DryTime Restoration LLC v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Company

• Court: District Court, W.D. Washington
• Decided: July 26, 2023
• Docket: 2:23-cv-00952
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

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5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE 9 10 DRYTIME RESTORATION, LLC, CASE NO. 2:23-cv-00952-LK 11 Plaintiff, ORDER TO FILE AN AMENDED 12 v. CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT 13 STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, 14 Defendant. 15 16 This matter comes before the Court sua sponte. Plaintiff DryTime Restoration, LLC’s 17 corporate disclosure statement, Dkt. No. 13, does not provide all of the information required under 18 Local Civil Rule 7.1 and necessary for the Court to determine if it has jurisdiction over this matter. 19 Federal courts “have an independent obligation to determine whether subject-matter 20 jurisdiction exists[.]” Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006). This determination is an 21 “inflexible” threshold requirement that must be made “without exception, for jurisdiction is power 22 to declare the law, and without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause.” Ruhrgas 23 AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 577 (1999) (cleaned up); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3) 24 1 (the district court “must dismiss” an action if it “determines at any time that it lacks subject-matter 2 jurisdiction”). 3 Federal jurisdiction exists over all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds 4 $75,000 and the action is between citizens of different states. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1). For diversity

5 jurisdiction to apply, however, there must be complete diversity among the parties, and, as a 6 general rule, if one or more plaintiffs are citizens of the same state as one or more defendants, 7 federal diversity jurisdiction is absent. Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U.S. 61, 68 & n.3 (1996). 8 DryTime Restoration, LLC is a limited liability corporation, which means it “is a citizen 9 of every state of which its owners/members are citizens” for diversity purposes. Johnson v. 10 Columbia Props. Anchorage, LP, 437 F.3d 894, 899 (9th Cir. 2006). DryTime Restoration, LLC 11 states that “there are no parent corporations or publicly-held corporations owning more than 10% 12 of its stock,” Dkt. No. 13 at 2, but it does not identify the members of DryTime Restoration, LLC. 13 This is insufficient. Local Rule 7.1 requires a party to identify any member of the LLC and for any 14 such member, “list those states in which the . . . members are citizens.” See LCR 7.1(a)(1), (b); see

15 also Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1(a)(2).1 16 DryTime Restoration, LLC is accordingly ORDERED to file an amended corporate 17 disclosure statement no later than August 2, 2023, complying with Local Civil Rule 7.1 and 18 naming—and identifying the citizenship of—every member of DryTime Restoration, LLC. Failure 19 // 20 // 21 // 22 1 The allegations in the complaint do not fill in the gaps. Therein, DryTime asserts only that its “members all reside 23 in Clark County, Washington” without specifically identifying them or their citizenship. Dkt. No. 1-1 at 3; see also Kanter v. Warner-Lambert Co., 265 F.3d 853, 857 (9th Cir. 2001) (for purposes of diversity jurisdiction, an 24 individual’s state citizenship is determined by one’s domicile or permanent home, not state of residence); see also Ehrman v. Cox Commc’ns, Inc., 932 F.3d 1223, 1227 (9th Cir. 2019) (“[R]esidency is not equivalent to citizenship.”). 1 to do so may result in sanctions or dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 2 3 Dated this 26th day of July, 2023. 4 A

5 Lauren King United States District Judge 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23