Catlin Insurance Company v. Sentinel Insurance Company, Ltd.
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:23-cv-05355
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Catlin Insurance v. Sentinel Insurance, Judge Broderick ordered plaintiffs to clarify members’ citizenship before deciding federal jurisdiction.
The plaintiffs, including FPG Clinton Acquisition, LLC and Fortis Property Group LLC, must provide the ordered citizenship information; Sentinel Insurance Company, Ltd.’s deadline to file an amended removal notice was extended. The case could be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if the plaintiffs do not comply.
What happened
Catlin Insurance Company v. Sentinel Insurance Company, Ltd. concerns the plaintiffs’ required submission of information about the members and citizenship of two limited liability companies involved in the case.
The court found that an affidavit filed by Fortis’s chief financial officer did not list FPG Clinton Acquisition, LLC’s members or establish that the listed Fortis directors and officers were members. It also did not identify the state citizenship of each member.
Judge Broderick ordered the plaintiffs to file a compliant affidavit by August 20, 2024, and warned that failure to do so would lead to dismissal of the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. He also extended Sentinel’s deadline to file an amended removal notice and terminated the pending motion at Doc. 64.
The detailed version
- Catlin Insurance Company v. Sentinel Insurance Company, Ltd. · No. 1:23-cv-05355
- Vernon Broderick
- Aug. 14, 2024
Background
On July 17, 2024, the court ordered the plaintiffs to file a sworn affidavit identifying the members of FPG Clinton Acquisition, LLC (FPG) and Fortis Property Group LLC (Fortis), along with the state citizenship of each member. The court twice extended the deadline.
Partom Palazzo, Fortis’s chief financial officer, then filed an affidavit listing Fortis’s directors and officers as of that date. The court found that the affidavit did not list FPG’s members. It also did not state that the listed Fortis directors and officers were Fortis members, or identify the state citizenship of each member. The court noted that providing an address would not be enough to establish citizenship.
Order
Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered the plaintiffs to file, by August 20, 2024, an affidavit listing the members of FPG and Fortis and the state of citizenship of each member. The court stated that, if the plaintiffs failed to do so, it would dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning the court’s legal authority to hear the case.
The court also extended Sentinel’s deadline to file an amended notice of removal until fourteen days after the plaintiffs filed an affidavit that properly established the basis for federal jurisdiction. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion pending at Doc. 64. The order did not decide the underlying insurance dispute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.