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Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-2442

STEPHEN R. WEST,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

LOUISVILLE GAS & ELECTRIC COMPANY,

Defendant,

and

CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS, INC., and SPECTRUM MIDAMERICA, LLC,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Indiana, New Albany Division.

No. 4:16-cv-00145-RLY-DML — Richard L. Young, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 15, 2020 — DECIDED MARCH 2, 2020

____________________

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit 

Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. This appeal presents a question about how 47 U.S.C. §541(a)(2), part of the Cable ComCase: 19-2442 Document: 45 Filed: 03/02/2020 Pages: 11
2 No. 19-2442

munications Policy Act of 1984, affects use of a utility easement in Indiana.

In 1938 a predecessor of Stephen West granted a perpetual easement to a predecessor of Louisville Gas & Electric 

Company, permicing it to build and maintain a 248-foot-tall 

tower carrying high-voltage electric lines. (Ownership of 

both the underlying land and the easement has changed 

hands since 1938. For simplicity we refer to the current owners.) In 2000 Louisville Gas permiced Charter Communications to install on the towers a fiber-optic cable that carries 

communications (telephone service, cable TV service, and 

internet data). Louisville Gas asked in 1990 for explicit permission to do this, and West refused. In 2000 it concluded

that the existing easement allows the installation of wires 

that carry photons (that is, fiber-optic cables) along with the 

wires that carry electrons. West disagreed and filed this suit 

under the diversity jurisdiction, seeking compensation from 

Louisville Gas, under Indiana’s substantive law, for the addition of the new cable.

Some time later West added Charter Communications, 

Insight Kentucky Partners II, L.P., and “Time Warner Cable” 

as additional defendants. As far as we can tell Time Warner 

Cable is a trade name rather than a juridical entity. There 

used to be a Time Warner Cable Inc., but it merged into 

Charter in 2016. We have omiced Time Warner Cable from 

the caption and do not mention it again, as trade names are 

not suable. See Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U.S. 21 (1986). Insight Kentucky Partners II also has disappeared by merger; 

its successor appears to be Spectrum Mid-America, LLC, 

which we have substituted in the caption, though Insight 

Kentucky Partners II remains relevant to jurisdiction.

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No. 19-2442 3

The district court granted Charter’s motion to dismiss on 

the pleadings, ruling that §541(a)(2) gives it a right to use existing easements dedicated to service as utility corridors. 

2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2832 (S.D. Ind. Jan. 8, 2018). But the 

judge denied Louisville Gas’s motion to dismiss, writing that 

some issues of Indiana law could not be resolved on the 

pleadings. 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2830 (S.D. Ind. Jan. 8, 2018).

West wanted to appeal immediately. But instead of asking the district judge to issue a partial final judgment under 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b), he dismissed his claim against Louisville Gas without prejudice, reserving a right to reinstate it 

after an appellate decision about his rights vis-à-vis Charter. 

We dismissed the ensuing appeal, observing that it has long 

been secled that parties cannot use a dismiss-and-reinstate

plan to circumvent the final-decision rule of 28 U.S.C. §1291. 

See West v. Louisville Gas & Electric Co., 920 F.3d 499 (7th Cir. 

2019). West then secled his dispute with Louisville Gas and 

filed a second appeal.

Unfortunately, the experience of having one appeal dismissed did not induce counsel to pay acention to appellate 

jurisdiction the second time around. Circuit Rule 30(a) requires the appellant to submit, bound with the brief, an appendix containing “the judgment or order under review”. 

Despite certifying compliance with this rule, West’s appellate lawyers (he has five) omiced the judgment. We tracked 

it down and found, to our surprise, that it does not mention 

Insight Kentucky Partners II or its successor. Appeal is possible only after final decision has been entered with respect 

to all litigants; that was the central point of our opinion dismissing West’s first appeal. Yet no one asked the district 

court to enter a judgment wrapping up the case, and no one 

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brought the problem to our acention either. When we pointed out the problem at oral argument, counsel seemed surprised. We suggested that they ask the district judge to enter 

a judgment covering all litigants, as they should have done 

before appealing. That has now been accomplished—though 

the district court named Insight Kentucky Partners II despite 

the fact that the merger preceded the judgment by five

weeks.

