Zhuji Yuanjin Textile Co. Ltd v. Accessory Revolution Group LLC
- P. Castel
- 1:22-cv-06490
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Zhuji Yuanjin Textile v. Accessory Revolution, Judge Castel ordered citizenship details to establish diversity jurisdiction or face dismissal.
The plaintiff must obtain information about the defendant LLC’s members and amend the complaint; the defendant must answer the limited interrogatories within seven days. The case could be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if the amendment is inadequate.
What happened
In Zhuji Yuanjin Textile Co., Ltd. v. Accessory Revolution Group LLC, the complaint relied on the parties’ citizenship to invoke federal court jurisdiction. The court said the complaint did not identify the citizenship of the LLC’s members.
The court allowed the plaintiff seven days to serve a limited set of questions seeking that information. The defendant must respond within seven days. The plaintiff then has 30 days to amend the complaint with the required citizenship information for the LLC’s members.
Judge Castel ordered the plaintiff to provide those allegations and warned that failure to amend adequately will result in dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Zhuji Yuanjin Textile Co. Ltd v. Accessory Revolution Group LLC · No. 1:22-cv-06490
- P. Castel
- Aug. 17, 2022
Background
The plaintiff’s complaint was based on diversity jurisdiction, which allows a federal court to hear certain disputes involving parties who are citizens of different states or countries. The defendant is a limited liability company. For jurisdictional purposes, an LLC has the citizenship of each of its members.
The court determined that the complaint did not allege the citizenship of the defendant LLC’s members. The complaint therefore did not provide the information needed to determine whether diversity jurisdiction exists.
Information-Gathering Order
The court permitted the plaintiff, within seven days of the order, to serve the defendant with an interrogatory—a written question used in discovery—limited to the citizenship of all natural-person members of Accessory Revolution Group LLC. If a corporation is a member, the plaintiff may ask for the corporation’s state or country of incorporation and its principal place of business. The defendant must respond within seven days after receiving the interrogatories.
Amendment and Warning
The plaintiff must amend the complaint within 30 days of the order. The amended complaint must allege the state or country of citizenship of every natural-person member of the defendant LLC and, for any corporate member, the jurisdiction of incorporation and principal place of business.
Judge P. Castel did not dismiss the case in this order. Instead, he ordered the plaintiff to obtain and plead the missing information, warning that failure to amend the complaint adequately will result in dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
Disposition
The court ordered limited jurisdictional discovery and amendment of the complaint. The order warns of dismissal if the amended complaint does not adequately establish subject-matter jurisdiction.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.