Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape v. Wayne Industries LLC
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:22-cv-00057
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape v. Wayne Industries LLC, Judge Engelmayer ordered jurisdictional details before deciding whether the case could proceed in federal court.
Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape and the defendants, including Wayne Industries LLC, because the plaintiff was required to clarify the LLC’s membership citizenship to establish federal jurisdiction.
What happened
In Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape v. Wayne Industries LLC, the plaintiff relied only on the parties’ citizenship to establish federal jurisdiction. The complaint said Wayne Industries was registered in Wyoming and did business in New York, but it did not identify the citizenship of Wayne Industries’ members.
The court ordered the plaintiff to file a letter by June 14, 2022, identifying the citizenship of any individual members and the incorporation and principal business locations of any corporate members. The court said the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if the plaintiff could not truthfully show complete diversity of citizenship.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer did not dismiss the complaint in this order. He gave the plaintiff an opportunity to clarify the jurisdictional allegations and warned what would happen if those allegations could not establish federal jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape v. Wayne Industries LLC · No. 1:22-cv-00057
- Paul Engelmayer
- June 9, 2022
Background
Antifun Limited T/A Premium Vape filed the operative complaint and asserted that diversity of citizenship was the sole basis for federal jurisdiction. The complaint alleged that Wayne Industries LLC was registered in Wyoming and did business in New York, but it did not allege the citizenship of Wayne Industries’ members.
For diversity jurisdiction, a limited liability company has the citizenship of each of its members. The court therefore could not determine from the complaint whether complete diversity existed between the parties.
Order
The court ordered the plaintiff to file a letter by June 14, 2022, clarifying the complaint’s jurisdictional allegations. The letter had to identify:
1. The citizenship of each natural person who was a member of Wayne Industries LLC; and 2. For each corporate entity that was a member, its place of incorporation and principal place of business.
The court stated that if the plaintiff could not truthfully allege complete diversity based on the citizenship of every member of the LLC, the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The order itself did not dismiss the complaint.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.