Clarke v. Marketaxess Corporation
- Denise Cote
- 1:19-cv-06471
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Jovanie Clarke v. Fisher-Park Lane Owner LLC, Judge Broderick dismissed the complaint for inadequate jurisdictional allegations, denied amendment, and denied a dismissal motion as moot.
Jovanie Clarke and the twelve defendants, including Smooth Operators Services LLC. The Amended Complaint was dismissed, while the order allowed Clarke to seek permission to file a further amended complaint within 30 days.
What happened
Jovanie Clarke sued Fisher-Park Lane Owner LLC and eleven other defendants, seeking money damages for injuries he said occurred when heavy server equipment fell on him. He claimed federal jurisdiction based on the parties’ citizenship.
The court found that Clarke alleged only his Connecticut residence, which did not establish his citizenship, and failed to properly plead the citizenship of the defendants. The court also found that the complaints were excessively long, unclear, and did not provide a short and plain statement of the claims.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick dismissed the Amended Complaint for failure to establish federal subject-matter jurisdiction, denied Smooth Operators’ motion to dismiss as moot, and denied Clarke’s motion to amend. The order allowed Clarke to file, within 30 days, a motion seeking permission to file a proposed Third Amended Complaint addressing the identified defects.
The detailed version
- Clarke v. Marketaxess Corporation · No. 1:19-cv-06471
- Denise Cote
- May 10, 2022
Background
Jovanie Clarke filed a negligence-based action seeking damages for serious personal injuries from a premises incident. His Amended Complaint named twelve defendants and asserted federal jurisdiction under the diversity-of-citizenship statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Clarke alleged that he was a resident of Connecticut and described the organizational status or citizenship of various defendants.
Smooth Operators Services LLC moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing in part that the Amended Complaint did not satisfy Rule 8 because its allegations were vague, incomprehensible, and nonsensical. Clarke then moved for leave to file a Second Amended Complaint. The proposed complaint was essentially identical to the Amended Complaint, except that one paragraph added that heavy server equipment fell on him.
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction
The court explained that diversity jurisdiction requires complete diversity between all plaintiffs and defendants and an amount in controversy exceeding $75,000. A plaintiff invoking that jurisdiction must properly allege citizenship. An individual’s residence alone does not establish citizenship. For corporations, the complaint must identify the state of incorporation and the principal place of business. For a limited liability company, the complaint must identify each member and each member’s citizenship.
The court found that neither the Amended Complaint nor the proposed Second Amended Complaint established diversity jurisdiction. Clarke alleged only his residence, not his citizenship. The court also found that the allegations about several defendants were incomplete or contradictory. For example, Smooth Operators was described as an LLC, a domestic corporation, and a foreign corporation, and the complaint did not identify the members and citizenship of the LLC defendants.
Pleading Deficiencies
The court separately found that both complaints violated Rule 8’s requirement for a short and plain statement showing entitlement to relief. Each was 97 pages long and contained 595 paragraphs. The court described them as excessively lengthy and appearing to contain conclusory recitations rather than sufficient factual allegations. Because the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction and the pleadings were unnecessarily lengthy, it did not conduct a full analysis of the underlying claims.
Disposition
Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered that the Amended Complaint be dismissed for failure to establish federal subject-matter jurisdiction. Smooth Operators’ motion to dismiss was denied as moot, meaning the court did not decide that motion because the complaint had already been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. Clarke’s motion to amend was denied. The order permitted Clarke, within 30 days after entry of the order, to file a motion seeking leave to file a proposed Third Amended Complaint that properly pleaded jurisdiction and addressed the excessive length and other pleading deficiencies. The Clerk of Court was directed to close all open motions.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.