Professor Chaim Saiman
Joinder and Necessary Parties
I. Introduction
When the two sides to a lawsuit are members of the Jewish community, halacha generally requires the case to be heard in beth din. One increasingly relevant question to contemporary beth din practice is how to deal with a multi-party case where some—but not all—of the relevant parties are willing to sign an arbitration agreement and submit to the beth din’s jurisdiction. Does halacha require that any claims between adverse parties who submit to beth din be heard in a din Torah, or should a beth din grant a heter arkaot (permission to litigate in civil court) allowing the claims between all relevant parties to be heard in a single civil court forum? The parallel issue in American law is known as the law of joinder, or necessary parties, and courts have developed intricate rules to determine which parties must be subject to the jurisdiction of the court and properly joined to a suit before it can proceed.
By way of example: Suppose Reuven alleges that Shimon, Leah, Thomas, and Cindy have engaged in a conspiracy to defraud him. Shimon and Leah are willing to litigate before the beth din and demand that Reuven’s case against them be heard there. Thomas and Cindy, however, have not submitted to the beth din. Is Reuven halakhically required to litigate against Shimon and Leah through a din Torah, or can Reuven argue that since the claims against Thomas and Cindy are entangled with claims against Shimon and Leah, halacha allows for the entire case to be heard in civil court. In these cases, Reuven typically makes two claims. First, that his chances of success will be harmed if the suits are bifurcated since each defendant will point fingers at the absent defendants, and second, that he should not have to undertake the additional cost, expense and inconvenience of litigating parallel claims in two separate forums. Shimon and Leah counter that since they are willing to resolve the dispute in a halachic forum, the beth din should issue a hazmana (summons) demanding that the Reuven vs. Shimon & Leah portion of the case be adjudicated via din Torah.
Whether under halachic or American law standards, the answer to this question depends on a fact-sensitive inquiry into the nature of Reuven’s claims against the different defendants as well as the relationship between these defendants. In simple cases, these issues can be resolved informally by the beth din staff as part of the hazmana process. But when the case is more complex and facts and meaning of documents are in dispute, the beth din encounters a practical problem: the information necessary to assess whether a heter arkaot is warranted is often inextricably bound up with the facts and issues in dispute in the underlying case. In a sense, for the beth din to decide whether a heter arkaot should be granted requires it to take a stance on the very issues contested by the parties.
The matter is further complicated by the fact that this determination must often be made in the absence of a binding arbitration agreement or shtar berurin between the parties. In general, the Beth Din’s policy is to only hear civil cases when the decision will be binding as a matter of both halacha and American law. A signed shtar berurin, which also works as an arbitration agreement under American law, solidifies the beth din’s jurisdiction under both systems. It ensures that the ultimate award and decision is binding not only as a matter of halacha but is recognized and enforceable through the American courts.
Yet in the scenario described above, the party in Reuven’s position will often refuse to sign an arbitration agreement because doing so will halachically and legally bind Reuven to the beth din process and preclude him from litigating against all defendants in a single civil court forum. This puts everyone in a difficult bind. First, in the absence of an arbitration agreement, one or more of the parties may be wary of participating in a din Torah as they lack assurance that the beth din’s decision will be final and enforceable under American law. Moreover, both the beth din itself and the parties are loath to engage in extensive hearings only to determine at the end that a heter arkaot is warranted and the case should be heard in court.
Owing to the recurring nature of these questions and their importance for the how batei din function in an era where multi-party litigation is increasingly common, this article presents both the general standards employed by the Beth Din and then applies them to a fact pattern amalgamated from a number of cases that have come before the Beth Din.[1] Beyond addressing the the novel issue of necessary parties under Jewish law, the article also presents a model arbitration clause designed to bind the parties to the beth din’s jurisdiction when halachically mandated, yet affords flexibility to send the case to civil court if a fuller understanding of the facts leads to a determination that a heter arkaot is warranted. The Beth Din recommends using such a clause in cases where the facts are too complex to determine at the outset whether beth din or civil court is the proper forum.
II. Baseline Halachic Standards
As a general matter, halacha is clear that disputes between Jews must be heard in a beth din. Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 26. While there are recognized halachic exceptions to the issur arkaot, in general, the party seeking to litigate in civil court bears the burden of showing one of these exceptions applies. A litigant is permitted, however, to sue directly in civil court even in the absence of a heter arkaot when there is no reasonable expectation that the counterparty will appear before beth din.[2] These issues become more complex in the multi-party setting.
