Opinion ID: 201046
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Amount-in-Controversy Requirement

Text: 7 In 1938, the Supreme Court established the basic standard by which to evaluate a challenge that a plaintiff has not met the jurisdictional amount-in-controversy requirement: 8 The rule governing dismissal for want of jurisdiction in cases brought in federal court is that, unless the law gives a different rule, the sum claimed by the plaintiff controls if the claim is apparently made in good faith. It must appear to a legal certainty that the claim is really for less than the jurisdictional amount to justify dismissal. 9 St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 288-89, 58 S.Ct. 586, 82 L.Ed. 845 (1938) (internal citations omitted). 10 Under St. Paul, a plaintiff's allegations of damages that meet the amount-in-controversy requirement suffices unless questioned by the opposing party or the court. Spielman v. Genzyme Corp., 251 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.2001). Once a defendant questions jurisdiction by challenging the amount of damages alleged in the complaint, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that it is not a legal certainty that the claims do not involve the requisite amount. 1 Id. at 4; Barrett v. Lombardi, 239 F.3d 23, 30-31 (1st Cir.2001). A party may meet this burden by amending the pleadings or by submitting affidavits. Dep't of Recreation & Sports v. World Boxing Ass'n, 942 F.2d 84, 88 (1st Cir.1991). When there are several plaintiffs, each must present claims that meet the jurisdictional amount. 2 Clark v. Paul Gray Inc., 306 U.S. 583, 589, 59 S.Ct. 744, 83 L.Ed. 1001 (1939). Once a district court dismisses for failure to meet the jurisdictional amount, the court of appeals reviews that judgment de novo. Spielman, 251 F.3d at 4. 11 The basic error committed by the district court was to evaluate the amount-in-controversy by reference to amounts that the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has found reasonable in tort cases. As we noted in Stewart, the analogy is imperfect in multiple respects, most notably because Puerto Rico does not have jury trials in civil cases. 356 F.3d at 339. We thus conduct the amount-in-controversy inquiry de novo, looking to each plaintiff individually. 12 The plaintiffs presented the following evidence in response to Star-Kist's challenge to the amounts alleged in the complaint: the deposition testimony of each of the four plaintiffs, the medical report of Dr. Zegarra (Beatriz's treating physician), hospital records, receipts for the payment of Beatriz's treatment, pictures of Beatriz's hand after the surgery, and the testimony of both the school nurse and the school paramedic who initially treated Beatriz when she cut herself. 13 This evidence established that after Beatriz cut her pinky finger while opening a can of Star-Kist tuna, she went to the school infirmary. The nurse and a paramedic were able to stop the bleeding after fifteen to thirty minutes. The nurse said that the cut was deep and bled profusely. A school official called Mrs. Ortega at home to tell her about Beatriz's injury, and Mrs. Ortega went to the school to pick up Beatriz. Mrs. Ortega then took Beatriz to the emergency room of a nearby hospital, where a doctor indicated that Beatriz may have severed her tendons and nerves. Mrs. Ortega contacted Dr. Zegarra, a hand surgeon, by phone while she was at the hospital, and scheduled an immediate appointment. Together, Mrs. Ortega and Beatriz went immediately from the hospital to Dr. Zegarra's office. 14 Dr. Zegarra confirmed that Beatriz had in fact damaged her nerves and tendons and determined that she required surgery. He was unable to secure an operating room for that day, so the surgery was scheduled for April 22, the next day. The surgery, which required Beatriz to be put under general anesthesia, successfully repaired Beatriz's deep flexor tendon and digital nerve. After the surgery, Beatriz attended physical therapy, which was painful, three times a week for a three-month period. Beatriz continued the physical therapy for eight months in total and wore a cast throughout that entire period. The therapy impaired her ability to write and paint in school and forced her to drop out of a volleyball tournament. Her finger bears a small scar and is slightly bent. Despite the successful surgery, Beatriz has been diagnosed with a 3% partial permanent impairment of the functioning of her hand. The medical prognosis is that the injury could become worse as she grows and that she may need more surgery. 