Constellation Agency, LLC v. DiverseNote, LLC
- Jesse Furman
- 1:22-cv-04630
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Constellation Agency v. DiverseNote, Judge Furman ordered plaintiff to amend its complaint to allege citizenship or face dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
Constellation Agency, LLC and Defendants DiverseNote, LLC, DiverseNote Enterprise, LLC, and DiverseNote Mobility.
What happened
Constellation Agency, LLC sued DiverseNote, LLC, DiverseNote Enterprise, LLC, and DiverseNote Mobility in federal court, relying on the parties being citizens of different states. The complaint alleged that Constellation Agency was a New York citizen and that two defendant companies were Michigan citizens.
The court explained that a limited liability company has the citizenship of each of its members. The complaint did not identify the citizenship of the people or entities making up the defendant companies, or the citizenship of all individual parties.
Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered Constellation Agency to amend the complaint by June 14, 2022. If it could not truthfully show that the parties had the required citizenship differences, the court said it would dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Constellation Agency, LLC v. DiverseNote, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-04630
- Jesse Furman
- June 7, 2022
Background
Constellation Agency, LLC brought the action against DiverseNote, LLC, DiverseNote Enterprise, LLC, and DiverseNote Mobility. It invoked the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction—the court’s authority to hear the dispute—based on diversity of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. The complaint alleged that Constellation Agency was a citizen of New York and that DiverseNote, LLC and DiverseNote Enterprise, LLC were citizens of Michigan.
Jurisdictional Deficiency
The court explained that a limited liability company is considered a citizen of every state where any of its members is a citizen. Therefore, a complaint relying on diversity jurisdiction must identify the citizenship of each individual member and the place of incorporation and principal place of business of any corporate member. It must also identify the citizenship of members that are themselves limited liability companies.
The court found that the complaint did not provide the required citizenship information for the people or entities making up the defendant limited liability companies, or for all individual parties.
Order
The court ordered Plaintiff to amend the complaint by June 14, 2022, to allege the citizenship of each person or entity comprising DiverseNote, LLC and DiverseNote Enterprise, LLC, as well as the citizenship of all individual parties. The order stated that if Plaintiff could not truthfully allege complete diversity of citizenship, the complaint would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without further notice.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.