Battle v. Atkinson

• Decision Date: 28 April 1902
• Citation: 115 F. 384
• Parties: BATTLE v. ATKINSON.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

115 F. 384

BATTLE v. ATKINSON.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Arkansas, Eastern Division.

April 28, 1902

J. M. &amp J. G. Taylor, for plaintiff.

Rose &amp Coleman, for defendant.

This is an action of unlawful detainer for the possession of a block of ground and dwelling house thereon situated in the city of Pine Bluff, Ark., alleged to have been rented by the plaintiff, a citizen of Alabama, to the defendant, a citizen of Arkansas, for a monthly rental of $25 from May 1, 1901, to December 1, 1901. The complaint alleges that defendant took possession of the premises under a contract of lease on May 1st, but has failed to pay any rent whatever, and that his right to further occupy the lands ended on December 1, 1901 the time of the expiration of the lease; that the defendant now unlawfully detains the premises, after legal demand; and that the value of the property is $5,000. The prayer is for possession of the premises and $2,500 damages for the unlawful detention. The demurrer challenges the jurisdiction of the court upon the ground that the amount in controversy does not exceed the sum of $2,000, as shown from the face of the complaint.

TRIEBER District Judge (after stating the facts as above).

The damages claimed in the complaint are in excess of the amount necessary to confer jurisdiction on this court in this controversy, which is between citizens of different states but is now well settled that if, from the nature of the case, as stated in the pleadings, there could not legally be a judgment for the amount necessary to the jurisdiction, jurisdiction cannot attach, even though the damages be laid at a larger sum. As early as 1798 Chief Justice Ellsworth said:

'It is not intended to say that on every question of jurisdiction the demand of the plaintiff alone is to be regarded, but that the value of the thing put in demand furnishes the rule. The nature of the case must certainly guide the judgment of the court, and whenever the law makes a rule the rule must be pursued. The proposition, then, is simply this: Where the law gives no rule, the demand of the plaintiff must furnish one; but, where the law gives the rule, the legal cause of action, and not the plaintiff's demand, must be regarded. ' Wilson v. Daniel, 3 Dall. 401, 407, 1 L.Ed. 655.

This rule has been followed by the courts ever since. Hilton v. Dickinson, 108 U.S. 165, 2 Sup.Ct. 424, 27 L.Ed. 688; Bowman v. Railway Co., 115 U.S. 611, 6 Sup.Ct. 192, 29 L.Ed. 502; Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U.S. 550, 6 Sup.Ct. 501, 29 L.Ed 729; Vance v. W. A. Vandercook Co., 170 U.S. 468, 18 Sup.Ct. 645, 42 L.Ed. 1111; Trading Co. v. Morrison, 178 U.S. 262, 20 Sup.Ct. 869, 44 L.Ed. 1061; Bank of Arapahoe v. David Bradley & Co., 19 C.C.A. 206, 72 F. 867.

There is no allegation in the complaint showing any special damages suffered by plaintiff by reason of the unlawful detention of the premises by the defendant, nor is there anything alleged which would entitle plaintiff to any but actual damages, which would, in this case, be rents accruing to her from the time the possession was given to the defendant under the lease until the institution of this suit,-- nine months, at $25 a month,-- thus amounting to the sum of $225. Vance v. W. A. Vandercook Co., supra, is very much in point. In that case-- which was an action for the recovery of personal property of the alleged value of $1,000-- $10,000 was claimed as damages, but the supreme court held that this claim of damages was insufficient to confer jurisdiction of the case on the circuit court. Mr. Justice White, who delivered the unanimous opinion of the court, after reviewing the statutes of South Carolina on the subject of replevin, which are similar to those of Arkansas regulating proceedings in actions of unlawful detainer, says:

'As, however, by way of damages in an action of this character, recovery was only allowable for the actual damage caused by the detention, and could not embrace a cause of damage which was not, in legal contemplation, the proximate result of the wrongful detention, and such recovery was confined, as we have seen, to interest on the value of the property, it results that there was nothing the damages alleged in the petition and properly recoverable, adequate, when added to the value of the property, to have conferred upon the court jurisdiction to have entertained a consideration of the suit. Upon the face of the complaint, therefore, the circuit court was without jurisdiction over the action, and it erred in deciding to the contrary.' 170 U.S. 481, 18 Sup.Ct. 650, 42 L.Ed. 1111.