15 Given Beatriz's permanent physical impairment, the surgery, and the claimed pain and suffering (bearing in mind the potential impact of the injury and its aftermath on a young girl), we cannot say to a legal certainty that Beatriz could not recover a jury award larger than $75,000. See Stewart, 356 F.3d at 340 (plaintiffs met jurisdictional minimum where evidence suggested that each had suffered permanent physical impairment, had endured non-trivial pain and suffering damages by having to spend honeymoon in a hospital, and might require future medical services); Gebbia v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 233 F.3d 880, 883 (5th Cir.2000) (plaintiff's allegations that, as a result of falling in defendant's store, she sustained injuries to her wrist, knee and back, resulting in permanent disability and disfigurement and causing pain and suffering and lost wages, were sufficient to meet jurisdictional amount-in-controversy requirement); Rosenboro v. Kim, 994 F.2d 13, 18-19 (D.C.Cir.1993) ([T]he presence of medical evidence showing that a plaintiff is suffering from a continuing or permanent physical impairment [is] an important indicator in determining whether the plaintiff meets the amount-in-controversy requirement). 16 The other plaintiffs fare differently. Mrs. Ortega presented evidence that she paid $4,927.07 for past medical expenses and says that she anticipates paying $25,000 in future medical expenses. She also claims that her emotional distress damages totaled $250,000. We assume arguendo that Mrs. Ortega can claim the past medical expenses and some future medical expenses. 3 But there was no support at all for the $25,000 figure for future medical expenses that she alleged, and a lower figure appears to be in order, given that past expenses were less than $5,000. Even if she could claim all $25,000, there is still quite a gap between the medical expenses and $75,000. 17 We conclude that Mrs. Ortega cannot fill this entire gap with her emotional distress damages. Cf. Jimenez Puig v. Avis Rent A Car Sys., 574 F.2d 37, 40 (1st Cir.1978) (amount-in-controversy requirement of $10,000 was not met in claim for short-lived embarrassment and anger resulting from a car-rental clerk's public destruction of credit card and announcement that plaintiff had failed to pay his bills). One of the normal responsibilities of parenthood is dealing with a child's cuts and scrapes, and here the injuries were relatively minor. Neither Beatriz nor her mother sought any counseling relating to the injury. Moreover, Mrs. Ortega did not personally witness Beatriz's accident or the immediate aftermath. 18 Mrs. Ortega tries to argue that she meets the jurisdictional amount by relying on remittitur cases. Certainly courts may resort to analogous cases involving remittitur in determining whether a plaintiff can meet the amount-in-controversy requirement in a diversity case. But the utility of remittitur cases will vary depending on at least three factors — the factual similarities between the cases, the difference in viewpoints between the start of a case and the end of a case, and both the jury award in the remittitur case and the amount to which it was reduced. 19 Remittitur of a jury award is ordered when the award is grossly excessive, inordinate, shocking to the conscience of the court, or so high that it would be a denial of justice to permit it to stand. Correa v. Hosp. San Francisco, 69 F.3d 1184, 1197 (1st Cir.1995). In such cases, the rule in this circuit is that the jury award should be remitted to the maximum that would be upheld by the trial court as not excessive. Jones & Jones v. Pineda & Pineda, 22 F.3d 391, 398 (1st Cir.1994). The plaintiff has a choice between accepting the remittitur amount or opting for a new trial. See Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cont'l Cas. Co., 771 F.2d 579, 588 (1st Cir.1985). 20 While remittitur determinations are based on what has been proved at trial, amount-in-controversy determinations are made at the outset of the case. See generally 14B Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc. § 3702 (2d ed.2003). This different procedural lens complicates determining whether there is sufficient factual similarity between the remittitur case and the jurisdictional case. To be useful, the facts of injury and damages that were actually proved to the jury in the remittitur case must be similar to the facts, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, that could be proved in the jurisdictional case. 21 Moreover, for an analogy to a remittitur case to be useful, the difference between the numbers involved in the remittitur case must be taken into