Mailloux v. Mailloux

• Decision Date: 31 May 1977
• Docket Number: Nos. 75-2898,76-1836,s. 75-2898
• Citation: 554 F.2d 976
• Parties: Eleanor F. MAILLOUX, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gordon E. MAILLOUX and Marianas Pacific, Inc., Defendants-Appellees, and Chase Manhattan Bank (National Association), Defendant-Appellant. SOUTH ACRES DEVELOPMENT CO., a partnership, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHASE MANHATTAN BANK (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION), Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 976

554 F.2d 976

Eleanor F. MAILLOUX, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gordon E. MAILLOUX and Marianas Pacific, Inc., Defendants-Appellees, and Chase Manhattan Bank (National Association), Defendant-Appellant.

SOUTH ACRES DEVELOPMENT CO., a partnership, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHASE MANHATTAN BANK (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION), Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 75-2898, 76-1836.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

May 31, 1977.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied July 20, 1977.

Howard G. Trapp, submitted on brief, Trapp, Gayle, Teker, Hammer & Lacy, Agana, Guam, for defendant-appellant.

John C. Dierking, submitted on brief, Agana, Guam, for appellee, Mailloux.

Ching, Rosenzweig, Boertzel & Price, Agana, Guam, for plaintiff-appellee South Acres.

Appeal from the District Court of Guam.

Before HUFSTEDLER, WRIGHT and SNEED, Circuit Judges.

HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents the question whether there is a diversity jurisdiction analog in the District Court of Guam over causes of action which the Guam legislature has otherwise lodged in the Guam Island Court. ¹ Plaintiff Eleanor Mailloux, a citizen of West Virginia, brought this action to enforce a marital settlement agreement against her former husband, a citizen and resident of Guam, and joined the Chase Manhattan Bank as a codefendant because it had received the proceeds from the sale of the property in dispute. The action was brought in the Guam District Court which decided that it had jurisdiction under section 1424(a) of the Organic Act of Guam (48 U.S.C. § 1424(a)), in light of 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d).

Congress did not specifically address the question whether federal diversity jurisdiction would exist after the Guamanian legislature transferred local causes of action to the Island Court. Both the Organic Act and the 1958 revision of its judiciary section are silent on the point. We reach the conclusion that Congress intended that the Guam District Court have diversity jurisdiction analogous to that of a federal district court within the States, because a major purpose of the Organic Act was to bring to Guam a judiciary closely analogous to that of the United States and, particularly, to grant to the citizens of Guam the benefits of the privileges and immunities clauses of the Federal Constitution, which include access to federal courts in diversity cases as long as diversity jurisdiction is a federal jurisdictional component.

The Organic Act grants the District Court of Guam "jurisdiction of a district court of the United States in all causes arising under the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States, regardless of the sum or value of the matter in controversy . . .." The words "arising under the . . . laws of the United States" are not automatically selfdefining, and they have meant different things in different contexts. (Compare Osborn v. Bank of United States (1824) 9 Wheat. 738, 22 U.S. 738, 6 L.Ed. 204 ("arising under" in the context of Article III) with Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Mottley (1908) 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126 ("arising under" in the context of 28 U.S.C. § 1331). See also Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills (1957) 353 U.S. 448, 473-78, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (discussion of protective jurisdiction and construction of "arising under . . . the laws of the United States"); P. Bator, D. Shapiro, P. Mishkin, and H. Wechsler, Hart and Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System 850-73 (1973).)

We read the "arising under . . . " language in the Organic Act in conjunction with the more recent enactment of section 1421b(u), extending the privileges and immunities clauses of the Federal Constitution to Guam, to help us solve the diversity riddle. ² The extension to Guamanian citizens of the privileges and immunities of national citizenship ³ was intended to "guarantee to all U.S. citizens in or entering Guam including corporations of any of the United States rights of national citizenship such as . . . the right to appeal in proper cases to the national courts, and the right of protection abroad." ⁴ The privileges of national citizenship ⁵ have been construed to include the right of access to federal courts via diversity jurisdiction. (Terral v. Burke Construction Co. (1922) 257 U.S. 529, 42 S.Ct. 188, 66 L.Ed. 352 (nonresident corporations have right to resort to federal courts under diversity and removal statutes which is of constitutional proportion; state cannot condition license on waiver of that right); Garrity v. New Jersey (1967) 385 U.S. 493, 500, 87 S.Ct. 616, 620, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 ("There are rights of constitutional stature whose exercise a State may not condition by the exaction of a price. . . . Resort to the federal courts in diversity of citizenship cases is another."); In re Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. (5th Cir. 1976) 535 F.2d 859, 861, modified 542 F.2d 297 (en banc) ("Persons who meet those (diversity and removal) criteria have a statutory and indeed a constitutional, right to resort to the federal courts."); Pennsylvania v. Local 542, Operating Engineers (E.D.Pa.1972) 347 F.Supp. 268, 297.)

