Nunes v. NBCUniversal Media, LLC
- P. Castel
- 1:22-cv-01633
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Nunes v. NBCUniversal, Judge Castel ordered citizenship information and a complaint amendment to address diversity jurisdiction, or the action will be dismissed.
Devin G. Nunes and NBCUniversal Media, LLC; the order creates deadlines for jurisdiction-related information and amendment of the complaint.
What happened
In Nunes v. NBCUniversal Media, LLC, the court found that the complaint did not provide enough information to determine whether federal diversity jurisdiction exists.
The complaint alleged that Devin G. Nunes is a California citizen and that NBCUniversal Media, LLC is organized under Delaware law and has its principal place of business in New York. But the complaint did not identify the citizenship of NBCUniversal’s members, as required for a limited liability company.
Judge P. Castel allowed Nunes to serve a limited interrogatory seeking that information. NBCUniversal must respond within seven days, and Nunes must amend the complaint within thirty days or the action will be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Nunes v. NBCUniversal Media, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-01633
- P. Castel
- Mar. 2, 2022
Background
Devin G. Nunes sued NBCUniversal Media, LLC. The complaint invoked federal diversity jurisdiction, which generally requires the parties to be citizens of different states and requires the court to have the information needed to determine each party’s citizenship.
The complaint alleged that Nunes is a citizen of California. It alleged that NBCUniversal is a limited liability company organized under Delaware law with its principal place of business in New York. The court explained that an LLC has the citizenship of each of its members. The complaint therefore needed to identify the citizenship of NBCUniversal’s natural-person members and, if any corporation is a member, that corporation’s state of incorporation and principal place of business.
Order
The court did not dismiss the action at this stage. It allowed Nunes, within fourteen days of the order, to serve NBCUniversal with an interrogatory limited to the citizenship information needed to evaluate diversity jurisdiction. NBCUniversal must respond within seven days after receiving the interrogatory.
The court also ordered Nunes to amend the complaint within thirty days of the order to allege NBCUniversal’s citizenship. The order states that the action will be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if Nunes does not amend the complaint within that period.
Classification and effect
This is a procedural order because it addresses whether the federal court has jurisdiction and does not decide the underlying dispute. Judge P. Castel ordered jurisdiction-related information and a complaint amendment, with dismissal stated as the consequence of failing to amend.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.