Boston Market’s appeal against a court-mandated default judgment decision that required the struggling company to pay US Foods $11.9 million has been dismissed for lack of prosecution. The appeal was denied by an Illinois U.S. District Court because he failed to file a timely court brief in response to court order.
The U.S. District Court judge handed down his original judgment in February, stating at the time that even though default judgment is a “harsh sanction,” in this case, both the court and plaintiffs had no choice because Boston Market had “intentionally dodged their obligations to the court” in a display of “bad faith to avoid this case.”
US Foods’ $11.3 million lawsuit was the most high-profile and expensive lawsuit among the many filed against Boston Market over the past couple of years. According to the lawsuit, Boston Market “began to fall significantly behind in its payment obligations to US Foods” beginning in 2022 and secured a promissory note-based payment schedule from the struggling restaurant chain. However, US Foods claims that Boston Market still failed to keep up with the agreed payment schedule and, as such, owed the company $10.5 million in accrued debt, as well as $800,000 in interest.
According to court documents, Pandya did not acknowledge the US Foods lawsuit until two months later, and even after that, failed to make the October 2023 deadline for a response to the complaint. Pandya eventually responded to the complaint in December 2023, and two days later, filed for personal bankruptcy with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court. The bankruptcy case was dismissed in January by a U.S. bankruptcy trustee because Pandya had not provided insurance information on two properties he owned and was not responding to repeated requests for more information over the course of two weeks.
Similarly, in the case of the appeal against the default judgment decision, court documents state that in both July and August, Pandya was ordered to “show cause why this appeal should not be dismissed for lack of prosecution” and, although he responded earlier this month, still “failed to respond or file the required opening brief.”
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