Opinion
No. 04 C 70S
January 30, 2004
MEMORANDUM ORDER
There is, in candor, no excuse for the filing by members of any law firm that practices with any frequency in the federal courts — or perhaps even by any law firm that does not and must therefore do its homework before proceeding with a federal court complaint — of a jurisdictionally defective complaint of the type that has just been filed here. For several years now our Court of Appeals has been identifying, with increasing impatience, the requisite allegations to establish diversity of citizenship where a limited liability company is involved — its efforts began with Cosgrove v. Bartolotta, 150 F.3d 729, 731 (7th Cir. 1998) and have been most recently repeated inBelleville Catering Co. v. Champaign Marketplace, L.L.C., 350 F.3d 691, 692 (7th Cir. 2003).
This Court will not however dismiss the present Complaint on that ground as it might well do, thus forcing the payment of a second $150 filing fee. Instead it grants leave to file an appropriate amendment to the Complaint (not a full-bore Amended Complaint) in this Court's chambers on or before February 9, 2004, failing which it would of course be constrained to dismiss this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
But because it would be unfair to visit the sins of the lawyer on the client, no charge is to be made to plaintiff by its counsel for the added work and expense incurred in correcting counsel's errors. Counsel are ordered to apprise their client to that effect by letter, with a copy to be transmitted to this Court's chambers as an informational matter (not for filing).