Terrell v. Revlon Consumer Products Corp.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-09008
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Terrell v. Revlon Consumer Products Corp., Judge Caproni ordered an amended complaint to establish diversity jurisdiction or face dismissal without prejudice.
Rhonda Terrell and the named defendants, because the complaint’s allegations establishing federal diversity jurisdiction must be corrected.
What happened
In Terrell v. Revlon Consumer Products Corp., Rhonda Terrell sued several defendants, including Strength of Nature Global, LLC. The complaint said the court had jurisdiction because the parties were citizens of different states.
The court explained that an LLC’s citizenship depends on the citizenship of its members. A diversity-based complaint must identify those members’ citizenship, as well as the required information for any corporate or LLC members. The complaint did not identify the members of Strength of Nature Global, LLC.
The court ordered Terrell to file an amended complaint correcting the problem by October 31, 2022. Judge Valerie Caproni stated that otherwise the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Terrell v. Revlon Consumer Products Corp. · No. 1:22-cv-09008
- Valerie Caproni
- Oct. 25, 2022
Background
On October 21, 2022, Rhonda Terrell filed a complaint against L’Oréal USA, Inc.; L’Oréal USA Products, Inc.; Revlon, Inc.; Revlon Consumer Products Corp.; Strength of Nature Global, LLC; Soft Sheen/Carson Inc.; and Soft Sheen Carson (W.I.), Inc. The complaint alleged that the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction was based on diversity of citizenship.
The complaint described Strength of Nature Global, LLC as a corporation with its principal place of business and headquarters in Savannah, Georgia. But it did not allege the citizenship of the LLC’s members.
Court’s Analysis
The court stated that a limited liability company has the citizenship of its members. For diversity jurisdiction, a complaint must allege the citizenship of natural-person members of an LLC and the place of incorporation and principal place of business of corporate members. It must also identify the citizenship of members that are themselves LLCs.
Because the complaint did not identify the members of Strength of Nature Global, LLC, the court found that the allegations were insufficient to establish diversity jurisdiction.
Order
The court ordered Plaintiff to file an amended complaint curing the identified deficiencies by October 31, 2022. The court ordered that the complaint would be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction if Plaintiff did not do so.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.