III. Necessary Parties
- American legal standards
In American law, determining which parties must appear together in a single action turns on a distinction between parties that are “required” or “necessary” to be tried in a single case, and those whose joinder to the litigation is “proper” or “permissive” even though it is not mandatory.[3] American law takes it as a given that a party who is not before the court is not bound by its decision. A party should therefore be joined when: (1) its absence will prevent the court from ordering complete relief amongst the existing parties; or (2) it has an interest relating to the subject of the litigation such that resolving the case in absence of that party will either: (i) make it practically difficult for the absent party to protect its interest or (ii) create a scenario where there is a substantial risk that an existing party will be subject to inconsistent obligations or court rulings. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 19.
The textbook example is when two parties, A and B, jointly own a parcel of real estate. Should C sue A claiming title to the entire property, B is a necessary party to the suit. If a necessary party cannot be joined, courts must determine whether the party is “indispensable” such that the case cannot proceed in their absence, or whether the court can nevertheless craft a remedy to resolve the case despite the absence of a necessary party. In the example above, B would likely be deemed indispensable.
By contrast “proper” or “permissive” parties are those that may be joined to an action because the claims arise “out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences” and also involve common questions of law or fact. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 20. The rationale for allowing such claims to be tried together is to avoid the unnecessary loss of time and money to the court and the parties caused by duplicate presentation of evidence relating to common facts.[4]
Nevertheless, courts do not require that such parties be joined together. The textbook case of permissive joinder is joint-tortfeasors who harmed a common plaintiff. While the plaintiff is allowed to file a joint action against both defendants, there is no requirement to do so and the plaintiff can proceed against each defendant separately. Courts, however, tend to hold that permissive joinder rules “should be interpreted liberally. . . to promote judicial economy by permitting all reasonably related claims for relief by or against different parties to be tried in a single proceeding.”[5]
2. Halachic standards
In contrast to American law, halacha recognizes scenarios where a party will be bound to a beth din’s judgment even though it was not made party to the proceedings. For example, Gemara Ketubot 94a discusses a case of partners (assume Reuven and Shimon) where only one partner (Reuven) is litigating the ownership of the partnership assets with a third-party, Levi. The Gemara rules that Shimon is generally bound to the decision so long as he was aware of and able to participate in the litigation. However if he was out of town (or otherwise unaware of the litigation), or if he would have been able to present evidence or claims against Levi that were not available to Reuven, Shimon is not bound by the beth din’s ruling.[6]
Rambam understands that the Gemara’s ruling regarding who is bound by the judgment contains a subsidiary principle regarding which parties are necessary for the litigation.[7] In scenarios where the non-appearing partner (Shimon) would not be bound to the judgment, the defendant (Levi) is entitled to refuse to litigate with Reuven. The reason, as explained by Tur, lies in the asymmetry between winning and losing the case against the Reuven/Shimon partnership: If Levi were to lose the case against Reuven, the beth din’s decision would benefit Shimon as well, since Levi would be precluded from raising any further claims against Shimon even though Shimon was not a party to the din torah. By contrast, if Levi were to be victorious against Reuven, he would still be subject to further suit on the same claims if pursued in subsequent litigation initiated by the absent Shimon. Tur, Choshen Mishpat 122. To prevent this asymmetry, Levi is entitled to resist a hazmana until all interests in the opposing partnership are represented as plaintiffs before the beth din. Rambam’s ruling is adopted in Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 122:9.[8] It also accords with an American law analysis that requires joinder under such circumstances to protect a party’s concrete financial interest in the litigation.
Another example arises in a case where Reuven transferred money to Shimon to deliver to Levi. Shimon claims that he delivered the funds to Levi, while Levi claims that he never received the funds. If Reuven were to proceed against Shimon alone, Shimon would not have to substantiate his claim that he delivered the money to Levi via an oath, since Reuven does not have sufficient information to contradict the veracity of Shimon’s claim that he delivered the funds to Levi. In this setting, both Shach and Netivot rule that Reuven can compel Shimon to attach Levi as a necessary defendant.[9] This is because when both defendants in the case, at least one of them will be confronted with an allegation claiming certainty (ta’anat bari) as to whether the funds were received or delivered and at least one of the defendants will be required to back up their claim via a testamentary oath regarding the whereabouts of Reuven’s funds. This tracks the American law idea that joinder can be required to enable the court to order complete relief amongst the existing parties.
