process service NOT done properly ” should have used Liar Catchers “

OPINION AND ORDER

BARBARA B. CRABB, District Judge.
In this civil suit for damages and injunctive relief, plaintiffs Barbara Michalczyk and WBAJ, Ltd., shareholders of defendant Baraboo, Inn, Inc., contend that defendants Jerry Maslyk and Elizabeth Wdowiak have mismanaged defendants Baraboo Inn, Inc. and Bonzos, Inc. by appropriating corporate earnings for personal use, using corporate personnel for non-corporate endeavors, failing to hold shareholder meetings, eliminating payment of dividends to plaintiffs and failing to pay mortgage payments and real estate taxes. Plaintiffs filed this suit on July 18, 2011, seeking various forms of relief, including an order enjoining defendants from managing Baraboo Inn, an order dissolving Baraboo Inn, Inc. under Wis. Stat. § 180.1430(2), an order appointing a receiver under Wis. Stat. § 180.1432 and monetary damages. Plaintiffs also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, which I denied in an order dated July 19, 2011. In that order, I concluded that plaintiffs’ motion had no merit. Additionally, I noted that the jurisdictional allegations in plaintiffs’ complaint were inadequate.
Plaintiffs allege that this court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1) because the parties are completely diverse and the matter in controversy exceeds $75,000. However, plaintiffs had failed to identify their own citizenship properly, alleging only that plaintiff Barbara Michalczyk is a “resident” of Illinois and that plaintiff WBAJ, Ltd. is an Illinois corporation. As I explained in the July 19 order, these allegations are inadequate because plaintiffs failed to identify Michalczyk’s citizenship and failed to identify WBAJ, Ltd.’s principal place of business. Meyerson v. Harrah’s East Chicago Casino, 299 F.3d 616, 617 (7th Cir. 2002) (holding that it is citizenship, not residency, of individual persons that matters for diversity jurisdiction purposes); 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1) (corporation is “citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated and of the State where it has its principal place of business”). Similarly, plaintiffs had failed to identify the citizenship of defendants Jerry Maslyk and Elizabeth Wdowiak and had failed to identify the state of incorporation and principal places of business for defendants Baraboo Inn, Inc. and Bonzos, Inc.

http://liarcatchers.com/process_service.html

Although it has been more than three months since I explained the deficiencies in plaintiffs’ jurisdictional allegations, plaintiffs have failed to submit any additional information regarding the parties’ citizenship. Plaintiffs should have provided this information to court as soon as possible after the July 19 order. However, because I did not give plaintiffs a deadline in that order by which they were required to provide this jurisdictional information, I will give them one more opportunity to do so.
Plaintiffs’ jurisdictional allegations are not the only problem in this case. Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss the case under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(5) for insufficient service of process, dkt. #13, and after reviewing the motion I agree that plaintiffs have failed to serve defendants properly. On August 8, 2011, a process server brought copies of the summons and complaint to the Best Western Baraboo Inn in West Baraboo, Wisconsin. The employee working at the front counter did not have authority to accept service on behalf of any defendant and said so to the process server. Nonetheless, the process server placed the summons on the counter and left. Plaintiffs filed affidavits of service with the court for all of the plaintiffs on September 2, 2011.
The service requirements are set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 4. Rule 4(e) sets out the rules governing service of process on an individual, allowing parties to accomplish service by

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