Opinion ID: 771612
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Executive and administrative offices

Text: 37 Plaintiff contends that its executive and administrative functions are plainly located outside of California. Id. at p. 6. Plaintiff's principal corporate headquarters is located in Stamford, Connecticut. See id. Plaintiff's refining company headquarters is located in Linden, New Jersey, and its marketing headquarters is located in Phoenix, Arizona. See id. However, not all of Plaintiff's executive and administrative offices are located outside of California. Plaintiff's lubricant company headquarters is located in Costa Mesa, California. See Declaration of R. Drury, Exhibit P (p. 314). 38 This Court finds that Plaintiff has failed to show that no state contains a substantial predominance of its corporate operations. In fact, Plaintiff conducts a substantial predominance of its business activity in California. Despite having operations and executive offices in other parts of the United States, Plaintiff's presence in California significantly outweighs its presence in any other state. Therefore, the place of operations test, not the nerve center test, applies to determine Plaintiff's principal place of business, which is California. Accordingly, Plaintiff and Defendant are not diverse parties and cannot, therefore, invoke the subject matter jurisdiction of this Court. The purpose of diversity jurisdiction is to provide a federal forum for out-of-state litigants where they are free from prejudice in favor of a local litigant. J.A. Olson Co. v. City of Winona, 818 F.2d 401, 404 (5th Cir.1987). Plaintiff, as a major employer and business operator in California, is not the type of litigant that diversity jurisdiction was designed to protect. 39