These cases discussed by the poskim parallel situations that American law classifies as featuring necessary parties, either because the parties on the same side of the litigation are partners with inextricably linked interests, or because the rules governing ta’anot and sh’vuot (claims and oaths) result in claims between existing parties which cannot be resolved in the absence of additional parties present in the litigation. These rules do not apply, however, when the legal interests of the parties can be severed from each other. In these cases, which American law classifies as “permissive” or “proper” joinder, the parties may be joined in a common action but their presence in the same case is not required as each case can be pursued separately.
These principles form the basis of Beth Din’s policy regarding when litigation is permitted in arkaot due to the non-presence of parties. Where halacha and American law require the parties to litigate in a single action, if a necessary party is unwilling to subject itself to beth din, the Beth Din will generally grant a heter arkaot. By contrast, when the parties are not required to be joined, the Beth Din’s approach is more variable and fact-sensitive. While it recognizes that requiring a party to litigate issues arising out of the same set of facts in different venues may harm a party’s chances of success and increase the cost of litigation, given the strong halakhic preference for litigation between observant Jews to proceed in beth din, other factors necessarily come into play. Moreover, the American rules on permissive joinder have broadened considerably over the course of the 20th century— as current law allows for a far greater variety of parties to be included in a single suit than in eras past.[10] For this reason, the Beth Din does not conceptualize the scope of its halakhic jurisdiction to be fully dependent on the scope of the permissive joinder rules applied in civil courts.
IV. Application of Relevant Standards to Representative Case Facts
While the basic halakhic principles are relatively straightforward, they gain precision and definition when applied to concrete fact patterns. This section outlines a set of representative facts amalgamated from cases heard by the Beth Din, and then analyzes how the Beth Din has ruled in similar scenarios.
- Representative case facts
Red, an observant Jew, has alleged violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute, state common law fraud, conspiracy to defraud, and breach of fiduciary duty related to a series of business transactions against a number of defendants.
Per Red’s complaint filed in civil court, Defendant Orange periodically acted as a consultant to Red over the course of ten years. In this role, Orange, a member of the Orthodox community, sourced investment opportunities and assisted Red in deploying its capital. Red relied on financial reports and other information supplied by Orange in identifying investments, typically for a finder’s fee or a small percentage of the deal. Yellow, another member of the community, approached Orange in early 2019 with a prospective investment in Imaginary, a logistics company in Miami. Yellow provided Orange with a series of documents relating to the company’s financials but failed to fully disclose the debt structure and asset encumbrances of the company. Red claims that Yellow knew the documents were incorrect and helped manipulate the reports to resemble the qualities of previous investments made by Red. In the following months, Yellow worked through Orange to broker several more deals related to e-commerce and logistics businesses with the Red.
In 2020, in part as a result of COVID, four of the investments brokered by Yellow turned sour causing Red to scrutinize Orange’s reporting. Red alleges several inconsistencies and omissions in the financial reports Yellow had provided and seeks to recover losses stemming from the investments made through Orange and Yellow. Red alleges that this pattern of materially deficient financial information and undisclosed debts made by Orange and Yellow demonstrate a conspiracy to defraud Red causing tens of millions of dollars in losses.
Red’s complaint also names Purple as a co-defendant, and alleges that Purple, a player in the real estate market, was part of the conspiracy to defraud Red through a real estate flipping scheme. Specifically, Red alleges that Purple worked with Orange to entice Red to invest money on the basis of falsified documents for the purpose of infusing capital and joining a partnership, C&D Investments, which purportedly had rights to purchase certain parcels of Florida real estate. Purple claimed that C&D Investments had already lined up buyers willing to pay more, so that the properties could be quickly flipped at a significant profit for the Owners of C&D Investments. Red’s complaint alleges that Orange, Yellow, and Purple all worked in concert as part of an interconnected conspiracy against Red. The relevant claims are all civil in nature. Criminal liability, to the extent it exists, is not relevant to this discussion.
Orange and Yellow— who are members of the observant community—demand to have Red’s claims against them heard in Beth Din. Red by contrast argues that Orange, Yellow, and Purple are co-conspirators and that each is a necessary party required for a full and fair adjudication of the claims. Purple has refused to appear before the Beth Din,[11] and Red seeks a heter arkaot to halachically permit the interrelated claims against Orange, Yellow, and Purple to be heard together in civil court.
