Pursell v. Hydrochem LLC.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EARL PURSELL, III AND MONICA )

PURSELL, )

)

Plaintiffs, )

) Case No. 3:20-CV-01188-MAB

vs. )

)

HYDROCHEM LLC, ET AL., )

)

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BEATTY, Magistrate Judge:

On July 27, 2022, Plaintiffs Earl Pursell III and Monica Pursell, with Defendants

Hydrochem LLC, PSC Industrial Outsourcing, LP, and Phillips 66 Company, and with

Third-Party Defendants, Miller Environmental, LLC, and Miller Industrial Service

Teams, Inc., filed a Stipulation of Dismissal requesting the Court to dismiss Defendant

PSC Industrial Outsourcing, LP with prejudice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) (Doc. 143).

Pursuant to the Stipulation of Dismissal filed by all of the parties in the present

matter, Defendant PSC Industrial Outsourcing, LP, is DISMISSED with prejudice.1 The

1 At the July 19, 2022 Motion Hearing, the Court raised the issue of federal subject matter jurisdiction to

the parties, as this case is in federal court pursuant to diversity jurisdiction and the Court has an

independent obligation to continuously police its federal subject matter jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. §1332.

Jurisdiction is analyzed based on the events at the time the case is brought. If a case is initially filed in state

court and then removed to federal court, the time-of-filing rule means that the Court analyzes jurisdiction

at the time of removal, as that is when the case first appears in federal court. Hukic v. Aurora Loan Servs.,

588 F.3d 420, 427 (7th Cir. 2009). The Court assessed diversity jurisdiction when this case was first removed

to the Southern District of Illinois from state court and confirmed that complete diversity was present (see

Doc. 1, ¶¶ 4-10). Since then, there have been additional parties and claims added. Third Party Defendants

were added (Docs. 31 and 32) pursuant to this Court’s supplemental jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367. But

dismissal is pursuant to the to the Court's inherent authority to dismiss individual claims,

rather than Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). See Taylor v. Brown, 787 F.3d 851, 857 (7th Cir. 2015) ("Rule

41(a) does not speak of dismissing one claim in a suit; it speaks of dismissing 'an action'

which is to say, the whole case."); 9 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER,

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2362 (4th ed.) ("The power to drop some

plaintiffs or defendants from the suit plainly exists, either explicitly in the Federal Rules

or in the district court's inherent power.").

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: August 18, 2022

s/ Mark A. Beatty

MARK A. BEATTY

United States Magistrate Judge

these two entities are not considered in the context of the diversity analysis because they are added solely

for the purpose of third-party liability. See Kemper/Prime Indus. Partners v. Montgomery Watson Americas, Inc.,

487 F.3d 1061, 1063 (7th Cir. 2007) (“[A] defendant’s impleader under Fed. R. Civ. P. 14 of a party that is

not diverse from the plaintiff does not destroy jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(b)).”). And at the July 19,

2022 hearing, the Court verified that the addition of PSC Industrial Outsourcing did not divest the Court

of diversity jurisdiction because even though the Amended Complaint was silent as to PSC’s citizenship

(Doc. 68), PSC’s motion to dismiss confirmed that PSC is a foreign limited partnership (organized in

Delaware and a principal place of business in Texas). There are two partners that form this partnership and

each of the partners are corporations, which are, in turn, citizens of Delaware and Massachusetts for the

purpose of diversity jurisdiction (Docs. 112; 112-3). Plaintiffs are citizens of Louisiana and thus the addition

of PSC did not affect the Court’s diversity jurisdiction over the present matter (Doc. 1, p. 2).