Venticinque v. Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-07497
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Venticinque v. Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC, Judge Caproni ordered an amended complaint addressing missing LLC-member citizenship allegations or dismissal without prejudice.
The order requires Gracеmarie Venticinque to amend the complaint; Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC faces dismissal of the complaint without prejudice if the deficiency is not cured.
What happened
In Venticinque v. Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC, Gracеmarie Venticinque filed a complaint individually and for a proposed class, claiming federal jurisdiction based on the parties’ citizenship. The complaint said Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC was organized under Delaware law and had its main office in New Jersey.
The court explained that an LLC’s citizenship depends on the citizenship of all its members. Because the complaint did not identify the citizenship of Back to Nature’s members, the court found that the jurisdictional allegations were deficient.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Venticinque to file an amended complaint curing the deficiency by September 13, 2022. The order states that otherwise the complaint will be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Venticinque v. Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-07497
- Valerie Caproni
- Sept. 8, 2022
Background
Gracеmarie Venticinque filed a complaint against Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC, individually and on behalf of a proposed class. The complaint alleged that the court had subject-matter jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship, which generally requires the relevant parties to be citizens of different states and requires the amount-in-controversy requirements to be met.
The complaint alleged that Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC was incorporated under Delaware law and had its principal place of business in New Jersey. The court explained, however, that a limited liability company has the citizenship of each of its members. A diversity complaint must therefore identify the citizenship of the LLC’s members, including the citizenship of members that are themselves business entities.
Issue
The complaint did not allege the citizenship of any members of Back to Nature Foods Company, LLC. The issue addressed by the order was whether the complaint adequately alleged the facts needed to establish diversity jurisdiction.
Order
The court ordered Venticinque to file an amended complaint by September 13, 2022, curing the jurisdictional deficiencies identified in the order. The court stated that if the deficiency was not cured, the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The order did not decide the underlying claims or the merits of the proposed class action.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.