IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) No. 12 C 5598

)

CAPITAL REALTY & DEVELOPMENT, )

LLC, an Illinois limited liability company and )

RICHARD P. TURASKY, JR., individually, )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM ORDER

U.S. Bank National Association ("U.S. Bank") attempts to invoke diversity-of-citizenship

jurisdiction to file this action against Capital Realty & Development, LLC ("Capital") and

Richard P. Turasky, Jr. ("Turasky"). Because that effort is impermissibly flawed, so that U.S.

Bank has failed to carry its burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction here, this sua sponte

memorandum order dismisses the Complaint and this action on jurisdictional grounds -- but with

the understanding that if the present flaws can be cured promptly, the action might then be

reinstated.

As to U.S. Bank itself, Complaint ¶ 1 properly identifies both components of its corporate

citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1). Nor is any problem posed by Complaint ¶ 3, which

alleges Turasky is an Illinois citizen. But all that Complaint ¶ 2 says as to Capital is this:

Capital is an Illinois limited liability company that maintains its principal place of

business at 385 Airport Road, Elgin, Illinois 60123.

As that language reflects, U.S. Bank's counsel has spoken only of facts that are

jurisdictionally irrelevant when a limited liability company is involved. Those allegations ignore

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nearly 14 years of repeated teaching from our Court of Appeals (see, e.g., Cosgrove v. Bartolotta,

150 F.3d 729, 731 (7 Cir. 1998) and a whole battery of cases since then, exemplified by White

th

Pearl Inversiones S.A. v. Cemusa, Inc., 647 F.3d 684, 686 (7 Cir. 2011) and by other cases cited th

there). And that teaching has of course been echoed many times over by this Court and its

colleagues.

This Court has a mandated obligation to "police subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte"

(Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 743 (7 Cir. 2005)). There is really no excuse for th

counsel's lack of knowledge of such a firmly established principle after well over a full decade's

repetition by our Court of Appeals and others. Hence it seems entirely appropriate to impose a

reasonable cost for such a failing.

Accordingly not only U.S. Bank's Complaint but this action are dismissed (cf. Held v.

Held, 137 F.3d 998, 1000 (7 Cir. 1998)), with U.S. Bank and its counsel jointly obligated to pay th

a fine of $350 to the District Court Clerk if an appropriate Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion hereafter

provides the missing information that leads to the vacatur of this judgment of dismissal.1

Because this dismissal is attributable to U.S. Bank's lack of establishment of federal subject

matter jurisdiction, by definition it is a dismissal without prejudice.

__________________________________________

Milton I. Shadur

Senior United States District Judge

Date: July 20, 2012.

That fine is equivalent to the cost of a second filing fee, because a new action would have 1

to be brought if the defects identified here turn out to be curable.

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