Court Opinion

ID: 7012237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 04:10:51.115572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:10:15.510499
License: Public Domain

GILMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Because Zurich Insurance Company did not suffer an injury in fact as a result of Logitrans’s alleged actions, I agree that the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the motion of Zurich Insurance to substitute the real party in interest. The root problem is Zurich Insurance’s lack of Article III standing. I write separately, however, because the lead opinion’s ambiguity about the relationship between Zurich Insurance and American Guarantee might lead to confusion in future cases involving complex corporate structures.
The lead opinion concludes that Zurich Insurance suffered no injury in fact because it is “a totally separate entity” from American Guarantee. (Op. p. 7) Although this statement is technically correct, a reader unfamiliar with the record might easily infer this to mean that the two entities are unrelated. Such is clearly not the case. Instead, Zurich Insurance and American Guarantee are sister companies under the common ownership of a single corporate entity — Zurich American Insurance Corporation (ZAIC). ZAIC is in turn a subsidiary of Zurich American Insurance Group (ZAIG), which is itself a subsidiary of Zurich Financial Services Corporation (ZFSC) based in Switzerland. Lear’s insurance policy displays some of these relationships. The policy is written on a ZAIG form, with the Zurich logo prominently displayed at the top-left of the page. Open boxes appear beside the words “Zurich Insurance Company” and “American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Company,” with an “x” marked in the box for American Guarantee.
In my opinion, any or all of American Guarantee’s direct or indirect owners— ZAIC, ZAIG, or ZFSG — would have had constitutional standing to bring suit against Logitrans, even though none of these parent entities is the real party in interest. The value of American Guarantee depends upon its financial well-being. To the extent that Lear’s losses cost American Guarantee money, the parent entities suffered a financial injury in fact because those losses diminished the value of their investment in American Guarantee. Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Alcan Aluminium Ltd., 493 U.S. 331, 336, 110 S.Ct. 661, 107 L.Ed.2d 696 (1990) (holding that two foreign parent companies of U.S. subsidiaries had Article III standing to challenge U.S. tax laws affecting the subsidiaries, because “[i]f those taxes are higher than the law of the land allows, that method threatens to cause actual financial injury to [the parent companies] by illegally reducing the return on their investments in [the American subsidiaries] and by lowering the value of their stockholdings.”).
The present case, however, was brought in the name of Zurich Insurance, which is, like American Guarantee, owned by ZAIC. American Guarantee is therefore not an asset of Zurich Insurance, but a parallel entity in the corporate hierarchy of ZFSG. As sister companies that are only connected with one another by the common owner they share, a financial injury to American Guarantee would have little to no effect on Zurich Insurance. As a result, Zurich Insurance has not been shown to have suffered any injury from American Guarantee’s losses on the Lear *534policy. I therefore agree with the court’s conclusion that Zurich Insurance lacked Article III standing to move for a substitution of the real party in interest under Rule 17(a). Without Article III standing, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the entire case. Where jurisdiction does not exist, “the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
There are two further matters that I believe warrant clarification. First, I think that the lead opinion’s use of the advisory committee notes to Rule 17 potentially confuses the standards for deciding the separate issues of (1) Article III standing, and (2) the availability of substitution under Rule 17(a) once Article III standing is established. (Op. p. 6-7) I agree with the lead opinion that the example of the air crash, as set forth in the advisory committee notes, permits the inference that substitution of the real party in interest under Rule 17(a) cannot -be used to save a suit brought in the name of a party that has suffered no injury whatsoever. The lead opinion, however, quotes the entire advisory committee note in making this point — importing, in the process, concepts of good faith and “understandable mistake” that have no bearing on the Article III standing analysis. Given the difference between the Article III issues and the Rule 17 issues, which are properly distinguished in the latter paragraphs of the lead opinion, I would caution against the suggestion that American Guarantee’s alleged lack of vigilance affected the court’s Article III standing analysis. (Op. p.7)
Although the question of American Guarantee’s vigilance in protecting its interests is not relevant to the court’s Article III analysis, this factor would have been relevant in determining whether a substitution of the real party in interest is appropriate under Rule 17(a). A plaintiffs vigilance, however, is not the only consideration under Rule 17(a). In particular, a lack of prejudice to the opposing party should also be taken into account in considering a Rule 17(a) motion, because the Rule is “intended to insure against forfeiture and injustice.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 17 advisory committee’s note. With respect to Rule 17(a), the Second Circuit has stated:
Although the district court retains some discretion to dismiss an action where there was no semblance of any reasonable basis for the naming of an incorrect party, there plainly should be no dismissal where ‘substitution of the real party in interest is necessary to avoid injustice’.... A Rule 17(a) substitution of plaintiffs should be liberally allowed when the change is merely formal and in no way alters the original complaint’s factual allegations as to the events or the participants.
Advanced Magnetics, Inc. v. Bayfront Partners, Inc., 106 F.3d 11, 20 (2d Cir.1997) (quoting 6A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller, & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1555, at 415 (2d Ed.1990) (citations omitted)). A substitution of the real party in interest, in my opinion, would have been “merely formal” in the present case, and would not have “alter[ed] the original complaint’s factual allegations as to the events or participants.” In light of the lack of prejudice to Logitrans, the inadvertence of Zurich Insurance’s mistake, and the relationship between Zurich Insurance and American Guarantee as sister corporations under common ownership, I would have been inclined to conclude that substitution was appropriate under Rule 17(a) in the present case. The court’s holding that Zurich *535Insurance lacked Article III standing, however, precludes consideration of the Rule 17(a) issue.
Second, I note that Zurich Insurance argues on appeal that Logitrans waived its ability to object to the failure to bring the case in the name of the real party in interest by waiting until only twenty days before trial, and after the deadline for dispositive motions had passed, before raising the issue. Although it appears to me that this argument has merit, our holding on the grounds of Article III standing means that the waiver issue, like the Rule 17(a) issue, is beyond the scope of our power to adjudicate.