Opinion ID: 771612
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiff Claimed California as Principal Place of Operations in Previous Litigation.

Text: 40 Plaintiff ultimately undermines its own argument that its principal place of business is not in California because Plaintiff claimed that California was its principal place of business to successfully establish diversity jurisdiction in a 1995 case. See Tosco Corp. v. Sun Co., Inc., 1995 WL 165888 (N.D. Cal. 1995). Plaintiff now claims that California is no longer its principal place of business because of its corporate restructuring in 1995 and 1996. See Opposition, p. 6. Plaintiff contends that, since the 1995 case, it divided its business along functional lines and, consequently, moved its refining headquarters to New Jersey, moved its marketing headquarters to Arizona, and closed its refining administrative offices in California. 41 Although this Court recognizes a corporation's principal place of business can change due to such restructuring, Plaintiff's structural changes did not alter the aforementioned substantial presence of Plaintiff's employees, refineries, lubricant facilities, retail locations, convenience stores, income, sales, and inventories in California. Thus, as extensively discussed above, Plaintiff continued to conduct substantially more business activity in California than any other state even after its corporate restructuring. 42 Since Plaintiff's principal place of business is California, this Court lacks diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1332(a). Accordingly, this Court Grants Defendant's Motion to Dismiss without prejudice for proper refiling in state court. 4 43 IT IS SO ORDERED.