Campbell v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 08 September 1998
• Docket Number: No. CV98-N-1542-W.,CV98-N-1542-W.
• Citation: 19 F.Supp.2d 1260
• Parties: Fayette CAMPBELL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama

19 F.Supp.2d 1260

Fayette CAMPBELL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, et al., Defendants.

No. CV98-N-1542-W.

United States District Court, N.D. Alabama, Western Division.

September 8, 1998.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

R. Jackson Drake, Cooper Mitch Crawford, Kuykendall & Whatley, Birmingham, AL, Ira D. Pruitt, Jr., Pruitt Pruitt & Watkins, PA, Livingston, AL, Robert F. Prince, Silas G. Cross, Jr., Erby J. Fischer, II, Prince Poole & Cross PC, Tuscaloosa, AL, Thomas J. Methvin, Andy D. Birchfield, Jr., Beasley Wilson Allen Crow & Methvin PC Montgomery, AL, for Fayette Campbell, Cedric Hatter, E.A. Truett, Charles E. Wilson, Johnny Bishop, John Snider, Ernest Dew, Jr., plaintiffs.

Mac M. Moorer, John Q. Somerville, Lightfoot Franklin & White LLC, Birmingham, AL, Larry W. Harper, Timothy W. Knight, Porterfield Harper & Mills PA, Birmingham, AL, T. Samuel Duck, Newman Miller Leo & O'Neal, Birmingham, AL, for General Motors Corp., Inc, Stanadyne Automotive, Industrial Diesel and Hydraulics, Inc., Birmingham Electric Battery Co., Inc., defendants.

Memorandum of Opinion

EDWIN L. NELSON, District Judge.

I. Introduction.

The Court has for consideration plaintiffs' motion to amend their complaint, filed July 13, 1998, and plaintiffs' motion to remand, filed June 30, 1998. In their notice of removal, filed June 15, 1998, the defendants asserted federal jurisdiction in this Court on the alternate grounds of diversity of citizenship, under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and the existence of a federal question, under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, via the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 49 U.S.C. §§ 30101-30169. See Notice of Removal, ¶¶ 8, 16-18. The crux of the plaintiffs' claims is that the defendants designed and installed defective fuel injector pumps in various models of General Motors automobiles. The named defendants are General Motors Corporation ("GM") and Stanadyne Automotive Corporation ("Stanadyne").¹

Both motions before the court have been briefed and were orally argued on August 31, 1998. They are ripe for decision. The motion to amend will be denied and the motion to remand will be granted.

II. The Motion to Amend the Complaint.

On July 13, 1998, the plaintiffs moved for leave to amend the complaint. Such leave "shall be freely given when justice so requires," Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a), and this court has no particular objection to the amendment offered here. However, it is a bit troubled by plaintiffs' references to the proposed amended complaint, which still has not been accepted by this court, in arguing the remand issue. The Supreme Court long ago made clear that federal jurisdiction is to be determined based on the facts and pleadings as they existed at the time of removal and not later. St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 58 S.Ct. 586, 82 L.Ed. 845 (1938); see Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. v. KN Energy, Inc., 498 U.S. 426, 428, 111 S.Ct. 858, 860, 112 L.Ed.2d 951 (1991) ("We have consistently held that if jurisdiction exists at the time an action is commenced, such jurisdiction may not be divested by subsequent events."). Therefore even if this court were to allow the plaintiffs' to amend their complaint, the amended complaint could not be considered in assessing the court's jurisdiction.

Plaintiffs urge that the amended complaint can be considered because it "does not alter plaintiffs' causes of action or the relief sought but is an attempt to clarify any possible confusion inherent in plaintiffs' original complaint." Memorandum in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion to Remand, at 1. It is true that some courts have suggested that such "clarifications" do not fall within the St. Paul rule, and may be considered in assessing jurisdiction. See, e.g., ANPAC v. Dow Quimica de Colombia S.A., 988 F.2d 559 (5th Cir. 1993); Griffin v. Holmes, 843 F.Supp. 81 (E.D.N.C.1993). Even if this court were inclined to accept such an approach, however, it would not apply it in this case. The courts following the "clarification" doctrine limit it to situations in which the original pleadings essentially leave the amount in controversy question entirely open. As the discussion below indicates, the claims in the original complaint provide a sufficiently clear basis for this court to assess jurisdiction. Any attempt at "clarification" would provide little benefit, and pose the threat of an impermissible change in the substance of the complaint. Therefore the court will address only the allegations of plaintiffs' original complaint in evaluating the propriety of removal.

