I am working on a case to possibly file in federal court. There is an interesting issue with LLCs and citizenship for diversity jurisdiction purposes I thought I would share. In Harvey v. Grey Wolf Drilling Co., --- F.3d ----, 2008 WL 4194538 (5th Cir. Sept. 15, 2008), the 5th circuit joined the other circuits in ruling that the individual members of an LLC must be considered for diversity jurisdiction purposes. Short version of this is that you need to know the home residence of each member in order to see if you have complete diversity of citizenship. I have heard of at least one case in another circuit where no one caught this until the case was up on appeal. Result, everything from trial court vacated due to lack of jurisdiction and sent to state court. Did not hear if the statute of limitations had run. That would not be a pleasant conversation with either the Plaintiff or the insurance adjuster dealing with the defense attorney.
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