Boesenberg v. Chicago Title & Trust Co., No. 7836

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: SPARKS and MINTON, Circuit , and LINDLEY
• Citation: 141 ALR 565,128 F.2d 245
• Parties: BOESENBERG v. CHICAGO TITLE & TRUST CO. KROESCHELL et al. v. CHICAGO TITLE & TRUST CO.
• Docket Number: No. 7836,7844.
• Decision Date: 12 June 1942

141 ALR 565, 128 F.2d 245 (1942)

BOESENBERG
v.
CHICAGO TITLE & TRUST CO.
KROESCHELL et al.
v.
CHICAGO TITLE & TRUST CO.

Nos. 7836, 7844.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

May 6, 1942.

Rehearing Denied June 12, 1942.

Wm. B. Goodstein and Leo S. Samuels, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellant Boesenberg.

J. Kentner Elliott, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant Kroeschell.

Geo. L. Pilkington and Edmund J. Reynolds, both of Chicago, Ill. (Saltiel & Pilkington and Edward P. Saltiel, all of Chicago, Ill., of counsel), for appellee.

Before SPARKS and MINTON, Circuit Judges, and LINDLEY, District Judge.

LINDLEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff appeals from a dismissal of his complaint, the District Court having found that jurisdiction based upon diversity of citizenship did not exist for the reason that plaintiff's interest involved less than $3,000.

Plaintiff sued as representative of a class, great in number, all beneficiaries of a

128 F.2d 246

trust estate, averring that the trustees had been guilty of malfeasance, had wrongfully converted trust funds to their own use and fraudulently paid excessive compensations to certain individuals. Plaintiff sought restraint of the trustees from further wrongful action, lodgment of the trust estate in a receiver to be appointed by the court, determination of the amount due the estate and its restorement to the fund. The sums said to have been wrongfully diverted were more than $30,000 and the entire estate consisted of property worth some $70,000. Plaintiff's proportionate interest therein is less than $3,000

The District Court evidently believed this to be a suit to recover the several individual amounts due plaintiff and others of the same class of which the court had no jurisdiction because of lack of the essential element of jurisdiction depending upon diversity of citizenship, in that the sum due plaintiff is less than the requisite amount.

We think this was error. True, several claims of many against one may not be aggregated to create a sum conferring jurisdiction. Pusey & Jones Co. v. Hanssen, 261 U.S. 491, 43 S.Ct. 454, 67 L.Ed. 763; Lion Bonding & Surety Co. v. Karatz, 262 U.S. 77, 43 S.Ct. 480, 67 L.Ed. 871; Illinois Bankers' Life Ass'n v. Farris, 7 Cir., 21 F.2d 1014; Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc. 306 U.S. 583, 59 S.Ct. 744, 83 L.Ed. 1001; Robbins v. Western Automobile Ins. Co., 7 Cir., 4 F.2d 249. But such is not the case before us. Rather it is within the rule announced by this court in Johnson v. Ingersoll et al., 63 F.2d 86, 87. There a stockholder brought suit to protect a corporate right and the resultant common interests of all stockholders therein, the corporation having refused to take action. "In such case, it is not necessary for the shareholder to show that his private interest or damage, actual or threatened, amounts to the sum which is required to give the federal courts jurisdiction. That jurisdiction is tested by the value of the object sought to be gained by the suit. Fidler v. Roberts 7 Cir., 41 F.2d 305, 306; Troy Bank v. G. A. Whitehead & Co., 222 U.S. 39, 32...