LINDENBERG v. ARRAYIT CORPORATION et al

Filing 7

OPINION FILED. Signed by Judge Robert B. Kugler on 9/13/13. (js)

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

(Doc. No. 27)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
CAMDEN VICINAGE
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Plaintiff,
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v.
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ARRAYIT CORPORATION, and
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ARRAYIT DIAGNOSTICS, INC., and
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AVANT DIAGNOSTICS, INC., and
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JOHN HOWELL, and STEVEN SCOTT, :
and GREGG LINN
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Defendants.
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___________________________________ :

TAMARIN LINDENBERG,

Civil No. 13-2515 (RBK/JS)
OPINION

KUGLER, United States District Judge:
This matter comes before the Court on the motion of Tamarin Lindenberg (“Plaintiff”)
for reconsideration of the Court’s May 7, 2013, Order. On that date, the Court dismissed
Plaintiff’s case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction finding that despite the Court’s articulation
of the pleading deficiencies in Plaintiff’s original Complaint, Plaintiff still failed to properly
allege the citizenship of any party named in the litigation in her Amended Complaint. Plaintiff
now argues that she did in fact properly allege each Defendant’s citizenship, but to the extent she
did not meet her obligations under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, she asks the Court to allow her to amend
her Complaint a third time to cure any jurisdictional deficiencies.
For the reasons expressed below, Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff first filed suit against Defendants on April 19, 2013, invoking the Court’s
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 28 U.S.C. § 1367. On April 22, 2013, the Court issued
an Order finding that Plaintiff’s Complaint failed to allege federal question jurisdiction and
diversity jurisdiction because Plaintiff’s causes of action appeared to arise under state law only
and she failed to properly allege the citizenship of both Plaintiff and all Defendants. (Order,
April 22, 2013.) The Court thus ordered that, on or before May 6, 2013, Plaintiff file an
Amended Complaint properly alleging the citizenship of every party and alleging that diversity
of citizenship did in fact exist between Plaintiff and Defendants, or properly plead an alternative
basis for jurisdiction.
On April 29, 2013, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint purporting to address the
jurisdictional deficiencies identified by the Court in its April 22 Order. On May 7, 2013, the
Court again found that Plaintiff still did not properly allege the citizenship of any party named in
the litigation (Order, May 7, 2013); accordingly, the Court dismissed this case for lack of subject
matter jurisdiction pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(3). On May 10, 2013,
Plaintiff filed the instant motion.
II.

LEGAL STANDARD
In the District of New Jersey, Local Civil Rule 7.1(i) governs motions for

reconsideration. Church & Dwight Co. v. Abbott Labs., 545 F. Supp. 2d 447, 449 (D.N.J. 2008).
That rule “permits a party to seek reconsideration by the Court of matters ‘which [it] believes the
Court has overlooked’ when it ruled on a motion.” NL Indus., Inc. v. Commercial Union Ins.
Co., 935 F. Supp. 513, 515 (D.N.J. 1996) (quoting local rule); see also United States v.

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Compaction Sys. Corp., 88 F. Supp. 2d 339, 345 (D.N.J. 1999) (noting that party seeking
reconsideration must show “that dispositive factual matters or controlling decisions of law were
overlooked by the court in reaching its prior decision”). “The standard of review involved in a
motion for [reconsideration] is quite high, and therefore relief under this rule is granted very
sparingly.” United States v. Jones, 158 F.R.D. 309, 314 (D.N.J. 1994) (citing Maldonado v.
Lucca, 636 F. Supp. 621, 630 (D.N.J. 1986)).
In order to prevail on a motion for reconsideration, the moving party must show: “(1) an
intervening change in the controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence that was not
available when the court [made its initial decision]; or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law
or fact or to prevent manifest injustice.” Max’s Seafood Café v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677
(3d Cir. 1999). Local Civil Rule 7.1(i) does not allow parties to restate arguments that the Court
has already considered. See G-69 v. Degnan, 748 F. Supp. 274, 275 (D.N.J. 1990).
III. DISCUSSION
In her motion for reconsideration, Plaintiff does not argue that there has been an
intervening change in the controlling law or that new evidence has become available, but rather
that she “can establish the third prong of the test for granting motions for reconsideration.” (Pl.’s
Mot. for Recons. 2.) Plaintiff then goes on to argue that (1) she did properly plead the
citizenship of the corporate Defendants because she identified their place of incorporation and
principal place of business, and (2) for each individual Defendant, although Plaintiff pled their
“residency” in lieu of their “citizenship”, she intended that the use of the term “residency” be

