Developers Surety & Indemnity Co. v. Lewis Walker Roofing et al

Filing 4

ORDER striking 1 Complaint. Plaintiff shall file an amended complaint curing the shotgun nature of the Complaint and curing the jurisdictional deficiencies on or before June 16, 2015. See Order for details. Signed by Judge Marcia Morales Howard on 6/2/2015. (MHM)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

DEVELOPERS SURETY & INDEMNITY
CO.,
Plaintiff,
vs.

Case No. 3:15-cv-655-J-34PDB

LEWIS WALKER ROOFING, a Florida
corporation, LEWIS G. WALKER and
HEATHER C. WALKER, individually,
Defendants.
_____________________________________/

ORDER
THIS CAUSE is before the Court sua sponte. Federal courts are courts of limited
jurisdiction and therefore have an obligation to inquire into their subject matter jurisdiction.
See Kirkland v. Midland Mortgage Co., 243 F.3d 1277, 1279-80 (11th Cir. 2001). This
obligation exists regardless of whether the parties have challenged the existence of subject
matter jurisdiction. See Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405, 410 (11th Cir.
1999) (“[I]t is well settled that a federal court is obligated to inquire into subject matter
jurisdiction sua sponte whenever it may be lacking”). “In a given case, a federal district court
must have at least one of three types of subject matter jurisdiction: (1) jurisdiction under a
specific statutory grant; (2) federal question jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331; or (3)
diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a).” Baltin v. Alaron Trading, Corp., 128
F.3d 1466, 1469 (11th Cir. 1997).

On May 26, 2015, Plaintiff filed the Developers Surety & Indemnity Company’s
Complaint (Doc. 1; Complaint) asserting that the Court has diversity jurisdiction over this
action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. See Complaint at 3. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that
it is “a corporation with its principal place of business in California, and incorporated in Iowa.”
Id. at 2. Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant Lewis Walker Roofing, the “defendant
corporation,” “maintains its principal place of business in Florida.” Id. at 3. In addition,
Plaintiff states that the individual Defendants, Lewis G. Walker and Heather C. Walker, are
“residents and citizens of the State of Florida.” Id. Although Plaintiff adequately alleges its
own citizenship and that of the individual Defendants, it fails to properly identify the
citizenship of Defendant Lewis Walker Roofing. See generally id.
For a court to have diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), “all plaintiffs
must be diverse from all defendants.” Univ. of S. Ala., 168 F.3d at 412. Relevant to this
action, for the purposes of establishing diversity jurisdiction, a corporation “‘shall be deemed
to be a citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated and of the State where it has
its principal place of business.’” Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 81 (2010) (quoting 28
U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1)) (emphasis omitted). Here, although Plaintiff alleges Lewis Walker
Roofing’s principal place of business, Plaintiff fails to identify its states of incorporation.
Accordingly, the Court is unable to discern the citizenship of this Defendant. Thus, Plaintiff
has failed to allege sufficient facts for this Court to determine whether it has jurisdiction over
the instant action.
In addition, upon further review, the Court finds that the Complaint constitutes an
impermissible “shotgun pleading.” A shotgun complaint “contains several counts, each one

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incorporating by reference the allegations of its predecessors, leading to a situation where
most of the counts . . . contain irrelevant factual allegations and legal conclusions.” Strategic
Income Fund, L.L.C. v. Spear, Leeds & Kellogg Corp., 305 F.3d 1293, 1295 (11th Cir. 2002).
Consequently, in ruling on the sufficiency of a claim, the Court is faced with the onerous task
of sifting out irrelevancies in order to decide for itself which facts are relevant to a particular
cause of action asserted. See id. Here, each count in the four-count Complaint incorporates
by reference all allegations of the preceding counts. See generally Complaint.
In the Eleventh Circuit, shotgun pleadings of this sort are “altogether unacceptable.”
Cramer v. State of Fla., 117 F.3d 1258, 1263 (11th Cir. 1997); see also Cook v. Randolph
County, 573 F.3d 1143, 1151 (11th Cir. 2009) (“We have had much to say about shotgun
pleadings, none of which is favorable.”) (collecting cases).

As the Court in Cramer

recognized, “[s]hotgun pleadings, whether filed by plaintiff or defendant, exact an intolerable
toll on the trial court’s docket, lead to unnecessary and unchanneled discovery, and impose
unwarranted expense on the litigants, the court and the court’s parajudicial personnel and
resources.” Cramer, 117 F.3d at 1263. When faced with the burden of deciphering a
shotgun pleading, it is the trial court’s obligation to strike the pleading on its own initiative,
and force the plaintiff to replead to the extent possible under Rule 11, Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure. See id. (admonishing district court for not striking shotgun complaint on its own
initiative); see also United States ex rel. Atkins v. McInteer, 470 F.3d 1350, 1354 n.6 (11th
Cir. 2006) (“When faced with a shotgun pleading, the trial court, whether or not requested
to do so by a party’s adversary, ought to require the party to file a repleader.”) (citing Byrne

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v. Nezhat, 261 F.3d 1075, 1133 (11th Cir. 2001), abrogated on other grounds as recognized
by Douglas Asphalt Co. v. QORE, Inc., 657 F.3d 1146, 1151 (11th Cir. 2011)).
In light of the foregoing, the Court will give Plaintiff an opportunity to file an amended
complaint which properly establishes diversity of citizenship between the parties such that
this Court has jurisdiction over this action,1 and corrects the shotgun nature of the Complaint.
Accordingly, it is ORDERED:
1.

Developers Surety & Indemnity Company’s Complaint (Doc. 1) is STRICKEN.

2.

Plaintiff shall file an amended complaint curing the shotgun nature of the
Complaint and curing the jurisdictional deficiencies on or before June 16,
2015. Failure to do so may result in a dismissal of this action.

3.

Defendants shall respond to any amended complaint in accordance with the
requirements of Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

DONE AND ORDERED at Jacksonville Florida, this 2nd day of June, 2015.

lc11
Copies to:
Counsel of Record

1
The party seeking to invoke the Court’s diversity jurisdiction bears the burden of
establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the jurisdictional prerequisites are met. See
McCormick v. Aderholt, 293 F.3d 1254, 1257 (11th Cir. 2002); see also Taylor v. Appleton, 30 F.3d 1365,
1367 (11th Cir. 1994) (noting that the “pleader must affirmatively allege facts demonstrating the existence
of jurisdiction”).

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