Veoxo Corp. v. Affinity Internet, Inc.

Full title: VEOXO CORP., etc., Plaintiff, v. AFFINITY INTERNET, INC., Defendant

Court: United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division

Date published: Sep 11, 2007

No. 07 C 3229 (N.D. Ill. Sep. 11, 2007)

Opinion

No. 07 C 3229.

September 11, 2007

MEMORANDUM ORDER

MILTON SHADUR, Senior District Judge

Affinity Internet, Inc. ("Affinity") has filed its Answer, Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaim to the Amended Complaint filed against it by Veoxo Corp. ("Veoxo"). This memorandum order is limited to the subject matter jurisdictional question that has been posed by Affinity's assertions in Answer ¶ 3 — a subject that this Court must perforce address (even sua sponte) at the outset (see, e.g., Cook v. Winfrey, 141 F.3d 322, 325 (7^th Cir. 1998) and Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 743 (7^th Cir. 2005)).

In light of Affinity's assertions in Answer ¶ 3, an evidentiary hearing must be held to determine whether the "nerve center" of Affinity's operation at the time suit was brought was located in Illinois, so that it was an Illinois citizen under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1) — in which event the required diversity of citizenship would be destroyed. Accordingly this action is set for a status hearing at 9 a.m. September 14, 2007 to discuss setting the necessary evidentiary hearing.