26 Brix, LLC v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance PLC
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:20-cv-01782
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In 26 Brix v. Royal & Sun Alliance, Judge Chhabria granted defendants leave to amend their removal notice to clarify diversity allegations.
26 Brix, LLC and the defendant insurers and Lloyd’s syndicates were affected. The defendants may file the proposed amended notice of removal within 10 court days.
What happened
26 Brix, LLC, doing business as B Cellars Vineyards and Winery, sued Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance PLC and several Lloyd’s syndicates. The defendants removed the case from Napa County Superior Court to federal court, citing diversity jurisdiction.
The parties jointly asked the court to let the defendants amend their removal notice. They said the original notice adequately identified the jurisdictional basis but needed clarification about the citizenship of members of three Lloyd’s syndicates, because diversity depends on citizenship rather than tax residency.
Judge Vince Chhabria found good cause and granted the defendants leave to file the proposed amended notice of removal within 10 court days. The order said the amendment would correct defective diversity allegations and would not add a new basis for federal jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- 26 Brix, LLC v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance PLC · No. 3:20-cv-01782
- Vince Chhabria
- May 27, 2020
Background
26 Brix, LLC, doing business as B Cellars Vineyards and Winery, filed its complaint in Napa County Superior Court on January 31, 2020. The defendants served in the case included Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance PLC and multiple Lloyd’s syndicates. The defendants filed a notice removing the case to federal court on March 12, 2020, alleging diversity jurisdiction—the federal court’s authority over a dispute involving completely diverse parties.
The original notice alleged that the named defendants were citizens of the United Kingdom. For three syndicates—Lloyd’s Syndicate ACA 2014, Lloyd’s Syndicate TSS 1884, and Lloyd’s Syndicate AMA 1200—the notice described their members as United Kingdom tax residents with principal places of business in London. 26 Brix’s counsel later asserted that these allegations were inadequate because federal diversity jurisdiction is based on citizenship, not tax residency.
Requested amendment
The parties jointly stipulated to, and requested, leave for the defendants to file an amended notice of removal. The proposed amendment provided more detailed allegations concerning a Lloyd’s rule effective January 1, 2015. According to the stipulation, the rule required each member of every Lloyd’s syndicate to be either an individual United Kingdom citizen, a corporation organized under United Kingdom law with its principal place of business in the United Kingdom, or a United Kingdom partnership whose members met those requirements.
The parties stated that the proposed amendment did not assert a new basis for federal subject-matter jurisdiction. Instead, it was intended to clarify allegedly defective diversity-of-citizenship allegations in the original notice, which had been filed within the 30-day removal period.
Ruling
Judge Vince Chhabria found good cause to grant the request. The court granted the defendants leave to file the proposed amended notice of removal within 10 court days of the order. The order characterized the amendment as correcting defective diversity-of-citizenship allegations in the original notice.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.