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synonymous with “citizenship.” 1 (Id. at 3.) Plaintiff’s arguments are not sufficient to satisfy
Rule 7.1’s high standard for motions for reconsideration.
As an initial matter, it is well established that “mere residency in a state is insufficient
for purposes of diversity.” See Krasnov v. Dinan, 465 F.2d 1298, 1300 (3d Cir. 1972) (citing
Sun Printing & Publ’g Ass’n v. Edwards, 194 U.S. 377 (1904); Smith v. Wildwood Linen, CIV
09-6512 (RMB), 2010 WL 2674503, at *2 (D.N.J. June 30, 2010). Plaintiff’s intent that her
wording be given a contrary meaning does not change the requirements she must follow in order
to invoke the diversity jurisdiction of this Court. Inasmuch as Plaintiff asks this Court to allow
her to amend her Complaint a third time so that she may substitute the word “citizenship” for the
word “residency”, she essentially concedes that the two terms are not synonymous and thus are
not equivalent means to the end of invoking federal diversity jurisdiction.
Second, although Plaintiff did allege that each corporate Defendant was incorporated in a
particular state, she did not set forth their respective principal places of business. (See, e.g., Am.
Compl. ¶ 6 (“Defendant AC is a life sciences company incorporated in Nevada with its
headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.”). 2 “A business organized as a corporation, for diversity
jurisdiction purposes, is deemed to be a citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated
1

Plaintiff also asks that if the Court is not inclined to grant her motion, that it clarify its May 7,
2013, Order to address whether this action was remanded to state court; it was not. See Bradgate
Assocs., Inc. v. Fellows, Read & Assocs., Inc., 999 F.2d 745, 753 (3d Cir. 1993) (standing for
the proposition that one cannot remand a case to state court that was originally filed in federal
court).
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Plaintiff’s allegations as to the other corporate Defendants are identical. (See Am. Compl. ¶ 8
(“Defendant AD is a life sciences company incorporated in Nevada with its headquarters located
in Sunnyvale, California”); ¶10 (“Defendant ADI is a medical technology company based on the
completion of the human genome sequencing project incorporated in Nevada with its
headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona.”).

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and . . . of the State where it has its principal place of business.” See Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt,
546 U.S. 303, 306 (2006) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1)). Thus, in order to properly allege a
corporate defendant’s citizenship, a plaintiff must not only allege its place of incorporation, but
also its principal place of business. The mere identification of a corporate defendant’s
headquarters, in lieu of its principal place of businesses, will be insufficient for the purposes of
establishing diversity jurisdiction. See Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 92-93 (2010)
(defining “principal place of business” as “the place where a corporation’s officers direct,
control, and coordinate the corporation's activities” and stating that “it should normally be the
place where the corporation maintains its headquarters—provided that the headquarters is the
actual center of direction, control, and coordination, i.e., the “nerve center,” and not simply an
office where the corporation holds its board meetings (for example, attended by directors and
officers who have traveled there for the occasion”).
Because Plaintiff has failed to establish that the Court made a clear error of either fact or
law that would merit reconsideration of the prior order, Plaintiff has not satisfied the standard for
reconsideration and the motion is denied.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

Dated: 9/13/2013

_/s/ Robert B. Kugler_____
ROBERT B. KUGLER
United States District Judge

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