Opinion
No. 08 C 80.
January 7, 2008
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Org Portfolio Management LLC ("ORG") and Ironwood Real Estate, LLC ("Ironwood") have filed a Complaint against Urban Retail Properties, LLC ("Urban"), invoking federal jurisdiction on diversity of citizenship grounds. This memorandum order is issued sua sponte pursuant to this Court's obligation to police the existence or nonexistence of subject matter jurisdiction (Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 743 (7th Cir. 2005)).
All of the parties — ORG, Ironwood and Urban — are limited liability companies. Counsel for ORG and Ironwood, obviously aware of the principle set out in such cases as Wise v. Wachovia Sec., LLC, 450 F.3d 265, 267 (7th Cir. 2006), have gone beyond the jurisdictionally irrelevant information as to the place of formation and the location of the principal place of business of each of the parties to speak of the citizenship of their respective members. But it won't do simply to state, as Complaint ¶¶ 3, 4 and 6 do, the respective states of citizenship of the members in general terms. Instead counsel for ORG and Ironwood must specifically identify the members (whether individuals, corporations or perhaps themselves limited liability companies) as well as their respective states of citizenship.
As to Urban, Complaint ¶ 5 is stated only "[u]pon information and belief." Counsel is instead expected to exhaust publicly available sources of information such as corporate filings in an effort to get specific information as to Urban's members, rather than simply asserting a belief as to states of which those members are not believed to be citizens.
Accordingly counsel for ORG and Ironwood are ordered to file an appropriate amendment to the Complaint providing the necessary information on or before January 18, 2008. Counsel are further ordered to transmit a copy of that pleading to Urban (or to its counsel, if known) so that Urban's responsive pleading can address the Complaint as amended.