Congress intended that Guam should be treated as if it were a state for the purpose of applying the privileges and immunities clauses. ⁶ That purpose is fulfilled by reading section 1424(a) together with section 1421b(u) to provide the Guam District Court with diversity jurisdiction, thus giving Guamanian litigants access to the federal courts analogous to that guaranteed to litigants within the States by the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This interpretation of sections 1424(a) and 1421b(u) also implements the broad policies of the Organic Act of Guam which included providing Guam with a judiciary closely patterned on that of the United States. ⁷ (Cf. Agana Bay Development Co., Ltd. v. Supreme Court of Guam (9th Cir. 1976) 529 F.2d 952, 959 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (adopted by the court en banc in Guam v. Olsen (1976) 540 F.2d 1011, 1012, cert. granted, 429 U.S. 959, 97 S.Ct. 380, 50 L.Ed.2d 325) (language should be construed in context of, and with reference to, the whole territorial structure established for Guam by Congress).)

AFFIRMED.

SNEED, Circuit Judge (dissenting):

I respectfully dissent. The Organic Act of Guam grants neither diversity nor removal jurisdiction to the District Court of Guam.

The majority opinion asserts that a congressional intent to extend diversity jurisdiction to the District Court of Guam can be gleaned from a combined reading of sections 1421b(u) and 1424(a) of the Organic Act of Guam, 48 U.S.C. §§ 1421, et seq. (1970). Even the majority implicitly recognizes that section 1424(a), which gives the District Court of Guam jurisdiction over controversies "arising under" the laws of the United States, cannot by itself support a finding of diversity jurisdiction. But the majority argues that the "arising under" language of section 1424(a) presents a "diversity riddle" that is solved by reference to section 1421b(u) of the Organic Act, extending to Guam the privileges and immunities clauses of the Constitution. According to the majority, one of the privileges of national citizenship so extended is the "right of access to federal courts via diversity jurisdiction."

The majority is mistaken. Section 1424(a) is not ambiguous. The relevant clause gives the Guam district court jurisdiction over federal questions and nothing more. No "diversity riddle" is posed. Even if section 1424(a) were unclear, however, section 1421b(u) would not help to establish diversity jurisdiction since such jurisdiction is not a privilege of national citizenship undeniable by Congress.

I.

The Setting In Which The Issue Arises.

To grasp the setting in which arises the issue these cases present, it is helpful to trace briefly the evolution of the legislation governing the jurisdiction of the District Court of Guam. To do this it is necessary to recall that the Territory of Guam was acquired by the United States under the Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War in 1898. From then until 1950, complete authority over Guam was given to the Department of the Navy by Executive Order No. 108-A of December 23, 1898. The naval governors, among other exercises of powers, created courts and acted as judges. In 1950, realizing the progress the people of Guam had made toward self-government under the naval governors, Congress enacted the Organic Act of Guam of August 1, 1950, 64 Stat. 384, which established a civil government on the island. ¹ In this manner, Guam became an organized, unincorporated territory. ² Along with a territorial government and an appointive governor, the Act provided for the future establishment of local courts by the newly-created legislature and established the jurisdiction of the district court:

The District Court of Guam shall have, in all causes arising under the laws of the United States, the jurisdiction of a district court of the United States as such court is defined in section 451 of Title 28, and shall have original jurisdiction in all other causes in Guam, jurisdiction over which has not been transferred by the legislature to other court or courts established by it, and shall have such appellate jurisdiction as the legislature may determine.

48 U.S.C. § 1424(a) (amended 1958).

The District Court of Guam under this scheme is a legislative court created pursuant to the constitutional power of Congress over the Territories, Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2, not a constitutional court created by way of the judicial power in Art. III, § 1. ³ As such, Congress under its plenary authority derived from Art. IV ⁴ may limit the court's jurisdiction as it wishes, and need not confer upon it the same jurisdiction as a district court established by virtue of Art. III. ⁵

This plenary authority was exercised again in 1958 when section 1424(a) was amended to redefine the jurisdiction of the district court:...