Court Opinion

ID: 9636961
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:51:00.213625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:07.978805
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
McLaughlin, circuit judge.
Appellee in its petition for rehearing attacked for the first time appellant’s allegation in her complaint of District of Columbia residency as a basis for diversity of citizenship. We allowed rehearing on the jurisdictional point thereby raised. Appellant then moved to' amend her complaint to show that she had been a resident of Virginia at the time suit was started and filed a detailed affidavit in support of her contention. Appellee opposed the motion, and, alternatively, in the event of its allowance, sought to amend its answer by: (1) Denying the Virginia residence averment on information and belief; (2) Setting forth lack of diversity because the complaint did *371not allege any place of citizenship or residence of the defendant; (3) Pleading the Pennsylvania one year statute of limitations.1 Next, the appellant applied to amend her complaint to expressly state that appellee is a joint stock association organized under the laws of the State of New York. Lastly, appellee moved to dismiss that motion.
The motions to amend the pleadings to show the facts regarding the diverse citizenship basis of this action are property before us under Section 274c of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 399, which reads: “Where, in any suit brought in or removed from any State court to any district of the United States, the jurisdiction of the district court is based upon the diverse citizenship of the parties, and such diverse citizenship in fact existed at the time the suit was brought or removed, though defectively alleged, either party may amend at any stage of the proceedings and in the appellate court upon such terms as the court may impose, so as to- show on the record such diverse citizenship and jurisdiction, and thereupon such suit shall be proceeded with the same as though the diverse citizenship had been fully and corectly pleaded at the inception of the suit, or, if it be a removed case, in the petition for removal. (Mar. 3, 1915, c. 90, 38 Stat. 956.)”
Appellant’s affidavit in support of her motion to amend her residency allegation sets out that no change is attempted as to the actual location of her residence and that the mistake in connection with this arose from the incorrect assumption that the street address thereof was in the District of Columbia instead of in Alexandria, Virginia, as it realty is. Appellant’s facts are not contradicted by appellee though her personal veracity is questioned by allusion to her residency answers on cross examination and the residency statements in the complaint. Under the circumstances, appellant is entitled to amend her complaint to show that she was a resident of Virginia at the time she brought her suit and appellee is entitled to deny this in its answer. Keene Lumber Co. v. Leventhal, 1 Cir., 165 F.2d 815, 819. In view of our above conclusion there is no necessity at this time for passing upon the constitutional question raised by appellee.
Appellant by her application to further amend her complaint seeks to allege that American Express “a citizen, of the State of New York, is a joint stock association organized under the laws of New York”.2 American Express in opposing this says primarily that it is an unincorporated association with no citizenship of its own and cannot be sued in the federal courts on the basis of diversity. It also urges that as it had a member residing in Virginia when suit was commenced there is no diversity between it annd appellant who is “likewise alleged to reside in Virginia”.
American Express is a joint stock association formed under the laws of the State of New York. Mack v. American Express Co., 20 Misc. 215, 45 N.Y.S. 362. As such it is considered for practical purposes a corporation by the courts of that state. Hibbs v. Brown, 122 App.Div. 214, 98 N.Y.S. 353 affirmed 190 N.Y. 167, 82 N.E. 1108; Jones v. Healy, 184 Misc. 923, 55 N.Y.S.2d 349, affirmed 270 App.Div. 895, 62 N.Y.S.2d 605, appeal denied 270 App. Div. 998, 64 N.Y.S.2d 170. Where American Express was sued in its own name in New York and entered a general appearance, despite the fact that under the New York General Associations Law the name of its president or treasurer should have been included,3 the suit was sustained. The court in that decision said, “The failure to add the name of the president or *372treasurer to the name of the association can be corrected by amendment. Such amendment would not be changing the parties to the action but would be the correction of the name of a party.” Mack v. American Express Company, supra, 45 N.Y.S.2d at page 363. In the late case of Schivera v. Long Island Lighting Co., Sp.Ct.N.Y., 1946, 61 N.Y.S.2d 430,4 one of the defendants was the Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, an unincorporated society with officers, sued simply by name. A general appearance having been entered for it, the court of its own motion amended the process by adding the name of its treasurer.
In this litigation the venue was laid in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. By Rule 17(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723C, the law of Pennsylvania determines the capacity of American Express to sue or be sued.5 The Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure provide that a joint stock company or association may be sued in its own name.6 American Express was here sued in its own name. It appeared and defended without objection and obtained a direction of verdict in the trial court. It never raised the question of its suability as an entity until, after rehearing the present appeal, we reversed the judgment and sent the case back for retrial.
Neither the facts nor the law indicate that such contention should now prevail. The point involved, in our view, is not under the rule of Chapman v. Barney, 129 U.S. 677,7 9 S.Ct. 426, 32 L.Ed. 800, and similar cases as appellee insists but is simply as Professor Moore puts it in his book that “a partnership or other unincorporated association may always sue or be sued in its common name if” the law of the state in which the district court is held “recognizes such capacity.”8 Cf. Operative Plasterers, Etc. Ass’n v. Case, 68 App. D.C. 43, 93 F.2d 56. The motion to dismiss appellant’s application to further amend her complaint is therefore denied and said amendment is allowed.
 We see no justification for appellee’s request to be permitted at this time to set up the Pennsylvania one year statute of limitations in its amended answer. That statute is an affirmative defense and must be pleaded. Rule 8(c) Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.9 Since it has not ■ been pleaded it is waived under Rule 12(h).10
In all other respects our former opinion filed October 21, 1947 is confirmed.

