Smart Shoppers NYC LLC v. Tylers Coffee LLC
- Nelson Roman
- 7:22-cv-04969
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Smart Shoppers BH LLC v. Tylers Coffee LLC, Judge Caproni ordered an amended complaint identifying LLC citizenship or dismissal without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.
Smart Shoppers BH LLC and the LLC defendants—Tylers Coffee LLC, Liftted Coffee LLC, and Resineater420 LLC—were affected by the order requiring disclosure of LLC citizenship for diversity jurisdiction.
What happened
Smart Shoppers BH LLC sued Tylers Coffee LLC and other defendants, claiming federal jurisdiction based on the parties' citizenship.
The court found that the complaint did not identify the citizenship of all members of the plaintiff LLC or of three defendant LLCs. It ordered the plaintiff to file an amended complaint by June 28, 2022, or the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
Judge Valerie Caproni issued the order on June 15, 2022. The order required more information; it did not itself dismiss the complaint.
The detailed version
- Smart Shoppers NYC LLC v. Tylers Coffee LLC · No. 7:22-cv-04969
- Nelson Roman
- June 15, 2022
Background
Smart Shoppers BH LLC filed a complaint against Tylers Coffee LLC, Liftted Coffee LLC, Resineater420 LLC, Tyler Ornstein, and Doug Harding. The complaint alleged that the court had subject-matter jurisdiction—the power to hear the dispute—because of diversity of citizenship.
Jurisdictional Deficiencies
The court explained that an LLC has the citizenship of each of its members. A complaint relying on diversity jurisdiction therefore must identify the citizenship of individual LLC members and, when members are business entities, the required information about those entities and their members.
The complaint identified Leivi Schechter as Smart Shoppers BH LLC's chief executive officer and part-owner and alleged that Schechter resided in New York. But it did not identify the citizenship of the plaintiff's other members. It also did not identify the citizenship of the members of Tylers Coffee LLC, Liftted Coffee LLC, or Resineater420 LLC.
Order
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Smart Shoppers BH LLC to file an amended complaint curing these deficiencies no later than June 28, 2022. The order stated that the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if the plaintiff did not do so. The opinion does not state whether an amended complaint was later filed or whether dismissal occurred.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.