With more than $10 million on the line, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has instructed a district court to determine whether it has subject matter jurisdiction over a case involving a contractual dispute between limited liability companies, as the prevailing party has failed multiple times to establish citizenship of its members.
Without getting into the crux of the underlying dispute, the appellate panel solely addressed subject matter jurisdiction in BRT Management LLC v. Malden Storage LLC, a suit which was filed in January 2017, in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. However, the parties have been unable to establish that no defendant shares state citizenship with any plaintiff. In its May 22 opinion, the First Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment and instructed the lower to court determine whether it has subject matter jurisdiction.
