Opinion ID: 2747928
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Joinder Issue

Text: Questions of subject matter jurisdiction are reviewed de novo. Cooper v. Charter Comm. Entertainment, 760 F.3d 103, 105 (1st Cir. 2014). The appeal at bar raises the question of whether the District Court erred in disposing of the entire case, by also disposing of Cason and Benavides’s personal actions, which were separate and distinct from the estate’s survivorship action. The issue of whether all heirs must be joined as parties to a diversity suit asserting a survivorship action has been addressed on multiple occasions by the federal district court in 6 Having died intestate, Torres-López’s heirs, or his estate, are his five minor children who acquired altogether the rights of their predecessor, Velilla v. Piza, 17 P.R. Dec. 1112, at  (1911), and who now participate in a hereditary community where each “conveys a joint right to the aggregate” inheritance. See Kogan v. Registrador, 125 P.R. Dec. 636, 652 (1990). -10- Puerto Rico. The several judges therein are squarely divided as to whether a non-diverse absent heir is a necessary and indispensable party under Fed. R. Civ. P. 19.7 In Jiménez v. Rodríguez-Pagán, 597 F. 3d 18 (1st Cir. 2010), this court “harbor[ed] considerable skepticism” that nondiverse absent heirs were, in fact, indispensable parties under Rule 19 to a wrongful death suit. See Jiménez, id. at 23. Because of the unique procedural posture of this case, i.e., the voluntary dismissal of the Aguayo plaintiffs’ claims, we need not rule at this time on the Rule 19 joinder issue. In exercising the survivorship action, the Torres-Aguayo heirs, as members of Torres- 7 Compare, e.g., Reyes-Ortíz v. HIMA San Pablo-Bayamón, No. 11-1273 (D.P.R. June 16, 2014); Segura–Sanchez v. Hosp. Gen. Menonita, Inc., 953 F. Supp. 2d 344, 348 (D.P.R. 2013); Casillas-Sanchez v. Ryder Mem'l Hosp., Inc., No. 11-2092, 2013 WL 3943517, at  (D.P.R. July 30, 2013); Pagán-Ortíz v. CarloDominguez, 977 F. Supp. 2d 106 (D.P.R. 2013); Pino-Betancourt v. Hosp. Pavía Santurce, 928 F. Supp. 2d 393, 396 (D.P.R. 2012), (cases holding that all heirs are required and indispensable parties to a wrongful death suit asserting a survivorship action), with Rodríguez v. Integrand Assur. Co., No. 10-1476, 2011 WL 3439260 at  (D.P.R. Aug. 5, 2011); Muñiz-Mercado v. Hosp. Buen Samaritano, No. 09-1829, 2010 WL 923 at  (D.P.R. Oct. 26, 2010); Martínez-Alvarez v. Ryder Mem’l Hosp., Inc., No. 09-2038, 2010 WL 3431653 at  n.9 (D.P.R. Aug. 31, 2010); Ruiz-Hance v. Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth., 596 F. Supp. 2d 223, 229-30 (D.P.R. 2009); Rodríguez-Rivera v. Rivera Ríos, No. 06-1381, 2009 WL 564221, at . (D.P.R. Mar. 5, 2009); Arias-Rosado v. González Tirado, 111 F. Supp. 2d 96, 99 (D.P.R. 2000); Cintrón v. San Juan Gas, Inc., 79 F. Supp. 2d 16, 19 (D.P.R. 1999) (cases holding that survivorship actions can be brought on behalf of the estate without joining all heirs as parties); see also Anderson v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, 753 F. Supp. 2d 68, 83 (D.D.C. 2010) (“District Courts in the First Circuit have had numerous opportunities to discuss the application of Puerto Rico law on this matter, and have reached a consensus that the Puerto Rico law regarding causes of action by members of an estate permits individual members to bring a cause of action for the decedent's pain and suffering”). -11- López’s estate, sought to recover his damages. However, later, they chose to voluntarily dismiss all their claims pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2). Rule 41(a)(2) permits a plaintiff to request dismissal of an action “by court order, on terms that the court considers proper.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2); Colón-Cabrera v. Esso Standard Oil Co. (Puerto Rico), Inc., 723 F.3d 82, 87 (1st Cir. 2013). The rule allows a plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss his own case as long as “no other party will be prejudiced.” P.R. Mar. Shipping Auth. v. Leith, 668 F.2d 46, 50 (1st Cir. 1981) (citing LeCompte v. Mr. Chip, Inc., 528 F.2d 601, 604 (5th Cir. 1976)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The court is responsible for ensuring that such prejudice will not occur. Colón-Cabrera, 723 F. 3d at 87; Doe v. Urohealth Sys., Inc., 216 F.3d 157, 160 (1st Cir. 2000). Moreover, a district court should grant a motion for voluntary dismissal unless a defendant can show that it would suffer some plain legal prejudice as a result thereof, as opposed to facing the mere prospect of a second lawsuit. See Doe v. Urohealth Sys., Inc., 216 F.3d 157, 161 (1st Cir. 2000). Here, Defendants did not oppose the Aguayo plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal, which included the claim by Torres-López’s estate. Pursuant to Local Rule of Civil Procedure 7(b), “[u]nless within (14) days after the service of a motion the opposing party files a written objection to the motion, -12- incorporating a memorandum of law, the opposing party shall be deemed to have waived objection.” D.P.R. Civ. R. 7(b). Rather than opposing the request for voluntary dismissal filed by the Aguayo plaintiffs, Defendants’ response was limited to requesting the District Court not to exercise diversity jurisdiction over the claims brought by Cason and Benavides. We also do not see any plain legal prejudice in granting said request. The District Court, however, found that the fifth minor child would be