Having assured ourselves that we have appellate jurisdiction, we must turn to subject-macer jurisdiction. It’s easy 

enough to determine the twin citizenships of Charter Communications (Delaware and Connecticut). West is a citizen of 

Indiana, and Louisville Gas a citizen of Kentucky. So far, so 

good. But Insight Kentucky Partners II was not a corporation, so its citizenship depended on the citizenships of each 

partner—and if any partner is itself a partnership or limited 

liability company, then the identity of each member of each 

of these entities must be traced until we reach a corporation 

or natural person. See, e.g., Carden v. Arkoma Associates, 494 

U.S. 185 (1990) (citizenship of a partnership is that of every 

partner, limited as well as general); Indiana Gas Co. v. Home 

Insurance Co., 141 F.3d 314, rehearing denied, 141 F.3d 320 

(7th Cir. 1998). (It is the citizenship of Insight Kentucky 

Partners II rather than Spectrum Mid-America that macers, 

because subject-macer jurisdiction depends on the state of 

affairs when a case begins.)

West’s complaint treats Insight Kentucky Partners II as if 

it were a corporation. In this court he says that he recognized

that it isn’t one, but because he did not know the details of 

its ownership structure, that was the best he could do. It’s

not good enough. The district judge should have insisted 

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No. 19-2442 5

that all details of citizenship be established on the record but 

did not do so; as far as we can see the judge never broached

the issue.

Charter’s brief in this court tells us:

Insight Kentucky Partners II, L.P., and all but one of its members, and its members’ members, are Delaware limited liability 

companies with principal places of business in Stamford, Connecticut. The sole exception is member Advance/Newhouse 

Partnership, which is a New York partnership with a principal 

place of business in New York. None of Advance/Newhouse 

Partnership’s members, or its members’ members, are citizens of 

Indiana.

We’ve held repeatedly that there’s no such thing as a [state 

name here] partnership or LLC, that only the partners’ or 

members’ citizenships macer, and that their identities and 

citizenships must be revealed. See, e.g., Guaranty National Title 

Co. v. J.E.G. Associates, 101 F.3d 57, 59 (7th Cir. 1996). We do 

not blithely accept assurances along the lines of “no one on 

our side is a citizen of the opposing litigant’s state.” We’re 

especially unlikely to do so when the litigant describes a 

partnership as a limited liability company. Do Charter’s 

lawyers really not know the difference? It should have been 

enough for them to read Circuit Rule 28(a)(1), which provides among other things: “If any party is an unincorporated 

association or partnership the statement shall identify the 

citizenship of all members.” Charter’s brief does not comply 

with Rule 28(a)(1).

The court reviews jurisdictional macers before argument 

and directs parties to furnish missing details. We informed 

Charter that its statement did not comply with the requirements. In response—it said the same thing again! Counsel 

still had not complied with Circuit Rule 28(a)(1), which reCase: 19-2442 Document: 45 Filed: 03/02/2020 Pages: 11
6 No. 19-2442

quires the statement to “identify the citizenship of all members.” Nor was counsel familiar, at oral argument, with the 

Supreme Court’s insistence that only corporations receive the 

treatment specified by 28 U.S.C. §1332(c)(1), under which 

each corporation has two state citizenships (incorporation 

and principal place of business). Every other entity is transparent, and the court needs to know the citizenships of every 

partner or member, tracing through however many layers 

there may be. Compare Carden and Navarro Savings Association v. Lee, 446 U.S. 458 (1980) (the citizenship of a trust is 

that of its trustees), with HerI Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77 

(2010) (discussing the special rule for corporations). At argument we directed counsel to comply, at long last, with 

Circuit Rule 28(a)(1) and furnish the details that the Supreme 

Court has held are essential.

