Pennyfeather v. QSR NY LLC
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:24-cv-09922
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Pennyfeather v. QSR NY LLC, Judge Caproni ordered Pennyfeather to amend his complaint to identify QSR’s members and their citizenship.
Aheem Pennyfeather must provide additional information about QSR NY LLC’s members and citizenship before the case can proceed on the asserted federal jurisdiction basis. QSR NY LLC may receive and respond to the amended complaint before any request for default judgment.
What happened
In Pennyfeather v. QSR NY LLC, the court questioned whether the complaint adequately established federal jurisdiction based on the parties’ citizenship.
The complaint described QSR NY LLC as organized under Delaware law but did not identify its members or their citizenship. Because an LLC’s citizenship depends on the citizenship of its members, that information was required. The clerk had already issued a certificate of default against QSR.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Pennyfeather to file an amended complaint by April 9, 2025, identifying every QSR member and that member’s citizenship. She also explained that, if federal jurisdiction exists, Pennyfeather must serve the amended complaint and give QSR time to respond before seeking a default judgment.
The detailed version
- Pennyfeather v. QSR NY LLC · No. 1:24-cv-09922
- Valerie Caproni
- Mar. 31, 2025
Background
Aheem Pennyfeather sued QSR NY LLC, doing business as KFC, and alleged that the court had jurisdiction based on the parties’ citizenship. The complaint alleged that QSR was a limited liability company organized under Delaware law, but it did not identify QSR’s members or state their citizenship.
The court explained that a limited liability company has the citizenship of its members. To establish jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship, a complaint must identify the members of the LLC and provide the required citizenship information for those members, including any members that are themselves LLCs. On March 18, 2025, the clerk issued a certificate of default against QSR.
Order
The court ordered Pennyfeather to file an amended complaint no later than April 9, 2025, alleging the identity and citizenship of each member of QSR NY LLC. The court did not decide the underlying claims or enter a default judgment. It stated that, assuming the parties are diverse and the case is not dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Pennyfeather must serve the amended complaint on QSR and allow QSR time to respond before seeking default judgment. If QSR does not respond timely, the court directed Pennyfeather to consult Rule 4(H) and the judge’s individual practices for instructions on seeking default judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.