Rajnee Huber and Thomas Huber v. Progressive Insurance Company

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico orders the plaintiffs to file citizenship disclosure statements under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7.1(a)(2). It permits the defendant to amend its notice of removal to adequately plead diversity jurisdiction, including the parties' citizenship, and warns that the action may be remanded if the amendment is not timely filed.

Holdings

1. A federal court has a sua sponte duty to determine whether subject matter jurisdiction exists.
2. A party invoking diversity jurisdiction must affirmatively allege the citizenship of each relevant party; it is insufficient merely to allege that a defendant is not a citizen of the same state as a plaintiff.
3. The court ordered plaintiffs to file citizenship disclosures under Rule 7.1(a)(2) and permitted defendant to amend the Notice of Removal to allege facts sufficient to establish diversity jurisdiction, subject to Rule 11.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the court had a sua sponte duty to examine the sufficiency of the alleged diversity jurisdiction.
2. Whether a notice of removal adequately invokes diversity jurisdiction when it alleges only that a defendant is not a citizen of a particular state rather than affirmatively alleging the defendant's citizenship.
3. Whether plaintiffs had to file citizenship disclosures under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7.1(a)(2) and whether defendant could amend the Notice of Removal to cure defective jurisdictional allegations.

Disposition

other