Opinion
No. 03 C 709
February 5, 2003
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Longview Aluminum, LLC ("Longview") has brought this action against Alcoa, Inc. ("Alcoa") under the auspices of diversity jurisdiction, seeking what is characterized as "declaratory, injunctive and other relief." This memorandum order is issued sua sponte to require Longview's counsel to cure an obvious jurisdictional defect in its Complaint.
It might have been expected that an experienced firm of federal practitioners capable of producing such a well-drafted complaint would be well aware of a jurisdictional principle that has been well established for something over four years. But that is clearly not the case, for even though Complaint ¶ 2 identifies both facets of Alcoa's dual corporate citizenship under 25 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1), all that Complaint ¶ 1 says in purported reference to Longview's citizenship is this:
No opinion is expressed or implied here, of course, as to the substantive viability of Longview's claim.
Longview Aluminum, LLC ("Longview") is a Delaware limited liability company, with its corporate headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.
But ever Since Cosgroye v. Bartolotta, 150 F.3d 729, 731 (7th Cir. 1995) it has been clear that neither the state of organization nor the principal place of business of a limited liability company is at all relevant for diversity of citizenship purposes, Instead the determinative citizenship is that of each of the members of that entity, a concept that requires peeling through several layers if any of those members is in turn an entity other than an individual or a corporation.
Accordingly Longview's counsel are ordered to file an amendment to Complaint ¶ 1's first sentence (not a self-contained Amended Complaint, as some lawyers in other cases, exhibiting anticonservationist tendencies, have filed in the past) in this Court's chambers — with a copy being transmitted to Alcoa's counsel if known or, if not, to Alcoa itself — on or before February 14, 2003. If no timely filing were to be made, or if the filing were to disclose the absence of diversity, this Court would be constrained to dismiss both the Complaint and this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. But in anticipation that such would not likely be the case, this Court is contemporaneously issuing its customary minute order setting the procedures for and the timing of an initial status hearing date.