Roberts v. Gitelis
- Jesse Furman
- 1:20-cv-09694
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Roberts v. Gitelis, Judge Furman ordered Roberts to clarify the parties’ citizenship and federal jurisdiction or face dismissal.
Louis Roberts must amend his complaint to properly allege the parties’ citizenship and the basis for federal jurisdiction. Justin Gitelis and Michael Gitelis are affected because the case may be dismissed if complete diversity cannot be truthfully alleged.
What happened
Roberts v. Gitelis concerns Louis Roberts’s lawsuit against Justin Gitelis and Michael Gitelis. The complaint apparently relied on diversity jurisdiction, but it did not state that basis for federal jurisdiction or properly allege the parties’ citizenship.
The court said that alleging Roberts maintained an office in New York and that the defendants maintained residences in Illinois was not enough to establish diversity jurisdiction. The court ordered Roberts to amend the complaint by November 25, 2020, to truthfully allege each party’s citizenship and provide the required jurisdictional statement.
Judge Jesse M. Furman did not dismiss the case in this order. He warned that if Roberts could not truthfully allege complete diversity of citizenship by the deadline, the complaint would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without further notice.
The detailed version
- Roberts v. Gitelis · No. 1:20-cv-09694
- Jesse Furman
- Nov. 19, 2020
Background
Louis Roberts sued Justin Gitelis and Michael Gitelis. The opinion states that Roberts presumably relied on diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, which allows federal courts to hear certain disputes involving citizens of different states, but the complaint did not state the basis for federal jurisdiction as required by Rule 8(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Jurisdictional pleading problem
The complaint alleged only that Roberts “maintains an office in... New York” and that the defendants maintain residences in Illinois. The court held that these allegations did not properly plead the parties’ citizenship or establish complete diversity of citizenship. The opinion also emphasized that subject-matter jurisdiction—the court’s power to hear the case—cannot be waived.
Order
The court ordered Roberts to amend the complaint by November 25, 2020, to properly allege the citizenship of every party and include a jurisdictional statement complying with Rule 8. Judge Jesse M. Furman did not dismiss the complaint in this order. Instead, the court stated that if Roberts was unable to amend the complaint to truthfully allege complete diversity of citizenship, the complaint would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without further notice to any party.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.