Court Opinion

ID: 9478022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:37:19.44945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:10.682830
License: Public Domain

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
With due respect I believe the majority has reached the wrong result, and that, by a circuitous route. Its conclusion is inevitable because its reasoning commences by “assum[ing] for purposes of resolving the legal issues raised in this appeal that New York is plaintiffs ‘true, fixed home.’ ” Ante at 1030 (footnote and citation omitted). I believe this is a fallacious assumption because it improperly shifts the focus of analysis.
Since the only undisputed fact in this case is that plaintiff was domiciled in Puer-to Rico to begin with, it seems to me that the logical starting point is determining how plaintiff could change his domicile from Puerto Rico to New York. The answer to that question, in the context of this case, raises an issue of capacity, not one of intention. Since there is no case in which a change in domicile has taken place without, at the very least, a physical departure from the place of original domicile, and it is legally impossible to acquire a new domicile without first loosing the old one, we must determine the legal significance of such action in that jurisdiction; i.e., Puerto Rico. The issue thus is what, if any, is the legal significance, for change of domicile purposes, of an 18 year old resident of Puerto Rico leaving that jurisdiction.
The answer under Puerto Rican law is clear: none. An 18 year old is considered a minor in Puerto Rico. 31 L.P.R.A. § 971 (1967). The domicile of an unemancipated minor is that of his parents, 1 L.P.R.A. § 8(4), or in appropriate cases, his guardian, id. § 8(6). See also López v. Fernandez, 61 P.R.R. 503 (1943). A minor can be emancipated, thus allowing him to acquire a separate domicile from his parents or guardian, only by either parent (or both if they jointly exercise the patria potestas) appearing before a civil law notary9 in the presence of two witness, and, with the minor’s consent, signing an emancipation deed. 31 L.P.R.A. § 911 (Supp.1985). Unless this formal proceeding is effectuated beforehand, a Puerto Rico-domiciled minor lacks legal capacity to change his domicile from that of his parents, or in the appropriate case, his guardian. His moving away from his legal domicile {i.e., that of his parents or guardian), be that to a different location down the street, or to another place in Puerto Rico, or to another jurisdic*1035tion, is legally irrelevant because he cannot gain a new domicile until one has licitly lost the old one.
That a state has a paramount interest in protecting, regulating and controlling its minor citizens is beyond cavil. The importance attached to this principle is reflected in the numerous provisions of law in Puer-to Rico, commencing with its Constitution, see P.R. Const. Art. II, § 15, and continuing throughout its general legislation, see, e.g., 31 L.P.R.A. §§ 242 (marriage), 1446 (property), 3402 (contracts) (1982). A case in point is Article 9 of its Civil Code which makes the laws “relating to family rights and obligations or to the status ... and legal capacity of persons ... binding upon the citizens of Puerto Rico,” even if they move outside of this jurisdiction. 31 L.P.R. A. § 9 (1967) (emphasis supplied). This paramount interest of a state in regulating the conduct of its minors is not, of course, limited to Puerto Rico, and protective legislation may be found throughout the United States varying in its content in a manner reflective of local interests and attitudes.
Because this is, as it should be, an area highly reflective of local attitudes, values and mores, it is particularly unsuited to federalized tinkering. Thus, the majority is mistaken in placing emphasis on the “right of access to a federal court” as the central issue raised by this appeal. Ante at 1032.
It is axiomatic that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction in which litigation is restricted to enumerated parties and causes. The Puerto Rican laws previously cited are not in any way designed to impede access to our forum. It is only by their general, non-discriminatory application that they prevent plaintiff from litigating in this court. Diversity jurisdiction, particularly in this day and age, is not in need of unnatural expansion, see Nat’l Law J., Feb. 29, 1988, at 1, col. 3 (discussing recent judicial and legislative efforts to eliminate or curtail diversity jurisdiction), and especially not at the expense of important, non-selective local interests. The majority’s reasoning inappropriately invades an area traditionally left to the sound discretion of state legislation.
To reach this result, the majority ignores substantial authority which indicates this issue should be resolved on the basis of state law, not “federal common law.” See 1 J. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice, ¶ 0.74[6.-2] at 708.55 n. 2 (age of majority for purposes of diversity dependent on state law) and 708.59 (emancipation of minor for purposes of diversity determined by state law); C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 3615 at 562-63 (same). The majority also implicitly rejects without explanation the only precedent directly on point, cited by the district court.10 In Spurgeon v. Mission State Bank, 151 F.2d 702 (8th Cir.1945), the court determined whether a eighteen year-old minor who moved to Kansas from his parents’ home in Missouri was “capable of acquiring a domicile of his choice” for purposes of diversity jurisdiction. The court determined that the appellant had acquired a domicile in Kansas by first ruling that “[wjhether the appellant was an emancipated minor at the time of his departure from the home of his parents is a question controlled by Missouri law.” Id. at 703. That is, for purposes of determining whether an eighteen year-old had the capacity to acquire a domicile of choice, the court looked to the law of the jurisdiction from which the youth had departed. See also Curry v. Maxson, 318 F.Supp. 842, 844 (W.D.Mo.1970).
Admittedly, the above cited authority can be read to support an alternative rule of law, a rule implicitly applied by at least one court but also rejected by my brothers. In Appelt v. Whitty, 286 F.2d 135 (7th Cir.*10361961), the court denied diversity jurisdiction after it used Illinois law to determine that the minor plaintiff, who had moved from Michigan to Illinois, was emancipated. Although the court gave no reason why it applied Illinois rather than Michigan law (nor did it suggest that the outcome would have been different), it appears to have used the principle of lex loci, since the case came on appeal from the District Court of the Northern District of Illinois. The lex loci approach to capacity is also the suggested approach of the Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws (1971), as stated in comment d to its section 13, for determining capacity to acquire a domicile of choice.11
The Restatement also suggests that either of the two approaches discussed above be taken to govern the issue of whether a child has been emancipated. That is, the treatise suggests either that emancipation be considered a question of status to be determined pursuant to the laws of the state in which the parents lived when the alleged emancipation took place, or it be considered an issue of capacity and thus generally determined according to the laws of the forum. See Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 22 comment f (1971).
Therefore, if this court applied either of these approaches to the facts of this case, it would find that appellant’s domicile is Puerto Rico.
The majority, however, finds all of this authority unpersuasive. Instead, it directs a district court sitting in Puerto Rico and adjudicating a case controlled by Puerto Rico law, concerning an incident occurring in Puerto Rico, and involving an individual who is unemancipated and still a minor under Puerto Rico law, to apply New York law to determine that the youth is no longer a minor (i.e., emancipated) and thus able to invoke diversity jurisdiction in Puerto Rico. Most disturbingly, it adopts this approach without citing important policy considerations or supporting authority. Indeed, it admits that “there are perhaps no urgent reasons of federal diversity policy comparable to those found by the courts” in the only cases it cites as authority for ignoring “relevant rules of state law ... in order to achieve the purposes of the diversity statute.” Supra at 1033. I would go further and state that the majority’s approach is not suggested by any policy considerations supporting federal diversity.
“[T]he major rationale of diversity jurisdiction ... [is] to give a citizen of one state access to an unbiased court to protect him from parochialism if he was forced into litigation in another state in which he was a stranger and of which his opponent was a citizen.” Ziady v. Curley, 396 F.2d 873, 875 (4th Cir.1968). Obviously, this purpose of diversity jurisdiction is irrelevant to a case, such as this one, involving a youth who brings suit in a jurisdiction from which he only recently departed, under whose laws he is still a citizen, and in which his parents continue to make their home. Appellant is not looking to federal court for protection from bias and parochialism but rather is forum shopping by filing in the federal jurisdiction in Puerto Rico where he is entitled to a civil jury trial. Compare Elliott v. Krear, 466 F.Supp. 444 (E.D.Va.1979) (policy reasons underlying diversity jurisdiction not applicable when plaintiff not a stranger to the forum and thus Ziady not controlling and no diversity found).
Assuming there is a federal policy to make federal courts more widely available to litigants and to not “deny the right [to federal court] on the basis of pointless technicalities,” supra at 1034, the majority’s approach does not satisfy even this goal. For example, if any individual in appellant’s situation now wanted to file a diversity suit against a New York citizen in *1037New York (a forum much more likely to be unfriendly), he would be barred from access to federal court due to lack of diversity. Thus, the majority’s approach provides neither greater access nor eliminates “pointless technicalities” as a barrier to federal court.
Perhaps most troubling about the decision of the majority is that it is presented without reliance on any rule of law. Is the majority saying that henceforth in this circuit the age of eighteen is the age of emancipation for choosing one’s own domicile for purposes of diversity jurisdiction? If so, why is eighteen chosen instead of twenty-one or any other age? Or is the rule now that we will use the law of the jurisdiction to which the youth has moved, such that if a New York nineteen year-old leaves his parents and moves to Puerto Rico his domicile will remain in New York? Or is it that we use the law of the jurisdiction which has the youngest age of emancipation? Perhaps the rule is simply that we use the law of the jurisdiction which will create diversity jurisdiction.
Whatever the new rule is, I simply cannot see why it has been adopted at the expense of valid local interests — interests completely ignored by the majority. For instance, Puerto Rico may have a very legitimate interest in allowing parents to control the lawsuits of its citizens under the age of twenty-one. It may want parents deciding whether and in what court to bring a lawsuit. By allowing parents to determine what court a suit is prosecuted, the Commonwealth allows parents better to control the expense and scope of litigation. In some situations, parents may decide that local court is the better alternative.12 Furthermore, Puerto Rico may have an interest in not encouraging a young person to leave home to establish domicile elsewhere so as to bring a suit in federal court contrary to the wishes of those ultimately responsible under its law for that youth.
Because the majority (1) does not begin its analysis at the only logical starting point — whether appellant had capacity to change his domicile; (2) refuses to apply the only other accepted approach to this type of issue — the law of the forum; and (3) offers no policy justification for ignoring local interests in deciding this case without reference to an appropriate rule, I dissent.