account. These amounts are (1) the jury award that was deemed excessive in a remittitur case and (2) the amount to which that award was remitted. If, assuming the cases are otherwise similar, both numbers are above the jurisdictional minimum ( i.e., $75,000), then the remittitur case supports the conclusion that the amount-in-controversy requirement has been met. Similarly, if both the jury award and the amount to which it was remitted are less than $75,000, that supports the conclusion that the amount-in-controversy requirement cannot be met. 22 More problematic are remittitur cases hovering around the jurisdictional amount — i.e., cases in which the jury award is above the jurisdictional amount but the amount to which the award was remitted is below the jurisdictional amount. In theory, the amount to which the award was remitted should be the maximum possible amount that was legally permissible, and thus should be the applicable basis of comparison. But theory is often a long way from reality. As we have noted before, converting feelings such as pain and suffering and the loss of enjoyment of life into dollars is not an exact science. Smith, 177 F.3d at 33 n. 5. One safety valve for the inherent difficulty in selecting a remittitur amount is that the plaintiff is given the choice of accepting the reduced amount or opting for a new trial. See Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 771 F.2d at 588. The difficulty in converting pain and suffering into a dollar amount makes each case very fact-specific, thus decreasing the usefulness of a remittitur case hovering around the jurisdictional amount. 23 Mrs. Ortega argues by reference to a remittitur case, Smith v. Kmart Corp., 177 F.3d 19 (1st Cir.1999). In that case, a husband and wife were shopping in defendant's store when the wife was struck on the head by a cooler that fell from a shelf. Id. at 22. As a result of the blow, the wife lost consciousness for close to a minute, leading the husband to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Id. at 22. He testified that he believed his wife was dead. Id. at 23. Eventually an ambulance arrived, and paramedics placed a cervical collar around the wife's neck and transported her on to the ambulance using a stiff board that had been placed underneath her. Id. at 22. The wife suffered from the blow for months after the injury. Id. The jury awarded the husband $250,000 in emotional distress damages, and the appellate court remitted that award to $100,000. Id. at 32-33. Mrs. Ortega argues that her case is similar to the husband's in Smith and that even the $100,000 amount to which damages were remitted in that case is larger than the $75,000 minimum. 24 Mrs. Ortega's reliance on Smith fails even though both the original award and the reduced amount were greater than the jurisdictional minimum, because Mrs. Ortega's case is not sufficiently factually similar to Smith. Beatriz's injury, on the basis of the plaintiffs' complaint, was not nearly as dramatic or disruptive as the wife's injury in Smith. No one believed that Beatriz would die of the cut on her finger and there was no dramatic witnessing of the accident, unlike in Smith. Moreover, unlike the husband in Smith, Mrs. Ortega has not alleged that the accident has in any way strained her relationship with Beatriz. See id. at 23. 25 Beatriz's sister Patrizia has an even less substantial claim for emotional distress damages than her mother. Patrizia was a student in Washington, D.C. at the time of the injury and did not return home due to the accident. Although she did take Beatriz to some physical therapy sessions after she returned from school over the summer, Patrizia did not miss any work or school obligations to do so. Like the others, there is no evidence of Patrizia's receiving any counseling services in connection with her little sister's injury. It is legally certain that Patrizia could not recover an award over $75,000 for her emotional distress. 26 It is also legally certain that the claims of Beatriz's father, Sergio Blanco, do not meet the $75,000 threshold. Mr. Blanco is divorced from Beatriz's mother and does not live with Beatriz. He spent half a day at the hospital during Beatriz's surgery, but he did not bring Beatriz to any medical appointments. Mr. Blanco's claim to emotional distress damages over $75,000 is too tenuous. 27 In short, only Beatriz's claim satisfies the jurisdictional requirements of § 1332. Her family members' claims do not meet the minimum amount-in-controversy, and no other independent basis for federal jurisdiction ( e.g., federal question jurisdiction) exists over those claims.