Court Opinion

ID: 9499304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:44:00.500854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:24.551763
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the court’s opinion — without admissible testimony from a qualified expert, the plaintiffs’ goose is cooked and the judgment of the district court must be affirmed. But I decline to join the court’s stinging criticism of the attorneys regarding their less-than-perfect jurisdictional statements. Sure, the plaintiffs should have said the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, not that it is $75,000. And sure, both sides stumbled on their declarations regarding the dual citizenship of the corporate defendants. But, at best, these are low misdemeanors; yet the court treats them like felonies. I would not label these minor flaws as “blunders,” nor would I come close to saying this is “malpractice” which must be stopped. Also I would not issue an order to show cause, and I certainly would not suggest that an appropriate sanction might be to compel the lawyers’ attendance at “a continuing legal education class on federal jurisdiction.”
What happened in this case is not particularly unusual. The plaintiffs, represented by what appears to be a small law firm, filed this suit almost five years ago in state court where jurisdictional requirements are easily satisfied and rarely questioned. The defendants, represented by a “national law firm with lawyers in 27 offices coast-to-coast” (according to the firm’s Web site) removed the case to federal court. That there is diversity jurisdiction has never been questioned by anyone, including at least two district court judges who issued *683written decisions as the case poked along for four years through discovery and several in-court proceedings. The plaintiffs then lose their case on summary judgment and file an appeal raising the issue that cuts to the very heart of their suit. Given this situation, when all eyes are really on the guts of the case, I think we should be more tolerant of the jurisdictional statement hiccups that have occurred here.