prejudiced if he were not joined to the suit. In doing so, it afforded no weight to the request for voluntary dismissal of the Aguayo plaintiffs, but rather centered its determination on the issue of the fifth minor child’s joinder. Faced with the Aguayo plaintiffs’ request for voluntary dismissal, instead of dismissing the entire case, the District Court should have granted said request and retained jurisdiction over Cason and Benavides’s personal actions. The case no longer involved a survivorship claim belonging to the estate, and, therefore, the indispensability issue became moot. At that point, no heir had an interest in the subject matter of the remaining actions, which are completely separate from those of the estate. As such, there was no potential prejudicial effect in adjudicating Cason and Benavides’s individual claims. Moreover, the court could have afforded complete and meaningful relief as to those parties remaining in the litigation. -13- C. Jurisdiction and Dismissal of Dispensable Parties Even if we held, like the District Court, that the fifth minor child was an indispensable party who defeated complete diversity, this federal suit involved additional parties who were entirely diverse when the federal proceedings began. Instead of dismissing the entire case, including Cason and Benavides’s personal actions, the District Court had yet another alternative to preserve its jurisdiction. The time-of-filing rule is used to determine whether diversity jurisdiction exists. Like most general principles, this rule is susceptible to some exceptions. See Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U.S. 826, 830 (1989). One applicable exception is found in Fed. R. Civ. P. 21. “[I]t is well settled that Rule 21 invests district courts with authority to allow a dispensable non-diverse party to be dropped at any time, even after judgment has been rendered”and this is done by order of the court on motion of any party or of [the court’s] own initiative . . . on such terms as are just.” Id. at 832-33. Dismissal of a nondiverse dispensable party has long been recognized as a way to cure a jurisdictional defect and Rule 21 explicitly vests district courts with authority to allow a dispensable non-diverse party to be dropped at any time. See id. at 832-38 (noting that Rule 21 authorizes courts to dismiss non-diverse defendants to cure jurisdictional defects, instead of dismissing the entire case); see -14- also Caterpillar v. Lewis, 519 U.S. 61, 76-77 (1996) (same). [T]he question always is, or should be, when objection is taken to the jurisdiction of the court by reason of the citizenship of some of the parties, whether . . . they are indispensable parties, for if their interests are severable and a decree without prejudice to their rights can be made, the jurisdiction of the court should be retained and the suit dismissed as to them. Horn v. Lockhart, 84 U.S. 570, 579 (1873). When the change in parties does not “affect the course of the litigation,” and does not “embarrass the defendant,” requiring the plaintiffs to start over in the district court “would entail needless waste and runs counter to effective judicial administration.” Mullaney v. Anderson, 342 U.S. 415, 417 (1952). “The post-commencement party lineup changes,” here, the Aguayo plaintiff’s request for dismissal, “simply trimmed the litigation down to an ever-present core that met the statutory requirement,” to wit, Cason, Benavides, and Defendants. See Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Grp., 541 U.S. 567, 591 (2004). Here too there was a change in the party lineup that eliminated any jurisdictional “spoilers” and did not affect the course of the proceedings. See Newman-Green, 490 U.S. at 837-38. More so, if the missing heir had been joined, his dismissal would not prejudice any of the remaining parties to the litigation. See id. at 837-38. “[C]onsiderations of finality, efficiency, and economy” certainly apply here. See Grupo Dataflux, 541 U.S. at 592. Rigid insistence on the time-of-filing rule, rather than eliminating the -15- jurisdictional defect the District Court found, would mean an almost certain replay of the case. See Newman-Green, 490 U.S. at 837. In dismissing the entire suit, Cason and Benavides, undoubtedly diverse parties, would simply re-file their claims against Defendants in the district court. If an easily curable jurisdictional defect is discovered shortly after a case is filed, the district court should decide whether the plaintiff must be put to the bother of filing a fresh suit “which at long last will merely bring the parties to the point where they now are.” Hackner v. Guaranty Trust Co. of New York, 117 F.2d 95, 98 (2d Cir. 1941). Cason and Benavides “should not be compelled to jump through these judicial hoops merely for the sake of hypertechnical jurisdictional purity.” Newman-Green, 490 U.S. at 837. The aforementioned considerations weigh heavily against dismissing Cason and Benavides’s personal actions. Instead of dismissing the entire case for want of jurisdiction the District Court had the authority to drop the “diversity destroying” party, thereby curing any purported jurisdictional defect it found and salvaging its jurisdiction as between those parties who were properly before it. “[E]ven on questions of a court’s adjudicatory authority in particular, salvage operations are ordinarily preferable to the wrecking ball.” Grupo Dataflux, 541 U.S. at 592 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).