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California Federal Court Decides It Lacks Diversity Jurisdiction over Company that Garth Brooks Started in Tennessee
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California decided it lacked diversity jurisdiction over a suit filed by the former general manager of Red Strokes Entertainment, a production company Garth Brooks owned. Sanderson v. Brooks, CV13-03497. Red Strokes, which was incorporated in Tennessee, closed in 2011. After Lisa Sanderson, who worked for Red Strokes primarily from Los Angeles, sued in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging Red Strokes owed payments to her, Brooks had the case removed to federal court. (In a related suit by Brooks and Red Strokes against Sanderson in the Middle District of Tennessee, the Nashville federal court decided it has diversity jurisdiction. Red Strokes Entertainment Inc. v. Sanderson, 3:12-cv-0008.) California federal District Judge Otis D. Wright noted that “a 'last principal place of business' approach is the best determination of an inactive corporation's citizenship. Because Red Strokes's last principal place of business while it was active was in California, complete diversity is lacking between Red Strokes and Sanderson.” The district judge added: “Brooks alleges that because he lived in Nashville from 1994 to 2000, Red Strokes's business decisions were made in Nashville. But this assertion is limited until 2000.” Judge Wright thus sent Sanderson's suit back to Los Angeles County Superior Court.
A federal magistrate decided that the depositions of two NBC representatives in a suit filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana should be held one at NBC's offices in New York, the other at NBC's offices in Los Angeles. Asevedo v. NBCUniversal Media LLC, 12-2005 (E.D.La. 2013). Louisiana resident Preston Asevedo alleged copyright infringement, unfair competition, negligence and unjust enrichment over the use of his artwork “Comedy Tragedy Skulls” in the SYFY network reality-TV show Dream Machines. (The copyright to Asevedo's artwork is now in the hands of a bankruptcy trustee.) Quashing Asevedo's bid to hold the depositions in Louisiana, Eastern District of Louisiana Magistrate Daniel E. Knowles III noted that a deposition conducted by a plaintiff presumptively is to occur at a defendant company's business headquarters. In Asevedo , Magistrate Knowles explained: “Neither NBC defendant [ i.e. , NBC Universal or SYFY Media] has an agent in this district, and both [of the representatives to be deposed] are located at their principal places of business. Significant discovery disputes may arise given the numerous discovery disputes that have already arisen and that this Court has resolved. But that is nothing that a telephone call to the Court cannot fix '”
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