2. Application to representative facts
The facts described above recount what American courts describe as a “hub and spokes” conspiracy.[12] Orange sits at the center of the hub. One group of allegations is that Orange worked with Yellow to defraud Red into investing in Imaginary and a series of other e-commerce ventures. Another set of allegations charges that Orange worked with Purple—a party who has not consented to appear before the beth din, to defraud Red though the C&D Investments plan to flip real estate. Though Orange is alleged to have participated in both spokes, Red’s allegations do not offer concrete evidence connecting the Yellow/Orange spoke to the Purple/Orange spoke. Since there is little in the underlying complaint or relevant discovery that inextricably links the two spokes, the Beth Din has held that as a matter of halacha they can be severed such that no heter arkaot is warranted. Red’s claims related to Orange/Yellow activities should proceed before the Beth Din, even as Red’s claims regarding the Orange/Purple spoke will proceed in civil court.
The same result obtains under American law. Courts tend to take a fact-based and pragmatic approach to determining which parties are so entwined that their claims must be joined in a common action.[13] Specifically, common fraud and conspiracy allegations do not typically make co-defendants into necessary parties under American law. The U.S. Supreme Court has generally held that “[i]n a suit to enjoin a conspiracy not all the conspirators are necessary parties defendant,” Georgia v. Pa. R.R., 324 U.S. 439, 463 (1945), and that there is no obligation to join joint conspirators or tortfeasors when their potential liability is “not altogether dependent on the culpability” of the other parties, Lawlor v. Nat’l Screen Serv. Corp., 349 U.S. 322, 329–30, (1955). Courts have more recently reaffirmed how “it is well-established that under federal law, neither joint tortfeasors nor co-conspirators are indispensable parties,” Frink Am., Inc. v. Champion Rd. Mach. Ltd., 961 F. Supp. 398, 406 (N.D.N.Y. 1997), and that an absent co-conspirator is generally not a required party when the court can accord complete relief to existing parties, Ward v. Apple Inc., 791 F.3d 1041, 1049 (9th Cir. 2015).[14]
V. Potential Losses and Increased Costs Arising from Parallel Litigation
Even if the spokes are technically severable under both halakhic and American legal standards, parties in Red’s position often argue that a heter arkaot should nevertheless be granted owing to the potential for losses, and the increased cost and administrative burden of having to conduct parallel litigation in beth din and civil court for issues arising out of common facts. They further note that the efficiency and judicial economy logic that underlies the flexible joinder rules under American law apply in these circumstances as well.
Halacha is indeed attuned to questions of judicial economy. In cases where—to borrow the language of American law— there are “common questions of law or fact” arising out of the “same transaction or occurrence or series of transactions or occurrences,”[15] Rif and Tashbetz explain that ideally third parties should be joined to a suit in order to streamline the process and avoid parallel or duplicative litigation.[16] A number of poskim further understand that under certain circumstances, the potential of loss to the plaintiff (hefsed mamon) may serve as the basis for permitting claims to be heard in non-Jewish courts.[17] In administering the hazmana process and providing for a heter arkaot, the Beth Din is thus sensitive to matters of judicial economy and to ensuring that effective relief can be offered to the parties. In multi-party cases arising out of common facts, the Beth Din may allow the entire case to be heard in civil court when it is not possible to bring all relevant parties before the beth din.
For example, suppose an Orthodox homeowner engages an Orthodox architect and a non-Jewish contractor via separate contracts to build a $200,000 home addition. The roof of the addition collapses damaging both the newly built work and the original house. The homeowner sues both the Orthodox architect and the non-Jewish contractor in court for breach of contract, where each party vigorously blames and points fingers at the other. The architect then approaches beth din to initiate the hazmana process and have the portion of the suit between it and the homeowner removed to beth din. The homeowner argues its chances of success would materially suffer and that its costs would substantially increase by having to proceed against the architect in beth din and the subcontractor in civil court since each defendant will shift blame to the party who is absent in the particular forum.
When looking solely at the matter of increased litigation costs, the Beth Din has not recognized these as grounds for granting a heter arkaot. Nevertheless, because the claims against both defendants arise out of the same core facts and naturally go together, and because the plaintiff may face losses owing to a harder road to recovery because it must proceed against each defendant separately, the Beth Din has discretion to cease the hazmana process and allow the case to proceed in a common forum where all parties can be joined.
