Civil Procedure – Diversity; Foreign Corporation 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, May 31, 2010
By Minnesota Lawyer
Tags: Civil Procedure

Where plaintiffs are incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and have their principal place of business in Connecticut; and plaintiffs have sued investment fund managers and an outside auditor with citizenship in Minnesota, Delaware and Bermuda; the court concludes that it cannot exercise diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1332(a)(3), which confers jurisdiction where a dispute is between “citizens of different States and in which citizens or subjects of a foreign state are additional parties,” because this section does not confer jurisdiction where the only plaintiffs are foreign corporations. “Plaintiffs obviously chose to incorporate in the British Virgin Islands for a reason, yet they ask the Court to pretend Connecticut is their sole citizenship for diversity purposes. . . . [T]his Court holds it must consider each plaintiff’s dual citizenship when deciding whether diversity jurisdiction exists.”