Mountains of Spices LLC v. Lafrenz

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Mountains of Spices LLC, No. CV-21-01497-PHX-JAT

10 Plaintiff, ORDER

11 v.

12 Sara Lihong Wei Lafrenz, et al.,

13 Defendants. 14 15 On September 2, 2021, and September 24, 2021, this Court required Plaintiff to file 16 supplements to the complaint establishing federal subject matter jurisdiction. (Doc. 8 and 17 10). Plaintiff filed those supplements. (Docs. 9 and 42). 18 Recently, the Court has been called upon to rule on several outstanding issues in 19 this case including a motion for default judgment, a motion to amend the complaint, and 20 three separate discovery disputes. In particular, the details revealed in the discovery 21 disputes regarding the parties to this case have again caused the Court to question its 22 jurisdiction. 23 Specifically, the facts underlying the discovery disputes suggest that all parties have 24 a close relationship either now or historically to a foreign country. This Court does not 25 have diversity jurisdiction over exclusively foreign nationals. See Faysound Ltd. v. United 26 Coconut Chems., 878 F.2d 290, 294 (9th Cir. 1989) (citing Cheng v. Boeing Co., 708 F.2d 27 1406, 1412 (9th Cir. 1983) (“Diversity jurisdiction does not encompass foreign plaintiffs 28 suing foreign defendants.”); Nike, Inc. v. Comercial Iberica de Exclusivas Deportivas, 1] S.A., 20 F.3d 987, 990-91 (9th Cir. 1994) (one United States citizen plaintiff or defendant || will not establish diversity if there is a foreign plaintiff and a foreign defendant). 3 The Court has again reviewed the second supplement regarding jurisdiction (Doc. 4|| 42) which claims, for example, that the sole member of Plaintiff is a citizen of New York. 5 || However, the supplement never claims that that person is a citizen of the United States. || Further, the person’s affidavit does not state that the person votes in New York or elsewhere || in the United States. (Doc. 42-3 at 103-104). Thus, this Court will again inquire into its 8 || jurisdiction. Therefore, 9 IT IS ORDERED that by April 13, 2023, Plaintiff must file a supplement to the 10 || second amended complaint stating the country of citizenship of all parties to this case so 11 || this Court may assess federal subject matter jurisdiction. 12 Dated this 30th day of March, 2023. 13 14 a 3 15 16 _ James A. Teil Org Senior United States District Judge 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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