The jurisdictional statement that Charter filed in response 

to this order discloses that Insight Kentucky Partners II had

an ownership structure 14 [!] levels deep. It took Charter 

four single-spaced pages to identify the owners. Most of the 

names occur over and over. Having worked this through 

ourselves, and having concluded that there were 17 rather 

than 14 layers (that there should be difficulty counting them 

is one of many problems with the structure), we are left with 

the conclusion that every branch of the chain led to a corporation that is neither incorporated in Indiana nor has a principal place of business there. Complete diversity of citizenship exists, though the parties have wasted a good deal of 

judicial time on the road to this conclusion.

The 1938 easement grants Louisville Gas

a right-of-way and perpetual easement to maintain, operate, renew, repair and remove a line or lines of poles and towers and 

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No. 19-2442 7

all necessary equipment, wires, cables and appurtenances in 

connection therewith, for the transmission, distribution and delivery of electrical energy to the Grantee and other persons and 

concerns and to the public in general for light, heat, power, telephone and/or other purposes[.]

West maintains that the breadth of this grant, which includes 

“telephone and/or other purposes”, was narrowed in 1976

by a supplemental agreement that does not refer to telecommunications. But because the 1976 document begins by 

stating that “Grantors hereby convey and re-convey to the 

Company all rights heretofore acquired by the Company or 

its predecessors”, the remainder of the document necessarily 

leaves in place the “telephone and/or other purposes” authority. The district court thought that any other dispute is 

resolved by §541(a)(2), which reads:

Any franchise shall be construed to authorize the construction of 

a cable system over public rights-of-way, and through easements, which is within the area to be served by the cable system 

and which have been dedicated for compatible uses, except that 

in using such easements the cable operator shall ensure—

(A) that the safety, functioning, and appearance of the property and the convenience and safety of other persons not be 

adversely affected by the installation or construction of facilities necessary for a cable system;

(B) that the cost of the installation, construction, operation, 

or removal of such facilities be borne by the cable operator 

or subscriber, or a combination of both; and

(C) that the owner of the property be justly compensated by 

the cable operator for any damages caused by the installation, construction, operation, or removal of such facilities by 

the cable operator.

West does not contend that, when on his land to install the 

cable, Charter’s agents or employees caused damage within 

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8 No. 19-2442

the scope of §541(a)(2)(C). Instead West denies that the tower 

has been “dedicated for compatible uses”.

One might think as an initial macer that the question of 

“dedication” would be resolved between Charter and Louisville Gas. After all, the fiber-optic cable is located on Louisville Gas’s towers, and if it interferes with their primary 

function (transmicing electricity) then Louisville Gas might 

be entitled to compensation under §541(a)(2)(C) or the Takings Clause of the Constitution. But Louisville Gas is not 

protesting. The telecom cable on the towers does not cause 

any injury to West and is not a new “occupation” of his land 

for the purpose of LoreJo v. Teleprompter ManhaJan CATV 

Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982). The thing occupying some of 

West’s land is the 248-foot-tall tower, not any particular cable strung from one tower to another.

Indeed, there is not even an extra cable. There has always 

been a lightning-conducting cable at the top of the towers. 

Charter replaced that solid cable with a hollow one, having 

glass fibers on the inside and a metal layer outside to deal 

with lightning. The exchange required some foot and helicopter traffic, but the easement permits Louisville Gas and 

its agents to enter the land to renew and maintain the towers 

and transmission cables. Replacing a lightning cable with a 

lightning-and-telecom cable fits comfortably within the renew-and-maintain power. Information passing through a 

cable could not independently be a trespass, any more than 

it would be trespass if Louisville Gas wheeled electric power 

from some other company. Information passes across West’s 

land constantly: over-the-air radio and TV signals, cell 

phone communications (voice and data), microwaves, and 

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No. 19-2442 9

more. None of that differs from laser light travelling through 

glass fiber.

Still, West insists, the easement’s grant extends only to 

Louisville Gas and its successors (of which Charter is not 

one). He contends that §541(a)(2) can’t be used to allow a 

third party such as Charter to add even a new interior of a 

lightning cable to the towers, whether or not Louisville Gas 

is content with the substitution. West relies principally on 

decisions of other circuits, which he reads as holding that 

“dedicated for compatible uses” in §541(a)(2) means “dedicated to the public for compatible uses”—and whatever the 

1938 easement may do, it does not open the transmission

corridor to the general public. The cases West cites include 

Cable Arizona Corp. v. Coxcom, Inc., 261 F.3d 871, 874 (9th Cir. 