Plaintiffs' motion to amend is otherwise proper. However, in light of this court's disposition of the motion to remand, the court feels that the decision to permit or deny an amendment would be better left to the discretion of the state court. The motion to amend will therefore be denied with leave to refile in state court.

III. Allegations of the Original Complaint.

Plaintiffs Fayette Campbell, Cedric Hatter, E.A. Truett, Charles Wilson, Johnny Bishop, John Snider, and Earnest Dew, Jr., purport to bring this action on behalf of themselves and others who own similar General Motors vehicles.² They aver that because of allegedly defective electronic fuel injector pumps, the described vehicles may have unpredictable stalling episodes and may be difficult to start, subjecting the plaintiffs to an unreasonable risk of personal injury due to an increased risk of collisions. The plaintiffs make a number of claims: fraudulent concealment, unjust enrichment, and products liability. They also request comprehensive injunctive and declaratory relief, including, inter alia, a required owner notification campaign to notify putative class members of the alleged defect, a recall and refit of all affected vehicles, and a declaration of their rights to notification and cure of the defect. Under the pretext of seeking injunctive relief, the plaintiffs also ask for incidental and compensatory damages.

IV. The Motion to Remand.

A. Diversity Jurisdiction and Aggregation.

The plaintiffs admit that there is diversity of citizenship among the parties, but argue that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking because the amount in controversy does not exceed seventy-five thousand dollars. 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Where the plaintiffs' claim for damages is unspecified, "a removing defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy more likely than not exceeds the $[75],000 jurisdictional requirement." Tapscott v. MS Dealer Serv. Corp., 77 F.3d 1353, 1357 (11th Cir.1996); see also Gafford v. General Elec. Co., 997 F.2d 150, 160 (6th Cir.1993).³ In the present case, the plaintiffs make an unspecified demand for compensatory damages and injunctive relief. They contend that the demand of each plaintiff, named and unnamed, must be viewed in isolation, disregarding the total amount of the claims, when determining the amount in controversy for jurisdictional purposes. For the reasons set out below, the court agrees.

Ordinarily, separate and distinct claims of multiple plaintiffs cannot be aggregated in order to satisfy the jurisdictional amount requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Snyder v. Harris, 394 U.S. 332, 335, 89 S.Ct. 1053, 1056, 22 L.Ed.2d 319 (1969). However, "when several plaintiffs unite to enforce a single ... right in which they have a common and undivided interest, it is enough if their interests collectively equal the jurisdictional amount." Pinel v. Pinel, 240 U.S. 594, 596, 36 S.Ct. 416, 60 L.Ed. 817 (1916); Snyder, 394 U.S. at 335, 89 S.Ct. at 1056.

The Eleventh Circuit provided important insight into the scope of the common interest exception to Snyder's rule in Tapscott v. MS Dealer Serv. Corp., 77 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 1996). In Tapscott, the plaintiffs filed suit in state court alleging claims on behalf of a putative class for alleged violations of Alabama law arising from the sale of service contracts on automobiles sold and financed in Alabama. Id. at 1355. A defendant removed the case to federal court, asserting diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 arguing that the claims for punitive damages of the individual defendants should be aggregated to determine whether the jurisdictional amount in controversy was present. Id. The plaintiffs then moved to remand claiming, inter alia, failure to satisfy § 1332's amount in controversy requirement. Id.

In upholding the district court's denial of the plaintiffs' motion to remand, the Eleventh Circuit held that under Tapscott's facts punitive damages may be considered in the aggregate when determining the amount in controversy for jurisdictional purposes. Id. at 1357-59. In so holding, the court examined the nature of punitive damages under Alabama law, id., and then evaluated this remedy based on several factors. The court found that the purpose of punitive damages in Alabama is "to deter wrongful conduct and punish those responsible." Id. at 1358 (citing Reserve Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Crowell, 614 So.2d 1005, 1009 (Ala.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 824, 114 S.Ct. 84, 126 L.Ed.2d 52 (1993)). The court also noted that "the state and not the victim is considered the true party plaintiff because punitive damages do not compensate a victim for loss but serve to punish and deter." Tapscott, 77 F.3d at 1358 (citing Maryland Casualty Co. v. Tiffin, 537 So.2d 469, 471 (Ala.1988)). Thus "Alabama punitive damages are awarded for the public benefit — the collective good." Id. Furthermore, the court found that a punitive damages award reflects the egregiousness of the defendant's conduct toward the putative class members as a whole, not just the wrong claimed to have been done to any individual plaintiff. Tapscott, 77 F.3d at 1358-59. The court also indicated that "[r]emedies for the benefit of the group" rather than the individual are considered a common interest. Id. at 1359 n. 14. Group recoveries are recognizable because the defendant must pay over a relatively fixed sum so that ...