Gonzalez v. Folia
- James Oetken
- 1:25-cv-00851
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Gonzalez v. Folia, Judge Oetken ordered defendants to identify every DH Investors LLC member’s citizenship to assess diversity jurisdiction.
The defendants, particularly those responsible for providing information about DH Investors LLC’s members, must identify the members’ citizenship as of the time of removal. The opinion does not state the ultimate effect on the case.
What happened
In Gonzalez v. Folia, defendants removed the case from New York State Supreme Court in Bronx County and relied on diversity jurisdiction.
The court found that the removal notice did not provide the citizenship of each member of DH Investors LLC. It ordered defendants to provide that information by February 14, 2025.
Judge J. Paul Oetken explained that an LLC’s citizenship depends on the citizenship of all its members, not its principal place of business or state of registration. The order did not decide the underlying dispute.
The detailed version
- Gonzalez v. Folia · No. 1:25-cv-00851
- James Oetken
- Jan. 30, 2025
Background
Defendants removed this case from the New York State Supreme Court in Bronx County to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They asserted federal jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 and removal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1441.
Jurisdictional issue
The court found that the notice of removal did not adequately establish diversity jurisdiction because it did not allege the citizenship of every member of DH Investors LLC. For diversity-jurisdiction purposes, the court explained, a limited liability company has the citizenship of each of its members. Its principal place of business and state of registration are not relevant to that determination.
Order
The court ordered defendants to inform it of the citizenship of every DH Investors LLC member at the time the case was removed, no later than February 14, 2025. The order addressed whether the court had been given enough information to evaluate its subject-matter jurisdiction; it did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.