MILTON I. SHADUR, Senior District Judge.
This action, originally brought by Delaware limited partnership Travelport, LP ("Travelport") against Pakistan International Airlines Corporation ("Pakistan Airlines"), involves an unbelievably convoluted set of entities whose citizenship is relevant to the diversity relied on by Travelport in coming to a federal court for relief. This Court issued early opinions (including one ordering a threshold dismissal on jurisdictional grounds, which this Court later withdrew when the expected cure for the original defective allegation was produced) that asked for the citizenship information called for where limited partnerships and limited liability companies are involved (see, e.g.,
Until last week the parties had indicated that settlement of the litigation was likely, dependent on the resolution of active related litigation in Pakistan. But at the previously-set June 7 status hearing Travelport's counsel advised that was no longer in the offing and tendered a motion for partial summary judgment. That has occasioned this Court's review of the bidding, which has disclosed the surprising news that the necessary federal subject matter jurisdiction over the case is lacking.
This Court naturally makes every effort to put subject matter jurisdictional confirmation at the top of its mental checklist — as
But here this Court confesses to having slipped a cog when, without Pakistan Airlines' opposition, Travelport added Travelport Global Distribution System B.V. as a second plaintiff.
SAC ¶ 3 as amended tracks the highly complex relevant citizenship of Travelport Global Distribution Systems B.V. (referred to there — and hence here as well — as "T.B.V.") as the earlier-cited caselaw defines it. And tracing through the maze disclosed there has revealed that for citizenship purposes T.B.V.'s grandchild entity Travelport Investor (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., a Luxembourg limited liability company, has as its own grandchild Travelport (Bermuda) Ltd., a corporation formed under the laws of Bermuda with its principal place of business in that country. Aqnd that is fatal to this lawsuit — as
Jurisdiction is jurisdiction — when absent, it cannot be conferred by consent of the litigants or by a court's glitch in having failed to catch that absence earlier. Hence this action is dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction.