Opinion ID: 474501
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The ALI Proposal

Text: 37 The American Law Institute's proposal that diversity be governed by the citizenship of the decedent 22 has found at least one judicial supporter. In Krier-Hawthorne v. Beam, 728 F.2d 658 (4th Cir.1984), Judge Murnaghan argued in dissent that the court should answer in the negative the following question:  'Should federal jurisdiction ... depend on the fortuitous circumstance that one party to the controversy happened to die before the controversy reached the litigation stage?'  Id. at 670-71 (Murnaghan, J., dissenting) (quoting Cohan & Tate, Manufacturing Federal Diversity Jurisdiction by the Appointment of Representatives: Its Legality and Propriety, 1 Vill.L.Rev. 201, 214 (1956)). He concluded that diversity jurisdiction was designed to protect outsiders from prejudice; that prejudices, should they exist, will most likely be based on the identities of the actual actors in the disputed event or transaction, not the identities of the persons supervising the litigation of the dispute; and that the ALI proposal should therefore be judicially adopted. Id. at 671-72 (Murnaghan, J., dissenting). 23 38 The virtues of the ALI proposal are clear: (1) it becomes virtually impossible to manipulate diversity jurisdiction, Mullenix, 70 Cornell L.Rev. at 1038; (2) it keeps federal courts out of essentially local disputes, id.; (3) it eliminates the need for inquiry into the motives behind an appointment or the substantiality of the representative's stake in the litigation, id. at 1038-39; 14 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 3640, at 129 (2d ed. 1985); and (4) it does away with the necessity of analyzing real party in interest considerations, Mullenix, 70 Cornell L.Rev. at 1039. A difficulty with the proposal, however, is that it might exclude parties who had legitimate reasons for appointing an out-of-state representative. See Note, Manufactured Federal Diversity Jurisdiction and Section 1359, 69 Colum.L.Rev. 706, 726 (1969). 39