Zuckerberg's Residence at Issue in Facebook Suit

Basically, federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and, unless a case presents a cognizable federal claim or unless some other limited ground for federal jurisdiction exists (such as diversity of citizenship among the parties), the federal court will lack jurisdiction and the case must be remanded for processing and eventual trial in the state court from which it originated.

For diversity jurisdiction to exist, there must be complete diversity of citizenship among the parties, meaning that all defendants must be citizens of some state other than that of the local jurisdiction (here, New York). Facebook is a Delaware corporation with its principal operations in California and therefore is diverse from Mr. Ceglia, who is a New York resident. Mr. Zuckerberg argues that he is a resident of California, having lived here since 2004 to drive his company's growth. In his motion to get the case remanded to state court, Mr. Ceglia argues that Mr. Zuckerberg is in fact a New York resident and that this fact defeats federal diversity jurisdiction, necessitating that the federal court grant his motion to remand.

For a bit of editorializing, I would add (as one who has been highly skeptical of this case) that this strikes me as a rather desperate attempt by the plaintiff to get the case into a forum that might offer up more hope than would a federal court for getting jackpot justice. The argument on the technical point at issue is that Mr. Zuckerberg should be considered a resident of New York even though he has lived continuously in California for the last 5 years, has voted there, pays taxes there, etc. because he was held by a different court to be a New York resident in 2004 and because he allegedly "lives out of a suitcase" and has done nothing to establish a true residence elsewhere since that time. This sort of argument, in my mind, in on par with the rest of this case - essentially a wild swing that reflects an underlying position that is fundamentally unsound.

Time will tell as to the overall case but, as to this motion, I see it as basically frivolous. Whether the overall case is meritorious or not, it will almost certainly be fought out in the federal court and not in a state forum in which Mr. Ceglia evidently hopes that looser standards might apply.

Since when is personally owning property a condition of running a company?

Six. They could have just said six.