action are kept in New York, class members as well as local agents who allegedly made the misrepresentations are located throughout the United States. Therefore, the court finds that the inconvenience of the federal forum is not so great as to weigh in favor of abstention.
Piecemeal litigation involves litigating portions of the same dispute in different forums.
While the maintenance of the two actions at issue here may be duplicative, it is certainly not piecemeal. The prevention of duplicative litigation is not a factor to be considered in an abstention determination. A motion for class certification is currently pending in this court, and it most likely would have been ruled upon already had it not been for the defendant's own delay. While this court is not opposed to meritorious extensions of time, it will not allow one party to seek an extension of time in this court and then argue as grounds for abstention that an action in another forum has progressed farther. Therefore, the court finds that this factor would only weigh in favor of abstention if there were novel or complex issues of state law which would be better left to the state courts to decide.