Court Opinion

ID: 9484420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:53:08.885927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:14.304274
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached in my brother’s opinion, and in most of the underlying analysis. I do not think, however, that it is necessary to address the burden of proof issue with respect to the district court’s jurisdiction, as my brother has done in parts III— A and B of his opinion.
There is no question on this record that plaintiffs counsel conceded at the jurisdiction hearing in the district court that the amount in controversy was over $50,000:
[PLAINTIFF’S COUNSEL]: Judge, I wish, I wish I could accomodate [sic] you so that you could remand it. However, I can’t now that we have the figures. I believe that that evidence, being of record before the court, completes the amount in controversy.
THE COURT: And what is the amount in controversy?
[PLAINTIFF’S COUNSEL]: Judge, I haven’t calculated it at this point in time, but I think what the number is, the differences between the twenty-seven that Mrs. Gaf-ford made as a maximum, and the fifty-six, if, if in fact we’re looking at almost thirty difference in that point in time. And I can see where a jury might find at least two years, it looks like the amount in controversy, since GE has provided us with that figure.
Moreover, at oral argument before this court, in response to a question asked by the presiding judge, plaintiffs counsel conceded that the amount in controversy exceeded $50,000.
I would hold for another day, in a case in which the requisite jurisdictional amount in a diversity of citizenship case remanded to a federal court is not conceded, a discussion and decision concerning the burden of proof on that issue.
That said, I concur in the judgment for affirmance.