Kwoka v. DAngelo
- Subramanian
- 1:24-cv-02246
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kwoka v. DAngelo, Judge Subramanian ordered plaintiffs to identify Esme’s members’ citizenship or face dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
Mark J. Kwoka and Esme Private Label LLC must provide the required citizenship allegations; the complaint may be dismissed if they cannot truthfully allege complete diversity.
What happened
In Kwoka v. DAngelo, Mark J. Kwoka and Esme Private Label LLC sued Diane D’Angelo based on diversity jurisdiction. The complaint described Esme as a New York limited liability company but did not identify the citizenship of its members.
The court explained that a limited liability company has the citizenship of each of its members. A complaint relying on diversity jurisdiction must therefore identify the citizenship of every person or entity that makes up the company, including members of any member companies.
Judge Arun Subramanian ordered the plaintiffs to amend their complaint by April 3, 2024, to provide that information. If they could not truthfully allege complete diversity, the court said the complaint would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without further notice.
The detailed version
- Kwoka v. DAngelo · No. 1:24-cv-02246
- Subramanian
- Mar. 27, 2024
Background
Mark J. Kwoka and Esme Private Label LLC sued Diane D’Angelo. The plaintiffs invoked diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. They alleged that Esme Private Label LLC is a New York domestic limited liability company with its principal place of business in New York.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that a limited liability company is treated as a citizen of every state in which its members are citizens. A complaint based on diversity jurisdiction must therefore allege the citizenship of each natural-person member and, for any entity member, the entity’s place of incorporation and principal place of business. The complaint must also identify the citizenship of members of any member limited liability companies.
Order
The court ordered the plaintiffs to amend their complaint by April 3, 2024, to allege the citizenship of each person or entity comprising Esme Private Label LLC. The court stated that, if the plaintiffs could not truthfully allege complete diversity of citizenship by that date, the complaint would be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction without further notice to either party. The order did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.