Act of 1935, P.L. 503, Section 1, 12 P.S.Pa. § 51.

 Paragraph 2 of the original complaint which appellant seeks to amend, reads: “The defendant, American Express Company is an unincorporated association organized under the Articles of Merger of the State of New York, engaged in the business of selling Money Orders and Travellers cheeks in the city and county of Philadelphia, the State of Pennsylvania and other states of the United States and having its main office at 65 Broadway, New York, N. Y.”

 Section 13 of the General Associations Law of New York, added by Laws 1920, c. 915, Section 6, effective, April 15, 1921, 18a McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of New York, c. 29.

 This ease was reversed on other grounds, 270 App.Div. 852, 60 N.Y.S.2d 793; affd. 296 N.Y. 26, 69 N.E.2d 233.

 “(b) Capacity to Sue or Be Sued. The capacity of an individual, other than one acting in a representative capacity, to sue or be sued shall be determined by the law of his domicile. The capacity of a corporation to sue or be sued shall be determined by the law under which it was organized. In all other cases capacity to sue or he sued shall he determined hy the law of the state in whieh the district court is held; except that a partnership or other unincorporated association, which has no such capacity by the law of such state, may sue or be sued in its common name for the purpose of enforcing for or against it a substantive right existing under the Constitution or laws of the United States.” (Emphasis ours).

 Rules 2176, 2177, 12 P.S.Appendix.

 The rule of the old Chapman decision, supra, that generally speaking an unincorporated association has no citizenship for diversity purposes is itself beginning to show signs of being outmoded. In Puerto Rico v. Russell & Co., 288 U.S. 476, 53 S.Ct. 447, 77 L.Ed. 903, a Porto Rican sociedad en commandia which is “a limited partnership in the common law sense” was held to be an entity for jurisdictional purposes. See 2 Moore’s Federal Practice page 2100.

 2 Moore’s Federal Practice, page 2097.

 Rule 8 (c) reads: “Affirmative Defenses. In pleading to a preceding pleading, a party shall set forth affirmatively accord and satisfaction, arbitration and award, assumption of risk, contributory negligence, discharge in bankruptcy, duress, estoppel, failure of consideration, fraud, illegality, injury by fellow servant, laches, license, payment, release, res judicata, statute of frauds, statute of limitations, waiver, and any other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense. When a party has mistakenly designated a defense as a counterclaim or a counterclaim as a defense, the court on terms, if justice so requires, shall treat the pleading as if there had been a proper designation.” (Emphasis ours).

 Rule 12 (h) reads: “Waiver of De*373fenses. A party waives all defenses and objections which he does not present either by motion as hereinbefore provided or, if he has made no motion, in his answer or reply, except (1) that the defense of failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and the objection of failure to state a legal defense to a claim may also be made by a later pleading, if one is permitted, or by motion for judgment on the pleadings or at the trial on the merits, and except (2) that, whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action. The objection or defense, if made at the trial, shall then be disposed of as provided in Rule 15 (b) in the light of any evidence that may have been received.”