MOGILLIS v. STRATEGIC RESTAURANTS ACQUISITION CORP

PETER BEER, Senior District Judge

Before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion to Remand, which is opposed by Defendants and which came for hearing on January 23, 2008. Upon consideration of the motion, the opposition, and the applicable law, the court denies the motion.

Plaintiff Derek Mogillis filed suit as a result of a an allegedly tripping on broken pavement in the parking lot while a customer at a Burger King restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana. Mogillis alleges that Defendants are liable for allowing the defective condition to exist. In addition to the naming Strategic Restaurant Acquisition Corp., AIG Casualty Co., and American International Insurance Co, (the foreign corporations) as defendants, Mogillis also named Burger King's District Manager, Terri Varnado, a Louisiana citizen, as a defendant. By amended petition Mogillis also named Burger King Manager, John Lanari, and Burger King Area Director, Walter Rogers, both Louisiana citizens, as defendants.

The foreign corporations removed the action to this Court, asserting diversity jurisdiction, and that the Louisiana defendants were improperly joined. Mogillis filed this Motion to Remand.

Mogilles does not provide this Court with any factual support indicating any of these Burger King employees owed or breached a personal duty to him, nor has he shown that these non-diverse defendants breached a duty through their personal fault, rather than their vicarious fault. As such, the non-diverse defendants in this matter were improperly joined, and complete diversity exists. See Hawthorne Land Co. v. Occidental Chem. Corp., 431 F. 3d 221, 224 (5^th Cir. 2005); Carter v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 2005 WL 1831092 (W.D. La. 2005).

Accordingly, the Motion to Remand is DENIED.