Gontz v. The Laundress, LLC
- Jesse Furman
- 1:25-cv-03588
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Gontz v. The Laundress, Judge Torres ordered an amended complaint identifying the LLC’s members’ citizenship to establish diversity jurisdiction.
Lindsay Gontz and The Laundress, LLC; the order requires Gontz to provide additional allegations about the LLC’s members’ citizenship and warns that the complaint may be dismissed if complete diversity is not alleged.
What happened
In Gontz v. The Laundress, LLC, Lindsay Gontz sued The Laundress, LLC, relying on diversity jurisdiction, which allows certain disputes involving citizens of different states to be heard in federal court. The complaint did not identify the citizenship of each member of the limited liability company.
The court explained that an LLC has the citizenship of each of its members. It ordered Gontz to amend her complaint by May 29, 2025, to allege the citizenship of every member of The Laundress, LLC.
The court warned that if Gontz cannot allege complete diversity, the complaint will be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The order was signed by Judge Analisa Torres.
The detailed version
- Gontz v. The Laundress, LLC · No. 1:25-cv-03588
- Jesse Furman
- May 8, 2025
Background
Lindsay Gontz brought the action against The Laundress, LLC, invoking diversity subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). The opinion states that the complaint identifies The Laundress as a limited liability company but does not allege the citizenship of each of its members.
Court’s Analysis
For a limited liability company, citizenship is based on the citizenship of each member. The court therefore required the complaint to allege the citizenship of every natural-person member and the relevant information for any corporate member. The order addressed the adequacy of the jurisdictional allegations; it did not decide the underlying dispute between the parties.
Disposition
The court ordered Gontz to amend her complaint by May 29, 2025, to allege the citizenship of each member of The Laundress, LLC. The court stated that if Gontz fails to allege complete diversity, the complaint shall be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.