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19-883

People’s Club of Nigeria Int’l v. People’s Club of Nigeria Int’l – N.Y. Branch

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. 

CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS 

PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE 

PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A 

SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY 

MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE 

(WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY 

ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY 

COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 

held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the 

City of New York, on the 22nd day of July, two thousand twenty.

PRESENT: PETER W. HALL,

JOSEPH F. BIANCO,

Circuit Judges.

TIMOTHY STANCEU,*

Judge.

_____________________________________

Peoples Club of Nigeria International, Inc.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. 19-883

* Chief Judge Timothy C. Stanceu, of the United States Court of International Trade, 

sitting by designation.
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Peoples Club of Nigeria International – New York 

Branch, Inc., Peoples Club of Nigeria Princeton 

Branch, Inc., Godfrey R. Ajoku, Francis Owoh, 

Polycarp Z. Ubah,

Defendants-Appellees,

People’s Club of Nigeria International – New York 

Chapter, Inc., People’s Club of Nigeria, Princeton 

Junction Branch, Inc., 

Defendants. 

_____________________________________

For Appellant: DANIEL J. KRISCH, Halloran & Sage LLP, 

Hartford, Connecticut.

For Appellees: ERIN K. FLYNN, Clair & Gjertsen, White 

Plains, New York.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of 

Connecticut (Bryant, J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, 

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is 

VACATED.

People’s Club of Nigeria International, Inc. (“People’s Club”) appeals from 

a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut

(Bryant, J.) entered on April 2, 2019, dismissing People’s Club’s amended 
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complaint for failure to allege sufficient damages to meet the $75,000 amount in 

controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction. We assume the parties’ 

familiarity with the underlying facts, the record of prior proceedings, and 

arguments on appeal, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision 

to vacate.

I.

All factual allegations are taken from the amended complaint, and we 

assume these factual allegations to be true for the purposes of this appeal. See 

Pension Ben. Guar. Corp. ex rel. St. Vincent Catholic Med. Ctrs. Ret. Plan v. Morgan 

Stanley Inv. Mgmt. Inc., 712 F.3d 705, 717 (2d Cir. 2013). They are as follows:

Pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) between the 

parties, Appellant, the Connecticut branch of the International People’s Club of 

Nigeria, was slated to host a regional induction ceremony in 2018. Appellees—the 

New York and Princeton, New Jersey branches of that organization, their 

chairmen, and the Princeton chair emeritus—conspired to breach the MOU and 

“disrupt, disorder, and coopt the Ceremony” by inviting individuals on the 

organization’s listserv to attend a rival induction ceremony taking place on the 

same day as Appellant’s ceremony. J. App. at 63. Appellant sought an injunction 
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to prevent Appellees from hosting the rival ceremony and sought damages for 

breach of contract, detrimental reliance, tortious interference with contracts, and 

breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. Appellees thereafter moved to 

dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the basis that the amount in 

controversy does not exceed $75,000.

Before the deadline for completing discovery had passed, the district court 

dismissed the amended complaint, holding that Appellant failed to satisfy the 

amount in controversy requirement because it did not show to a “reasonable 

probability” that recoverable damages would pass the $75,000 threshold necessary 

to invoke diversity jurisdiction. Id. at 139. The district court found the 

compensatory damages alleged by Appellant to be functionally capped at roughly 

$29,600: $24,000 for the breach of the MOU and $5,600 for lost revenue from what 

would have been advertisement purchases made by inductees of the rival 

induction ceremony and ticket purchases by those inductees’ supporters. The 

district court explained that allegations of lost revenue from advertising, ticket 

sales, and raffle sales, allegations of reputational harm, and allegations of threats 

to Appellant’s continued existence were “too speculative to meet the amount in 

controversy requirement.” Id. The district court also wrote that Appellant “alleges 
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no factual allegations to support its claim for punitive damages,” and that even if 

those damages were not conclusory, whether there would be an award of punitive 

damages and in what amount were “pure speculation.” J. App. at 140. The district 

court did not explicitly analyze whether Appellant’s claim for tortious interference 

with contracts and the underlying allegations could support an award of punitive 

damages, an omission Appellant challenges on appeal.

II.

We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “We 

review de novo a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction determination.” 

DiTolla v. Doral Dental IPA of New York, 469 F.3d 271, 275 (2d Cir. 2006).

III.

For diversity jurisdiction to attach, a plaintiff must assert a claim for 

damages that meets the amount in controversy requirement “to a reasonable 

probability,” but “we recognize a rebuttable presumption that the face of the 

complaint is a good faith representation of the actual amount in controversy.”

Scherer v. Equitable Life Assurance Soc’y of U.S., 347 F.3d 394, 397 (2d Cir. 2003) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Our caselaw is clear that “the sum claimed by 

the plaintiff controls if the claim is apparently made in good faith” and that
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dismissal is appropriate only if the legal impossibility of recovering above the 

threshold amount is “so certain as virtually to negat[e] the plaintiff’s good faith in 

asserting the claim.” Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. v. Am. Nat. Bank and Tr. Co. of 

Chicago, 93 F.3d 1064, 1070-71 (2d Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted); see 

also St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 289 (1938) (“[I]f, from 

the face of the pleadings, it is apparent, to a legal certainty, that the plaintiff cannot 

recover the amount claimed . . . the suit will be dismissed.”). “If the right of 

recovery is uncertain, the doubt should be resolved . . . in favor of the subjective 

good faith of the plaintiff.” Tongkook Am. v. Shipton Sportswear Co., 14 F.3d 781, 

785-86 (2d Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Zacharia v. Harbor 

Island Spa, Inc., 684 F.2d 199, 202 (2d Cir. 1982) (“[E]ven where [plaintiff’s] 

allegations leave grave doubt about the likelihood of a recovery of the requisite 

amount, dismissal is not warranted.”). The “legal certainty” inquiry is “analyzed 

by what appears on the face of the complaint.” Wolde-Meskel v. Vocational 

Instruction Project Cmty. Servs., Inc., 166 F.3d 59, 63 (2d Cir. 1999).

