Hubel v. Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-10285
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Hubel v. Drive Chassis, Judge Caproni ordered an amended complaint identifying the partnership’s partners’ citizenship or dismissal without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.
Duane Hubel must amend the complaint to allege the citizenship of Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P.’s partners. Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P. is affected because the court has not found that diversity jurisdiction is adequately established.
What happened
In Hubel v. Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P., Duane Hubel sued Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P. and alleged that the court had jurisdiction because the parties were citizens of different states. The complaint described the defendant as a Delaware limited partnership headquartered in New York.
The court explained that a limited partnership has the citizenship of all its general and limited partners. Because the complaint did not identify the citizenship of the defendant’s partners, it did not adequately establish the court’s authority to hear the case.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Hubel to file an amended complaint correcting the problem by December 13, 2022. She stated that the complaint would otherwise be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; the order did not decide the underlying dispute.
The detailed version
- Hubel v. Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P. · No. 1:22-cv-10285
- Valerie Caproni
- Dec. 6, 2022
Background
On December 5, 2022, Duane Hubel filed a complaint against Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P. The complaint alleged that the court had subject matter jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship, meaning that the parties were citizens of different states.
Jurisdictional Deficiency
The court explained that a limited partnership has the citizenship of each of its general and limited partners. Therefore, a complaint involving a limited partnership must allege the citizenship of its individual partners and, for corporate partners, their places of incorporation and principal places of business.
The complaint alleged that Drive Chassis Topco Parent, L.P. was a Delaware limited partnership headquartered in New York, but it did not allege the citizenship of any of the partnership’s partners. The court concluded that these allegations did not adequately establish diversity jurisdiction.
Order
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered Plaintiff to file an amended complaint curing the jurisdictional deficiency no later than December 13, 2022. The order states that the complaint will otherwise be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court did not rule on the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.