Zappin v. Supple
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:20-cv-05602
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Zappin v. Supple, Judge Schofield dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction but allowed amendment within 30 days.
Anthony Zappin’s federal complaint was dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, but he was allowed to amend it within 30 days; the defendants were not required to litigate the merits in this order.
What happened
In Zappin v. Supple, Anthony Zappin sued J. Richard Supple, Jr., and Hinshaw & Culberston LLP, alleging negligence, legal malpractice, and breach of contract. He represented himself and sought to proceed without paying filing fees.
Zappin claimed he was a West Virginia citizen and Supple was a New York citizen. But he did not provide the citizenship information required for the firm’s partners, so he did not show that all parties were citizens of different states. The opinion also notes that a substantially similar case against the same defendants was already pending in the Southern District of West Virginia.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield dismissed the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, while granting Zappin permission to file an amended complaint within 30 days. The court said it was inclined to transfer the case to the Southern District of West Virginia if jurisdiction were properly shown, and denied fee-free status for any appeal.
The detailed version
- Zappin v. Supple · No. 1:20-cv-05602
- Lorna Schofield
- July 27, 2020
Background
Anthony Zappin, representing himself, sued J. Richard Supple, Jr., and Hinshaw & Culberston LLP. He asserted claims for negligence, legal malpractice, and breach of contract and invoked diversity jurisdiction, which allows a federal court to hear certain cases between citizens of different states. The court had previously allowed him to proceed without prepaying filing fees.
The opinion states that Zappin had already filed a substantially similar action against the same defendants, and that the earlier action remained pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Jurisdictional problem
For diversity jurisdiction, the plaintiff must allege that the plaintiff and defendants are citizens of different states. The court stated that an individual’s citizenship is based on domicile. It also explained that a limited liability partnership takes the citizenship of each of its partners.
Zappin alleged that he was a citizen of West Virginia and that Supple was a citizen of New York. He described Hinshaw & Culberston LLP as a limited liability partnership organized under Illinois law with its principal place of business in Chicago, Illinois. But he did not plead facts about the partnership’s members or the citizenship of each member. The court therefore found that he had not shown complete diversity of citizenship.
Ruling
The court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(3). It granted Zappin leave to file an amended complaint within 30 days of the order, or to seek an extension for good cause. The court stated that if he did neither, it would enter judgment dismissing the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The court further advised that, if an amended complaint established jurisdiction, it was inclined to transfer the action to the Southern District of West Virginia because the substantially similar action against the same defendants had been filed there first. The court required Zappin to submit a declaration explaining any reason the case should not be transferred. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.