1. How do you determine the principal place of business of a
corporation?
Could the underlying purposes of the diversity statute help you solve
this
problem?
2. P,
a citizen of California, sues the D
Corp. in federal
court in the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.) under state
law for
more than $75k. The suit concerns a faulty lighter that P
bought
from a store in the N.D. Cal. and blew up in P’s home in the N.D. Cal.
The D Corp. makes the lighters and is incorporated in New Jersey. The D.
Corp. has three of its four manufacturing
plants and 2/3 of its employees in Texas.
Its other plant
and around 1/4 of its employees are in Louisiana. Its
financial and administrative headquarters is in Los Angeles, in the
Central District of California, where the
President, Board of Directors and 1/12 of its employees are located. Is
this a
diversity case?
3.
P, who lives in the N.D. Cal., sues the D Corp. in federal
court in the N.D. Cal. under state law for more than $75k. The suit
concerns a
misrepresentation that the D Corp made from Texas
about a computer program that P bought on the phone from the D Corp.
while
calling from New York,
which was P’s
home at the time. (P subsequently moved to the N.D. Cal.) The D Corp.
is
incorporated in Texas.
It has 1/3
of its employees working phones in Texas;
the rest scattered throughout the country. The financial and
administrative
headquarters is in Los Angeles
(in
the Central District of California), with 1/12 of its employees located
there,
including its President. Diversity case?
4. P,
who is domiciled in DC, sues a law firm that has all but one of its 100
lawyers in
New York. The other lawyer lives and works in DC. Diversity case?