S & P Investment Group, LLC v. Kingdom Materials Holdings LLC
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:20-cv-02112
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In S & P Investment Group v. Kingdom Materials Holdings, Judge Abrams ordered Kingdom Resources to disclose member citizenship so the court could check federal jurisdiction.
Defendant Kingdom Resources LLC was required to disclose the citizenship of its members and potentially the members of other limited liability companies in its ownership chain. The order also concerned the Court’s ability to determine whether it had jurisdiction over the action.
What happened
In S & P Investment Group, LLC v. Kingdom Materials Holdings LLC, the court said it needed information about the citizenship of Defendant Kingdom Resources LLC’s members to determine whether federal jurisdiction existed based on the parties’ citizenship. The court had previously ordered the parties to provide this information.
Kingdom Materials Holdings LLC and S & P Investment Group LLC submitted the requested information, but Kingdom Resources LLC had not done so. The court ordered Kingdom Resources LLC to provide a letter by January 20, 2021, identifying the citizenship of its members and, if any members were other limited liability companies, the citizenship of those companies’ members as well.
Judge Ronnie Abrams warned that failing to comply could result in sanctions. The order did not decide the underlying dispute or whether the court ultimately had jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- S & P Investment Group, LLC v. Kingdom Materials Holdings LLC · No. 1:20-cv-02112
- Ronnie Abrams
- Jan. 11, 2021
Background
On December 18, 2020, the Court ordered the parties to submit letters describing the citizenship of each member of their limited liability companies. The information was needed to determine whether the Court had diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Diversity jurisdiction generally requires every plaintiff to be a citizen of a different state from every defendant. For a limited liability company, citizenship is determined by the citizenship of its members.
Defendant Kingdom Materials Holdings LLC submitted its letter on December 29, 2020. Plaintiff S & P Investment Group LLC submitted its letter on January 5, 2021. Defendant Kingdom Resources LLC had not submitted the required information.
Order
The Court ordered Kingdom Resources LLC to submit, no later than January 20, 2021, a letter identifying the citizenship of its members. If any member was another limited liability company, Kingdom Resources LLC also had to provide the citizenship of that company’s members, continuing through additional layers of limited liability company membership as necessary.
The Court warned that failure to comply could result in sanctions against Kingdom Resources LLC. The order did not determine whether diversity jurisdiction existed and did not reach the merits of the parties’ underlying dispute.
Disposition
Judge Ronnie Abrams ordered Kingdom Resources LLC to provide the requested citizenship information. The opinion does not state that the Court imposed sanctions or made a final jurisdictional determination.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.