By contrast, in the types of more complex multi-party cases between Red and Orange/Yellow/Purple outlined above, the Beth Din’s experience is that such considerations are typically far less salient. The underlying claims of RICO, fraud, breach of duty, etc., tend to implicate a host of ancillary legal entities, persons, banks, lenders, and others who cannot all be brought within the beth din’s jurisdiction or even within a single suit in civil court.[18] In a scenario where multiple suits against multiple parties arising from the same “set of transactions or occurrences” are proceeding in different venues, the Beth Din has found little reason to grant a heter arkaot when the party claims that a common forum would be more efficient or afford more complete and streamlined relief.
VI. Reversion Provision
As noted at the outset, one of the central difficulties confronting a beth din in these cases is that the degree of overlap between the Orange/Yellow spoke and the Orange/Purple spoke is typically unknown and vigorously disputed between the parties. For example, the party in Red’s position frequently argues that Purple worked extensively with Orange and Yellow to perpetrate the frauds. Purple, by contrast, claims that it has a legitimate business relationship with Orange, but has never had any meaningful contact with Yellow. These arguments related to jurisdiction are heavily entwined with the core dispute in the case— whether any fraud or misdeeds were perpetrated.
Because these facts cannot be known at the hazmana stage, the following dilemma emerges: If Red signs an arbitration agreement, it will have committed to litigate its case before the beth din even if subsequently becomes clear that the alleged conspiracies are interrelated to the degree that they should be heard in a common forum. By contrast, in the absence of an arbitration agreement, the beth din and the counter-parties are loath to proceed since either party can pull out at any time and—from an American law perspective— the beth din’s ruling will not be enforceable.
In these scenarios the Beth Din recommends that the parties sign an arbitration agreement with a “reversion provision” structured to deal with this contingency. In the factual setting described above, the provision would read as follows:
Plaintiff Red has argued that a din Torah is not the appropriate venue for resolution of the Disputes with Defendants and that it is not obligated as a matter of Jewish law to appear before a beth din regarding these claims. This argument is based on claims that there are other necessary parties to the case and that the Disputes are related to ongoing matters that are or may be pending in state and federal courts.
At the initial stage of the arbitration, Plaintiff Red shall have the right to present the Beth Din with arguments regarding its obligation to submit this matter to a beth din. If the Beth Din determines that Plaintiff Red is obligated to submit this matter to a beth din, the case shall proceed as otherwise set forth in this agreement. If the Beth Din determines that Plaintiff Red is not obligated to submit this matter to a beth din under Jewish law, then the case shall be dismissed from Beth Din in its entirety without prejudice, and Plaintiff Red shall have the right to pursue its claims in civil court, in which case the parties hereto shall no longer be obligated to arbitrate this matter before the Beth Din pursuant to this agreement.
This provision introduces some elements of civil court motion practice into the beth din. It allows the parties to fulfill their halakhic obligations by presumptively setting arbitration in a beth din. It also creates a threshold process to initially determine whether the case belongs in beth din. The provision allows for the possibility that after hearing additional facts, the beth din may conclude that the relevant halakhic principles militate towards allowing the case to proceed in a civil court where all parties can be joined in a single case. The Beth Din has found this offers the most effective way to balance three core considerations: (i) the halakhic obligation to litigate before beth din; (ii) the practical need to bring the hearings under the scope of a binding arbitration agreement under American law, and; (iii) to acknowledge that for certain complex, multi-party disputes a common civil court forum offers more complete justice than bifurcating claims into parallel cases split between beth din and civil court.
VII. Conclusion
Contemporary battei din are confronting the complexities raised by multi-party litigation in which they may not have jurisdiction over all parties relevant to the litigation. This article sets forth both the core analytical framework used by the Beth Din to analyze the question of necessary parties in halacha as well as how they have been applied to specific facts. It also presents a solution for how American arbitration can be employed to address one of the central practical difficulties that arises in this setting. As the core halachic categories have not been frequently applied to the modern multi-party setting, our goal has been to provide the community and potential parties with the framework and roadmap of how the Beth Din is likely to analyze similar issues as they arise in the future.
NOTES
[1] In accordance with BDA policy all identifying information has been removed or altered to preserve the confidentiality of the proceedings and the privacy of the parties.
[2] Seder HaDin 16:22 (R. Avraham Yehoshua Heschel Derbaremdiker).
[3] See Fed. R. Civ. P. 18-20.
