SCUOTTO et al v. LAKELAND TOURS LLC, et al

Filing 14

ORDERED: Defendant Lakeland Tours, LLC shall have until December 30, 2013, to provide the Court with sufficient information so that it can determine whether it has diversity jurisdiction over this action. See Order for details. Signed by Judge Marcia Morales Howard on 12/10/2013. (LPB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
JACKSONVILLE DIVISION
VINCENT SCUOTTO and CAROL
SCUOTTO,
Plaintiffs,
v.

Case No. 3:13-cv-1393-J-34JRK

LAKELAND TOURS, LLC, d/b/a
WORLDSTRIDES HERITAGE
PERFORMANCE, a Delaware limited
liability company, SMG, a Pennsylvania
general partnership, and SMG FOOD AND
BEVERAGE, LLC, d/b/a
SAVOR...JACKSONVILLE, a Delaware
limited liability company,
Defendants.
__________________________________/
ORDER
THIS CAUSE is before the Court on Defendant Lakeland Tours, LLC’s Brief on
Diversity of the Parties and Amount in Controversy in Order to Establish this Court’s
Jurisdiction (Doc. No. 13; Brief), filed on December 6, 2013. On November 19, 2013, after
reviewing Defendant Lakeland Tours, LLC’s Notice of Removal (Doc. No. 1; Notice), the
Court entered an Order (Doc. No. 9; Jurisdictional Order) noting that the Notice asserted that
the Court had diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332 but that Defendant
Lakeland had not properly established the citizenship of the parties or the amount in
controversy. Therefore, in its Jurisdictional Order, the Court directed Defendant Lakeland
to provide the Court with sufficient information so that it could determine whether it has

jurisdiction over this action. See Order at 8-9. Defendant Lakeland then filed its Brief to
address the jurisdictional issues the Court raised.
In the Brief, Defendant Lakeland sufficiently alleges that Plaintiffs are Florida citizens.
Brief at 3. As Plaintiffs are individuals,1 this representation is sufficient to establish their
citizenship. However, Defendant Lakeland also represents that it is a Delaware citizen
because its sole member is Lakeland Finance LLC and Defendant Lakeland’s “membership
is exclusively of Delaware citizenship.” Id. at 2. For purposes of establishing diversity
jurisdiction, “a limited liability company is a citizen of any state of which a member of the
company is a citizen.” Rolling Greens MHP, L.P. v. Comcast SCH Holdings L.L.C., 374 F.3d
1020, 1022 (11th Cir. 2004); see also Mallory & Evans Contractors & Engineers, LLC v.
Tuskegee Univ., 663 F.3d 1304, 1305 (11th Cir. 2011). Therefore, as explained in the
Jurisdictional Order, to sufficiently allege the citizenship of a limited liability company, a
plaintiff must allege the citizenship of each of the limited liability company’s members. See
Jurisdictional Order at 4 (citing Rolling Greens MHP, L.P., 374 F.3d at 1022); see also
Mallory & Evans, 663 F.3d at 1305. In representing that Defendant Lakeland’s sole member
is Lakeland Finance LLC and Defendant Lakeland’s “membership is exclusively of Delaware
citizenship,” Lakeland discloses neither the identities nor the nature of Lakeland Finance
LLC’s members. Without knowledge of the identity and citizenship of the members of
Lakeland Finance LLC, the Court is unable to determine whether complete diversity exists

1

To establish diversity over a natural person, a complaint must include allegations
of the person’s citizenship, not where he or she resides. Taylor v. Appleton, 30 F.3d 1365, 1367
(11th Cir. 1994). A natural person’s citizenship is determined by his or her “domicile,” or “the place
of his true, fixed, and permanent home and principal establishment . . . to which he has the intention
of returning whenever he is absent therefrom.” McCormick v. Aderholt, 293 F.3d 1254, 1257-58
(11th Cir. 2002) (quotation and citation omitted).
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between Plaintiffs and Defendants. See Underwriters at Lloyd’s London v. Osting-Schwinn,
613 F.3d 1079, 1092 (11th Cir. 2010) (remanding case in which party invoking the court’s
diversity jurisdiction did not disclose the identity and citizenship of each member of an
unincorporated entity); see also D.B. Zwirn Special Opportunities Fund, L.P. v. Mehrotra,
661 F.3d 124 (1st Cir. 2011) (requiring plaintiff LLC to identify its members and their
respective citizenship); Meyerson v. Showboat Marina Casino Partnership, 312 F.3d 318
(7th Cir. 2002) (instructing district court to remand action to state court where defendant
partnership’s jurisdictional allegations repeatedly failed to “tell us the identity and citizenship
of the partners in the two entities that own [defendant partnership]”). Indeed, without such
information, the Court cannot trace Defendant Lakeland’s members’ citizenship “through
however many layers of partners or members there may be.” See Meyerson v. Harrah’s E.
Chi. Casino, 299 F.3d 616, 617 (7th Cir. 2002); see also D.B. Zwirn Special Opportunities
Fund,L.P., 661 F.3d at 126-27 (“If even one of Zwirn’s members is another unincorporated
entity, the citizenship of each of that member’s members (or partners, as the case may be)
must then be considered.”); Zambelli Fireworks Mfg Co., Inc. v. Wood, 592 F.3d 412, 420
(3d Cir. 2010).
Defendant Lakeland appears to have understood its obligation to disclose the nature
and citizenship of the members of unincorporated entities as it provides sufficient information
as to the citizenship of each of the members of Defendants SMG and SMG Food and
Beverage, LLC. See Brief at 2-3. However, as discussed above, the Court finds Defendant
Lakeland’s representations as to its own citizenship to be insufficient to allow the Court to

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satisfy its obligation to assure complete diversity exists before exercising jurisdiction over
this action.
In light of the foregoing and “in the hope of preventing the needless expenditure of
litigant and judicial resources that occurs when a case proceeds to trial in the absence of
subject matter jurisdiction[,]” see Zambelli Fireworks, 592 F.3d at 419, the Court will afford
Defendant Lakeland another opportunity to provide the Court with sufficient information to
establish its citizenship and this Court’s diversity jurisdiction over the instant action.
Accordingly, it is ORDERED:
Defendant Lakeland Tours, LLC shall have until December 30, 2013, to provide the
Court with sufficient information so that it can determine whether it has diversity jurisdiction
over this action.
DONE AND ORDERED in Jacksonville, Florida, this 10th day of December, 2013.

lc16
Copies to:
Counsel of Record

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