. A notary public in Puerto Rico, "a position highly imbued with the state's imprimatur," is not to be confused with a notary public as is known in common law jurisdiction. See Schneider v. Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico, 565 F.Supp. 963, 972 & n. 34 (D.P.R.1983).

. I do not understand the basis on which the majority dismisses the district court’s analysis: that is, by stating "that the question is not whether, as a minor, plaintiff was emancipated, but whether he is a minor." Supra, at 1031 (emphasis in original). Emancipation normally always occurs at the age of majority, see e.g., Siravo v. Siravo, 424 A.2d 1047, 1050 (R.I.1981) and Fauser v. Fauser, 50 Misc.2d 601, 271 N.Y.S.2d 59, 61 (N.Y.Fam.Ct.1966), and thus whether appellant is no longer a minor is a question of whether he has been emancipated and therefore able to choose a domicile.

. A preference for the lex loci approach is also suggested by rule 17(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which, while stating that the “capacity of an individual ... shall be determined by the law of his domicile,” also states that "[i]n all other cases [not concerning a corporation or an entity whose capacity is determined by federal law] capacity ... shall be determined by the law of the state in which the district court is held.... ” The rules, therefore, suggest that when domicile is not determinative, capacity should be determined according to the law of the forum.

. Interestingly enough plaintiff has been joined by his parents, Puerto Rican residents, in this suit.