[4] See Wright, Miller and Kane, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ.§ 1652 Permissive Joinder of Parties (3d ed.).
[5] Ferrara v. Smithtown Trucking Co., 29 F. Supp. 3d 274, 280 (E.D.N.Y. 2014)
[6] See Ketubot 94a. See also Mordechai (Ketubot 10:299) and Responsa of Maharam of Rothenberg (Prague ed. #332), who rule that the non-appearing partner is only bound when the partnership acts as the plaintiff and we can assume the absent partner Shimon has granted Reuven consent to litigate over the partnership assets on his behalf. When partners are sued as defendants, however, each partner must be joined to the litigation before it will be binding on them. See Rema, Choshen Mishpat 176:25. See also Shach, Choshen Mishpat 122:38-39.
[7] Shluchin ve’Shutfin 3:3.
[8] See also Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 77:9 explaining that if two parties made a joint loan or deposit to a third party, both partners must be present when the loan or deposit is demanded back from the third party.
[9] See Shach to Choshen Mishpat 121:42 and Netivot to Choshen Mishpat 121:24 (chiddushim) who hold that in such a case Reuven can compel Shimon to have Levi take an oath as to whether he received the funds from Shimon. Both Eliav Shochetman and the beth din Eretz Hemda understand that this includes Reuven’s ability to join Levi as a necessary party to the case between Reuven and Shimon. See Eliav Shochetman, Seder HaDin v.1 at 157 and more generally at 154-161. The psak din of Eretz Hemda is available at https://www.beitdin.org.il/Article/296.
[10] See Wright, Miller and Kane, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ.§ 1651 History of Permissive Joinder of Parties (3d ed.).
[11] The Beth Din has heard cases where Purple is a member of the Orthodox community, and where Purple is not a member of the community. In either case the core issue is the same: whether the din Torah should proceed if Purple is not joined as a party.
[12] See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 754-55 (1946); Marrero-Rolón v. Autoridad De Energía Eléctrica De P.R., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134211, at *44 (D.P.R. Sep. 28, 2015).
[13] See Wright, Miller and Kane, 7 Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ. § 1612 (3d ed.)
[14] One instructive example is Brady v. Burtt, 979 F.Supp. 524 (W.D. Mich. 1997). Plaintiffs agreed to sell their ownership interests in a company. Though they tendered their shares, Plaintiffs were not paid, and the company filed for bankruptcy. Plaintiffs filed suit against the leading company officials for conspiracy and fraud. One defendant argued that the court lacked jurisdiction because the company’s general counsel was not joined despite being an indispensable party intimately involved in the negotiation of the sale. The court held joinder was not necessary, as the general counsel was “a tortfeasor with the usual “joint-and-several liability [that] is merely a permissive party to an action.”
[15] Fed. R. Civ. P. 20.
[16] Shut HaRif #253 (Leiter ed); Tashbetz, Vol. 4 Tur 3 #18.
[17] These include the potential dissipation of defendant’s assets, the inability to obtain complete relief, and potential losses that may arise due to litigation before beth din. See Orach Mishpat, (Rachamim Eliyahu Hazzan), to Choshen Mishpat 26. See also Shu’t Rema Mi’Panu (Menachem Azaria) #51 which serves as the basis for Orach Mishpat’s ruling.
[18] See for example In re Wydra, 938 N.Y.S.2d 231, 2011 WL 4031513, (Sup. Ct. 2011); MEW Equity LLC v. Sutton Land Servs., L.L.C., 964 N.Y.S.2d 60, 2012 WL 5933050 (Sup. Ct. 2012); Wydra v. Brach, 986 N.Y.S.2d 869, 2014 WL 340255 (Sup. Ct. 2014); In re Wydra v. Brach, 2015 WL 13037157, (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 13, 2015); Mew Equity, LLC v. Sutton Land Servs., LLC, 144 A.D.3d 872 (N.Y. App. Div. 2016); Mew Equity, LLC v. Sutton Land Servs., LLC, 193 A.D.3d 1036 (2021); Wydra v. Brach, 203 A.D.3d 1169, 1170 163 N.Y.S.3d 458 (2022); Brach v. Wydra, No. 528670/22 (2023), NY Slip Op 30874(U) (Sup. Ct. Kings County, Mar. 21, 2023); Wydra v. Brach, 2024 WL 1895859 (N.Y. App. Div. 2024). These interrelated cases outline many separate suits filed in beth din and civil courts relating to the same underlying set of transactions.