We think the district court erred in dismissing the case. While we are 

persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the district court undercounted the 

compensatory damages available to it by erroneously ignoring an additional 
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$5,200 in damages for unpurchased advertisements and an unspecified amount of 

lost revenue from raffle ticket sales, we are not convinced that the addition of these 

damages would be sufficient to confer jurisdiction. We do, however, think that 

available punitive damages could push Appellant’s recovery over the 

jurisdictional threshold.1

It is well settled that “[w]here both actual and punitive damages are 

recoverable under a complaint[,] each must be considered to the extent claimed in 

determining jurisdictional amount.” Bell v. Preferred Life Assur. Soc’y of 

Montgomery, Ala., 320 U.S. 238, 240 (1943); see also A.F.A. Tours, Inc. v. Whitchurch, 

937 F.2d 82, 87 (2d Cir. 1991) (“[I]f punitive damages are permitted under the 

controlling law, the demand for such damages may be included in determining 

whether the jurisdictional amount is satisfied.”). Punitive damages available 

under state law can help a plaintiff meet the jurisdictionalrequirement even where 

they make up the bulk of the amount in controversy. See, e.g., Bell, 320 U.S. at 240 

(holding that, even where petitioner is limited to $1,000, jurisdictional threshold 

of $3,000 may be met by punitive damages); Colavito v. New York Organ Donor 

Network, Inc., 438 F.3d 214, 221-22 (2d Cir. 2006) (adopting reasoning of district 

1 If, at the conclusion of this case, Appellant is adjudged entitled to less than $75,000, the 

district court may impose costs on Appellant. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(b). 
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court that amount in controversy requirement was met because New York law 

allowed punitive damages even where there are only nominal compensatory 

damages, and plaintiff could theoretically recover over $75,000 in punitive 

damages). But, “in computing jurisdictional amount, a claim for punitive damages 

is to be given closer scrutiny . . . than a claim for actual damages.” Zahn v. Int’l 

Paper Co., 469 F.2d 1033, 1033 n.1 (2d Cir. 1972).

In Connecticut, a plaintiff may recover punitive damages for a tortious 

interference claim. See, e.g., Beacon Ins. & Inv. Grp., LLC v. Panzo, No. 

CV146044992S, 2016 WL 4507389, at *17 (Conn. Super. Ct. July 25, 2016). “A claim 

for tortious interference with contractual relations requires the plaintiff to establish 

(1) the existence of a contractual or beneficial relationship, (2) the defendants’

knowledge of that relationship, (3) the defendants’ intent to interfere with the 

relationship, (4) the interference was tortious, and (5) a loss suffered by the 

plaintiff that was caused by the defendants’ tortious conduct.” Landmark Inv. Grp., 

LLC v. CALCO Const. & Dev. Co., 318 Conn. 847, 864 (2015) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). A party can prove that a given interference was tortious by 

showing “that the defendant was guilty of fraud, misrepresentation, intimidation 

or molestation . . . or that the defendant acted maliciously.” Id. at 868 (internal 
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quotation marks omitted). The “malice” that must be demonstrated is “intentional 

interference without justification,” and whether or not interference is tortious is a 

question of fact for the jury. Id. at 869. Entitlement to punitive damages for such 

a claim arises where “the defendant exhibited a reckless indifference to the rights 

of others or an intentional and wanton violation of those rights.” Id. at 878

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

Read in the light most favorable to Appellant, the amended complaint has 

alleged facts sufficient to support a claim under Connecticut law for tortious 

interference with Appellant’s contracts with various vendors, and, if the jury were 

persuaded, that the tortious conduct would entitle Appellant to punitive damages. 

Paragraph 18 of the amended complaint pleads that “defendants gave specific and 

unambiguous authorization to the plaintiff to undertake the necessary 

expenditures for the conference, including guaranteed lodging commitments, 

international travel arrangements, ad book sales and production, and marketing.” 

J. App. at 62. These allegations support the first two prongs of a tortious 

interference claim: the existence of contractual relationship with vendors and the 

defendants’ knowledge of those contracts. Paragraph 20 of the amended 

complaint alleges that defendants “surreptitiously conspired to . . . disrupt, 
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disorder, and coopt the Ceremony,” id. at 63, thereby intentionally interfering with 

the contractual relationships of which they were aware and potentially

demonstrating, at the very least, the reckless indifference necessary to support an 

award of punitive damages. Whether the interference alleged was tortious is a 

question of fact for the jury, but the allegations permit the inference that Appellees 

acted maliciously. And finally, Appellant alleges a loss from this interference in 

terms of “financial harm, and significant prospective financial harm from its 

inability to meet lodging and other logistical guarantees.” Id. at 63-64. Even given 

the more stringent standard by which we analyze whether punitive damages are 

available to meet the jurisdictional threshold, see Zahn, 469 F.2d at 1033 n.1, we are 

unable to say that it is a “legal certainty” such damages are unavailable or are so 

small that they cannot push Appellant over the jurisdictional line. St. Paul Mercury 

Indem. Co., 303 U.S. at 289. It was error, therefore, to dismiss the amended 

complaint for lack of jurisdiction.

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We have considered Appellant’s remaining arguments and find them to be 

without merit. We VACATE the judgment of the district court and REMAND for 

further proceedings consistent with this order.

FOR THE COURT:

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court