Opinion
No. 07 C 5400.
September 27, 2007
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Al Reid ("Al") and his wife Cheri Reid ("Cheri") (collectively "Reids") have filed this action, respectively seeking damages for personal injuries and for loss of consortium stemming from alleged vehicular negligence on the part of Werner Enterprises, Inc. ("Werner") and its truck driver Robert Coulter ("Coulter"). This memorandum order is issued sua sponte because of obvious deficiencies in the Complaint's invocation of diversity of citizenship jurisdiction.
Although Complaint ¶ 1 properly identifies both aspects of Werner's corporate citizenship as called for by 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1), Complaint ¶¶ 4 and 5 refer only to Coulter's and Al's states of residence rather than states of citizenship, while the Complaint is silent in all respects as to Cheri. Although our Court of Appeals has said that plaintiffs' failure to identify diversity in proper terms by speaking only of the individual litigants' place of residence calls for dismissal of the action (Held v. Held, 137 F.3d 998, 1000 (7th Cir. 1998)), this Court is loath to force Reids' expenditure of another $350 filing fee to cure a defect that seems most likely to be capable of ready correction.
Accordingly Complaint ¶¶ 4 and 5 are stricken, but leave is granted to Reids to file an amendment to their Complaint (not a self-contained Amended Complaint, which is not needed) that substitutes proper state-of-citizenship allegations as to all of the individual litigants. If no such amendment is filed on or before October 8, 2007, this Court will be constrained to dismiss the Complaint and this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.