Texas Telemarketing Defendant Accused of Flawed Notice of Removal

A day after Mercantile Adjustment Bureau filed a motion to dismiss Sage Telecom’s telemarketing complaint for failure to state a claim (see 2212150047), Senior U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater for Northern Texas in Dallas signed an order Thursday (docket 3:22-cv-02737) warning Mercantile that its Dec. 7 notice of removal was defective. If it's not fixed in 14 days, Fitzwater will remand the case to the state court where it originated, his order said. Mercantile’s notice failed to allege its principal place of business and to allege the citizenship of all members of its limited liability company, said the judge. All federal appellate courts that have addressed the issue of LLCs “have reached the same conclusion,” said Fitzwater: that the citizenship of an LLC is “determined by the citizenship of all of its members.” Sage’s complaint alleges Mercantile engaged in “continuous and repetitive” telephone solicitations at least 187 times in the past two years to low-income households that subscribe to Sage’s wireless and broadband services, and did so without the required certification from the Texas secretary of state, in violation of the Texas Business and Commercial Code.