8th Circuit decides N.D. case Wednesday, June 9, 2021

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has issued an opinion in a North Dakota case.

Nuevos Destinos, LLC v. Peck opinion summary: In action alleging a civil RICO violation and related state-law fraud and contract claims concerning the purchase of Peruvian agricultural products for import to the U.S., appellants seek to amend their complaint on appeal to delete their civil RICO claims and assert the remaining state law claims for fraud, breach of contract and conspiracy based on diversity jurisdiction; looking to the totality of the circumstances, the court declines to exercise its discretion to permit appellants to amend their complaint on appeal; the case does not involve a mere technical pleading error; rather, the plaintiffs/ appellants not only failed to plead diversity jurisdiction in their complaint but also made no attempt to amend their complaint to do so - in spite of defendants' jurisdictional challenges and the district court's decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over their state law claims; plaintiffs had years to amend their defective pleadings and to permit such an amendment this late in the case would be unfair to defendants; the district court's judgment is affirmed.

Read the court's opinion at: https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/21/06/201748P.pdf