The facts in that case were even more favorable to the contention of plaintiff that he was entitled to exemplary damages than are the allegations in the complaint in the case at bar, for it was there charged 'that the trespass by the defendant was malicious, and resulted in the breaking up of plaintiff's trade and commerce,'' while in the case at bar there is no allegation whatever to entitle plaintiff to any but actual damages.

In Bank of Arapahoe v. David Bradley & Co., supra, Judge Caldwell, in delivering the opinion of the court, says:

'But jurisdiction is not acquired by a groundless and fictitious claim, made for the sole purpose of conferring it. The jurisdiction is determined by the amount demanded by the plaintiff in good faith, and not by the damages claimed, either in the body of the complaint or in the prayer for judgment. * * * In determining whether a claim is made in good faith or is fictitious, and is made only for imposing on the court a case no properly within its jurisdiction, the plaintiff will be held to a knowledge of the well-settled rules of law; and when the actual matter in controversy is inadequate in value to confer the jurisdiction, and the additional amount required for that purpose is attempted to be supplied by setting up a claim for something easily susceptible of proof, is made in good faith, but in support of which no proof is offered, and no satisfactory explanation given, or by adding a claim for which the law gives no right of action, and for which there can be no recovery, such a claim must be held to be fictitious, and to have been made for the purpose of perpetrating a fraud on the jurisdiction of the court.'

To the same effect see Trading Co. v. Morrison, 178 U.S. 262, 20 Sup.Ct. 869, 44 L.Ed. 1061.

In Thompson v. Gatlin, 7 C.C.A. 351, 58 F. 534, the Arkansas statute of unlawful detainer was before the court, and it was there held that the recovery of damages was limited to actual damages resulting from the dispossession. The claim for $2,500 damages made by the plaintiff must, therefore, be disregarded, except for the sum due for rent at the time of the institution of the suit, which amounted to $225, and treated as a mere attempt to give this court jurisdiction, if it does not possess it by reason of the allegation that the value of the premises sought to be recovered in this action exceeds $2,000. The allegation of the complaint is that the value of the premises for the possession of which this suit has been instituted in $5,000 and the rental value $25 a month. What is the criterion of the amount in controversy? Is it the value of the title in fee simple to the premises, or only the rental value for a limited time? In Smith v. Adams, 130 U.S. 167, 9 Sup.Ct. 566, 32 L.Ed. 895, the court say:

'By 'the matter in dispute' is meant the subject of the litigation, the matter upon which the action is brought and issue is joined, and in relation to which, if the issue be one of fact, testimony is taken.' 130 U.S. 175, 9 Sup.Ct. 569, 32 L.Ed. 895.

In Security Co. v. Gay, 145 U.S. 123, 12 Sup.Ct. 815, 36 L.Ed. 646, the question before the court was whether the amount involved exceeded $5,000, the amount necessary to confer at that time jurisdiction on the supreme court. The facts were that the plaintiff in error had recovered $9,725.66, while it claimed to be entitled to $12,155, or $2,429.34 more than the amount recovered. The action was one under the peculiar practice prevailing in the state of Georgia to foreclose a mortgage, but could not settle the title to the mortgaged premises, which could only be judicially determined by an action of ejectment after a recovery in an action on the debt, and it was there held that the amount involved was the difference between the sum recovered and that claimed, and that the jurisdiction of the court must be determined by the amount involved in the particular case, and not by any contingent loss which may be...