LEHIGH HOMESTEAD SHELL, LLC
v.
AMGUARD INSURANCE COMPANY
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court held that a defendant's supplemental removal notice was insufficient to establish diversity jurisdiction because it failed to adequately plead the domicile of the LLC's members.
Plaintiff sued Defendant in state court for breach of an insurance policy. Defendant removed the case to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Residency cases and more on FLexlaw
Defendant. /
ORDER1
Before the Court is Defendant Amguard Insurance Company’s Supplement to Notice of Removal. (Doc. 17). Plaintiff Lehigh Homestead Shell, LLC sued Defendant in state court for breaching an insurance policy, but Defendant removed the case based on diversity jurisdiction. (Doc. 1). The Court then ordered Defendant to supplement its removal because Plaintiff’s citizenship was unclear for two reasons. (Doc. 16). First, Plaintiff’s citizenship was pled as if it were a corporation and not a limited liability company (“LLC”). Second, the removal papers said nothing about the domiciles of the LLC members.
Sema Karagoz and “Mummer” Karagoz as authorized persons who live in Lehigh Acres, Florida. (Doc. 17-1). From there, Defendant asserts that “Mummer Karagoz” is merely a misspelling of Muhammed Karagoz. Even accepting Defendant’s new information as true, it isn’t enough to satisfy its jurisdictional burden. An LLC member’s citizenship is determined by his “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). It is not determined by residency. See Taylor v. Appleton, 30 F. 3d 1365, 1367 (11th Cir. 1994) (“Citizenship, not residence, is the key fact that must be alleged in the complaint to establish diversity for a natural person”). So Defendant offering a Florida address as listed on the
Annual Report (which predates this suit) shows residency—not domicile. Because residency is not enough, the Court remands this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F. 3d 405, 411 (11th Cir. 1999) (explaining that courts must “construe removal statutes strictly” and “resolve all doubts about jurisdiction .. . in favor of remand to state court’). Accordingly, it is now ORDERED: 1. This action is REMANDED to the Circuit Court of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Lee County, Florida. 2. The Clerk of Court is DIRECTED to transmit a certified copy of this Order to the Clerk of the Circuit Court of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Lee County, Florida. 3. The Clerk is DIRECTED to terminate any pending motions and close the case. DONE and ORDERED in Fort Myers, Florida on April 18, 2023.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Copies: All Parties of Record
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Taylor v. Appleton, 30 F.3d 1365 (11th Cir. 1994)
- McCORMICK v. Aderholt, 293 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. 2002)