2001); TCI of North Dakota, Inc. v. Schriock Holding Co., 11 F.3d 

812, 814 (8th Cir. 1993); Media General Cable of Fairfax, Inc. v. 

Sequoyah Condominium Council of Co-Owners, 991 F.2d 1169, 

1173 (4th Cir. 1993); and Cable Investments, Inc. v. Woolley, 867 

F.2d 151, 155–59 (3d Cir. 1989).

Adding language to a statute—turning “dedicated for 

compatible uses” into “dedicated to the public for compatible uses”—is a legislative rather than a judicial task. It is not 

at all clear to us that the decisions to which West points have 

done any such thing. They arose from situations, similar to

LoreJo, in which a telecom operator wanted to add cables to 

the interior of dwellings that lacked them. The problem for 

the cable operators in those cases was that the owners had 

not dedicated their land for telecom uses. West, by contrast, 

has by contract (the easement) dedicated a big chunk of land 

to electromagnetic transmission. (The easement covers not 

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10 No. 19-2442

only the base of the tower but also 100 horizontal feet under

the wires, so that no other structure comes too close.)

The parties want us to read the word “dedicated” in 

§541(a)(2) as if it had a federal meaning distinct from concepts of property. Yet whether a given easement in Indiana 

dedicates a given corridor to a particular kind of use ought 

to be understood as a macer of Indiana law. See, e.g., Rodriguez v. FDIC, No. 18–1269 (U.S. Feb. 25, 2020), which discusses the strong preference for using state law to determine 

property interests. (Alternatively, one might say that federal 

law incorporates rules of state law on the macer, since there 

is no freestanding federal law of easements. Cf. United States 

v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 U.S. 715 (1979); M&G Polymers 

USA, LLC v. TackeJ, 574 U.S. 427 (2015).) It is easy to imagine 

a rule of state law under which only the most explicit language in an easement dedicates the land to any given use—

and it is equally easy to imagine a rule of state law that reads 

easements more broadly. Where does Indiana stand?

The answer is that Indiana is permissive. It treats easements as permicing new uses compatible with the original 

grant. See Howard v. United States, 964 N.E.2d 779, 783 (Ind. 

2012) (“a new use that is compatible with the original purpose

is within the scope of the easement”) (emphasis in original), 

relying on Fox v. Ohio Valley Gas Corp., 235 N.E.2d 168 (Ind. 

1968). “The owner of an easement, known as the dominant 

estate, possesses all rights necessarily incident to the enjoyment of the easement. The dominant estate holder may make 

repairs, improvements, or alterations that are reasonably 

necessary to make the grant of the easement effectual.” 

McCauley v. Harris, 928 N.E.2d 309, 314 (Ind. App. 2010) (internal citation omiced). See also Rehl v. BilleI, 963 N.E.2d 1 

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No. 19-2442 11

(Ind. App. 2012). What’s more, most states permit the holder 

of an easement to allow third parties to use rights available 

under the easement. See Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes) §5.9 (2000). We have not seen anything to suggest that 

Indiana would reject that principle.

So as far as we can tell, then, the use that Louisville Gas 

and Charter have jointly made of the easement is permissible 

under Indiana law. At least the air rights have been “dedicated” to transmission, and a telecom cable is “compatible” 

with electric transmission. Both photons and electrons are in 

the electromagnetic spectrum. Now that West and Louisville 

Gas have secled their own differences about the scope of the 

1938 easement, there is no basis for any relief against Charter. Whether other states’ laws, or other situations (such as 

an easement for a buried gas pipeline being used as the 

springboard for a cable company to build towers and string 

lines above the corridor), would justify a more restrictive 

reading of what has been “dedicated for compatible uses” is 

a question for some other case.

AFFIRMED

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