VAUGHN v. MGM RESORTS INTERNATIONAL
Filing
7
MEMORANDUM OPINION and ORDER that Plaintiff shall have an additional twenty days to amend his complaint. If Plaintiff fails to do so, this case will be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 1/8/2018. (rtm, )
8UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
NAT VAUGHN,
1:17-cv-11460-NLH-JS
Plaintiff,
MEMORANDUM
OPINION & ORDER
v.
MGM RESORTS INTERNATIONAL
doing business as
BORGATA HOTEL, CASINO & SPA,
Defendant.
APPEARANCES:
NAT VAUGHN
175 WEST 90TH STREET, #20-D
NEW YORK, NY 10024
Appearing pro se
HILLMAN, District Judge
WHEREAS, Plaintiff, Nat Vaughn, appearing pro se, filed a
complaint against Defendant, MGM Resorts International, d/b/a,
Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa (“Borgata”); and
WHEREAS, on November 28, 2017, the Court entered a
Memorandum Opinion and Order (Docket NO. 2), which granted
Plaintiff’s application to proceed without prepayment of fees,
but found that because the complaint did not properly state the
citizenship of the parties, subject matter jurisdiction had not
been established, and the Court therefore provided Plaintiff
with leave to file an amended complaint to cure that pleading
deficiency; and
WHEREAS, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint dated
December 22, 2017 (Docket No. 5), which the Court has reviewed;
and
WHEREAS, the citizenship of the parties remains deficient
in Plaintiff’s amended complaint 1; and
WHEREAS, Plaintiff avers that this Court has jurisdiction
over this matter based on the diversity of citizenship of the
parties and an amount in controversy in excess of $75,000,
exclusive of interests and costs, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1332(a); but
WHEREAS, even though it appears that Plaintiff resides in
New York, he has still failed to plead his state of citizenship,
see McCann v. Newman Irrevocable Trust, 458 F.3d 281, 286 (3d
Cir. 2006) (“Citizenship is synonymous with domicile, and the
domicile of an individual is his true, fixed and permanent home
and place of habitation. It is the place to which, whenever he
is absent, he has the intention of returning.”); and
WHEREAS, for Defendant, MGM Resorts International doing
1
Federal courts have an independent obligation to address issues
of subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte and may do so at any
stage of the litigation. Zambelli Fireworks Mfg. Co., Inc. v.
Wood, 592 F.3d 412, 418 (3d Cir. 2010).
2
business as Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa, Plaintiff’s amended
complaint states that Borgata is a subsidiary of MGM Resorts
International, and MGM Resorts International was incorporated in
1987, but Plaintiff must still specifically state what type of
entities Borgata and MGM Resorts International are (for example,
whether they are a corporation, limited liability company, or
some other form), and accordingly plead the citizenship of those
entities; and
WHEREAS, if MGM Resorts International is a corporation, the
complaint does not need to indicate the year the entity was
incorporated, but it must identify its state of incorporation
and its principal place of business, see 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1)
(“a corporation shall be deemed to be a citizen of every State
and foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the
State or foreign state where it has its principal place of
business . . . .”); S. Freedman & Co., Inc. v. Raab, 180 F.
App’x 316, 320 (3d Cir. 2006) (explaining that “[i]n order to
adequately establish diversity jurisdiction, a complaint must
set forth with specificity a corporate party’s state of
incorporation and its principal place of business,” and
affirming dismissal of complaint alleging that corporation
maintained “a principal place of business,” rather than “its
principal place of business”); and
WHEREAS, to the extent that Borgata or MGM Resorts are an
3
LLC, the citizenship of an LLC is determined by the citizenship
of each of its members, 2 not where it has a principal place of
business, or under which state’s law it is established, see
Zambelli Fireworks Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Wood, 592 F.3d 412, 418 (3d
Cir. 2010); Lincoln Ben. Life Co. v. AEI Life, LLC, 800 F.3d 99,
102 (3d Cir. 2015) (“We hold that a plaintiff need not
affirmatively allege the citizenship of each member of an
unincorporated association in order to get past the pleading
stage. Instead, if the plaintiff is able to allege in good
faith, after a reasonable attempt to determine the identities of
the members of the association, that it is diverse from all of
those members, its complaint will survive a facial challenge to
subject-matter jurisdiction.”);
THEREFORE,
IT IS on this
8th
day of
January
, 2018
ORDERED that Plaintiff shall have an additional twenty (20)
2
The law also requires that if a member of an LLC is another
LLC, a corporation, or a limited partnership, then each member
of the LLC, or each partner in the limited partnership, must be
identified and its citizenship pled, and for any such member or
partner that is a corporation, the state of incorporation and
its principal place of business must similarly be identified and
pled. See Zambelli, 592 F.3d at 420 (“[W]here an LLC has, as
one of its members, another LLC, ‘the citizenship of
unincorporated associations must be traced through however many
layers of partners or members there may be’ to determine the
citizenship of the LLC.”)(quoting Hart v. Terminex Int'l, 336
F.3d 541, 543 (7th Cir. 2003)).
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days to amend his complaint to properly comply with 28 U.S.C. §
1332.
If Plaintiff fails to do so, this case will be dismissed
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
See Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(h)(3).
s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.
At Camden, New Jersey
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