Source: http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180402_0000728.NIL.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 17:20:33+00:00

Document:
Charles P. Kocoras United States District Judge.
Now before the Court is a motion from Defendant Milan Batinich (“Batinich”) comprised of three requests. First, Batinich requests the Court to strike Christin Good's December 14, 2017 Declaration from the record. Second, in light of the new record should his request to strike be granted, Batinich requests a Rule 54(b) reconsideration of our January 26, 2018 Order (“Order”) denying his motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Finally, Batinich asks the Court to reconsider the same Order's denial of his request to transfer the case to Minnesota. For the following reasons, we grant Batinich's motion to reconsider our Order denying his transfer request and order this suit to be transferred to the District of Minnesota. We deny as moot both Batinich's motion to strike Christin Good's December 14 Declaration and his motion to reconsider our Order declining to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction.
On January 26, 2018, the Court issued an Order in favor of Plaintiff Management Registry, Inc. (“M.R.I.”), denying Batinich's requests to dismiss this lawsuit (“Illinois action”) for lack of personal jurisdiction or, in the alternative, to transfer the case to a more appropriate venue in Minnesota pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). As to the transfer question, we denied Batinich's request in large part because “neither Batinich nor the Complaint suggest[ed] personal jurisdiction would lie for this controversy in Minnesota.” Our Order stated that Batinich made a “fatal mistake” by “devot[ing] no attention” to the question of whether venue and jurisdiction were proper in the District of Minnesota.
Now, Batinich requests that we reconsider our Order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), which reads in relevant part, “any order or other decision…that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties…may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment….” As “[t]ransfer orders…are not appealable final decisions, ” Hill v. Potter, 352 F.3d 1142, 1144 (7th Cir. 2003), reconsideration requests are best handled by a district court under Rule 54. “‘Motions for reconsideration serve a limited function; to correct manifest errors of law or facts or to present newly discovered evidence.'” Rothwell Cotton Co. v. Rosenthal & Co., 827 F.2d 246, 251 (7th Cir. 1987) (quoting Keene Corp. v. Int'l Fidelity Ins. Co., 561 F.Supp 656, 665 (N.D. Ill. 1982)). “[A] motion to reconsider is only appropriate where a court has misunderstood a party…made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented…made an error of apprehension (not of reasoning), where a significant change in the law has occurred, or where significant new facts have been discovered.” Broaddus v. Shield, 665 F.3d 846, 860 (7th Cir. 2011), overruled on other grounds by Hill v. Tangherlini, 724 F.3d 965 (7th Cir. 2013).
i. Batinich currently works for A.W. Companies, a Minnesota company, with Minnesota customers and clients.
ii. Batinich has provided services for A.W. Companies in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Texas.
iii. While working in Madison, Wisconsin, Batinich called an “emergency team meeting” with other employees of his former employer, M.R.I.
iv. Batinich's “emergency team meeting” is a focal point of M.R.I.'s Amended Complaint in a lawsuit filed in the District of Minnesota against A.W. Companies and its owners (“Minnesota action”). Mgmt. Registry, Inc. v. A.W. Cos., Inc., et al., No. 17-cv-5009, (D. Minn. 2017).
v. M.R.I. has informed Batinich's counsel that it intends to depose him in the Minnesota action.

References: § 1404
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