Mausner v. Mausner
- Jesse Furman
- 1:23-cv-00994
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Mausner v. Mausner, Judge Furman ordered an amended complaint alleging citizenship or said the case would be dismissed without prejudice.
Irena K. Mausner and Ian O. Mausner; the order required the plaintiff to correct the jurisdictional allegations before the case could proceed.
What happened
In Mausner v. Mausner, Irena K. Mausner sued Ian O. Mausner and claimed that the federal court had diversity jurisdiction because the parties were citizens of different states.
The court explained that alleging where the parties lived was not enough to establish their citizenship for diversity jurisdiction. It ordered Irena K. Mausner to file an amended complaint identifying each party’s citizenship by February 14, 2023.
Judge Furman ordered that, if the amended complaint did not establish the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, the case would be dismissed without prejudice and without further notice.
The detailed version
- Mausner v. Mausner · No. 1:23-cv-00994
- Jesse Furman
- Feb. 7, 2023
Background
Irena K. Mausner filed a complaint individually and as trustee of the Irena K. Mausner Revocable Trust U/A/D May 16, 2022. She sued Ian O. Mausner and invoked diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, which allows certain disputes involving citizens of different states to be heard in federal court.
Court’s Analysis
The court found that the complaint alleged only the parties’ states of residence, even though it stated that the parties were citizens of different states. The court explained that residence alone does not establish citizenship for diversity-jurisdiction purposes. Citizenship depends on domicile, meaning the person’s legally relevant permanent home.
Order
The court ordered Irena K. Mausner to file an amended complaint by February 14, 2023, properly alleging the citizenship of each party. The court stated that if she did not file an amended complaint establishing subject-matter jurisdiction, it would dismiss the case without prejudice and without further notice to any party. The opinion does not state that the case was actually dismissed at that time.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.