Over the last several weeks Judge Ozerden issued several orders requiring the parties to provide information on the identity and residency of parties to the case, including members of limited partnerships. Reviewing the parties’ filings, it appeared that the court may lose diversity jurisdiction over the case. That appears to have now happened, with Judge Ozerden entering this Order requiring the parties to show cause as to why the Court should not remand the case to state court on the basis that there is no diversity jurisdiction.

The reason for the Court’s conclusion that the case should be remanded is the fact that Wachovia and Sandion Coldwell Banker are both citizens of North Carolina. As a result, there is not complete diversity of citizenship. Although no party raised this issue, federal courts monitor jurisdiction and sometimes remand cases on their own.

For practical purposes, once the case is remanded to state court it will proceed much like it would if it stayed in federal court. But the case will be much harder to monitor, since unlike in federal courts, state court records are not available to the public on-line. Although the court file will still be public record and available for inspection at the clerk’s office, I will not be in a position to monitor filings like if the case stayed in federal court. This is an unfortunate development for people following the litigation on this blog, since the Sun Herald stopped covering the litigation after an initial article several months ago. I will continue to monitor the Lawyer’s Title action and post updates about it as warranted. In addition, I will continue to monitor the federal court filings for new actions related to the Colson litigation, which I expect.