Court Opinion

ID: 9442253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:41:17.558313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:01.750774
License: Public Domain

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the opinion and judgment, but wish to add some words on the subject of diversity of citizenship as an essential of federal jurisdiction. The statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(26), as amended by the Act of 1936, undertakes to give jurisdiction of bills of interpleader or bills in the nature of bills of interpleader filed by persons described if “two or more adverse claimants, citizens of different States, are claiming to be entitled, * * Is it meant that the adverse claimants may be of citizenship diverse from the plaintiffs, or diverse from each other? I think either diversity will suffice. We must bear in mind also the words of Article III, Sec. 2, “The judicial Power shall extend to * * * Controversies * * * between citizens of different States.” I assume that complete diversity is meant, as is now indicated in Revised Title 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1332 and 1335. In Maryland Casualty Co. v. Glassell-Taylor, 5 Cir., 156 F.2d 2d 519, the bill was in the nature of interpleader, the plaintiff denying liability to any one, and having citizenship diverse from all claimants, though the claimants’ citizenships were not wholly diverse from each other. There was undoubtedly a controversy between the plaintiff on the one side and all claimants on the other, and I think the words of the statute and Constitution were satisfied. No money was paid into court but a bond was given to stand as a distributable fund if the plaintiff should be held liable. The present case is one of pure interpleader, the plaintiffs acknowledging liability on the policies and paying their face amount into court to be distributed.1 They have now been discharged from court, and have been paid attorney’s fees. Their citizenship is diverse from that of all defendants, but it is said they had no controversy with any one, and Treines v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U.S. 66, 60 S.Ct. 44, 84 L.Ed. 85, is cited, where in a case of pure interpleader in which such diversity was lacking it was said the plaintiff’s citizenship was immaterial, the real controversy being between *230two groups of claimants whose citizenships were wholly diverse. In the present case there is a claimant of Illinois, a mortgagee, claiming the whole fund; and the insured and his trustee in bankruptcy claim the whole adversely to the mortgagee, and assignees of the insured claim adversely to every one else, all being of Mississippi. The plaintiffs have citizenship diverse from all defendants. In filing their bill they sought the equitable remedy of interpleader against all defendants, and an injunction against all of them, and leave to put the money into court in discharge of their personal liability. I think initially there was enough of a controversy between plaintiffs and defendants to justify federal jurisdiction under this statute. With the injunction granted and the fund deposited, it now becomes necessary for the court to ascertain its owners, just as it must do in a receivership case, and a dependent jurisdiction arises to do this regardless of the citizenship of any claimant or the amount of his claim. But here the Illinois claimant can be aligned against all the Mississippi claimants with a perfect diversity, if that be necessary. Although the original plaintiffs and their initial controversy have been disposed of, the court still has the power and duty to dispose of the fund.
I do not think the original presence of the United States as a claimant need worry us. If the United States was subject to suit, there is alway federal jurisdiction thereof. If the United States saw fit to intervene to claim the fund, it could do so without disturbing the jurisdiction. But the United States has formally withdrawn from the case, having been otherwise satisfied, and this has cured any difficulty that there may have been on this point.
HOLMES, Circuit Judge (dissenting);

. It is argued that this also is a case in the nature of interpleader, because of a suit in a state court for the face of the policies instead of the amount of the loss subsequently fixed without contest. On the face of this complaint the allegations are of a pure interpleader, the plaintiffs being simple stake-holders. They were in fact such, end the decree is express to that effect. Attorneys fees and other costs were allowed them on that basis.