Tosco Corp. V. Communities For A Better Environment

Tosco Corporation ("Tosco") claims that the district court has diversity jurisdiction over this action under 28 U.S.C. S 1332 because, under the "nerve center " test, its principal place of business is Connecticut. But we apply the "place of operations" test when a corporation conducts a substantial predominance of its business activities within a state. See Industrial Tectonics, Inc. v. Aero Alloy, 912 F.2d 1090, 1094 (9th Cir. 1990); see also Montrose Chem. Corp. v. American Motorists Insur. Co., 117 F.3d 1128,1135 (9th Cir. 1997) (district court abused its discretion in sanctioning law firm because a state arguably contained a substantial predominance of the corporation's business activity and firm's assertion of principal place of business was not completely baseless). The district court found that a substantial predominance of Tosco's business activities are conducted in California and, therefore, that California is Tosco's principal place of business. We affirm the district court's judgment dismissing Tosco's complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and adopt the district court's opinion, Tosco Corp. v. Communities for a Better Env't, 41 F. Supp. 2d 1061 (C.D. Cal. 1999), as our own. See Appendix infra.