Cooper v. Camp Pinecrest, Inc.

• Decision Date: 24 July 1959
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 19822.
• Citation: 175 F. Supp. 817
• Parties: Samuel G. COOPER, Assignee of Lawrence G. Nusbaum, and Blanche Nusbaum, by Samuel G. Cooper, her Guardian ad Litem, Plaintiffs, v. CAMP PINECREST, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

175 F. Supp. 817

Samuel G. COOPER, Assignee of Lawrence G. Nusbaum, and Blanche Nusbaum, by Samuel G. Cooper, her Guardian ad Litem, Plaintiffs, v. CAMP PINECREST, INC., Defendant.

Civ. No. 19822.

United States District Court E. D. New York.

July 24, 1959.

Hampton & Dietel, New York City, by August C. Nimphius, Jr., New York City, for defendant, for the motion.

Cohen, Jaffin & Nusbaum, by Lawrence G. Nusbaum, Jr., New York City, N. Y., for plaintiffs, in opposition.

RAYFIEL, District Judge.

The defendant herein moves to dismiss the first cause of action pleaded in the complaint on the ground that "less than $3,000 is in controversy" and to dismiss the second, third and fourth causes of action on the ground of forum non conveniens.

The first cause of action alleges a claim for a refund of $552.68 paid by the plaintiff's assignor, Lawrence G. Nusbaum, to the defendant as a camp fee for his daughter Blanche, who was dismissed from the camp, as well as a demand for reimbursement of the sum of $200 expended by him for camp clothes and insignia. The total amount of the claim asserted in the first cause of action is $752.68. The second, third and fourth causes of action demand judgment in the amounts of $100,000, $250,000 and $250,000 respectively.

Section 1332 of Title 28 U.S.C. was amended on July 25, 1958, to increase the minimum jurisdictional requirements in diversity suits to $10,000 rather than the $3,000 referred to by the defendant in its notice of motion. However, it is well settled that the jurisdictional requirement is met by the joinder of multiple claims against a defendant the aggregate amount of which exceeds the said minimum requirement. The rule was summarized by Chief Judge Bratton in the case of Alberty v. Western Surety Co., 10 Cir., 249 F.2d 537, at page 538, when he said: "1, 2 In a diversity of citizenship case, separate and distinct claims of two or more claimants, each for less than $3,000, with no community of interest or title in the right asserted, may not be aggregated or combined in order to confer federal jurisdiction of the cause of action. Lion Bonding & Surety Co. v. Karatz, 262 U.S. 77, 43 S.Ct. 480, 67 L.Ed. 871; Aetna Insurance Co. v. Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co., 10 Cir., 229 F.2d 584; Century Insurance Co. v. Mooney, 10 Cir., 241 F.2d 910. But where a single plaintiff has multiple claims against a single defendant or against two or more defendants jointly, and the claims are of such character that they may properly be joined in one suit, the aggregate amount thereof is for the purpose of federal jurisdiction the amount in controversy. Edwards v. Bates County, 163 U.S. 269, 16 S.Ct. 967, 41 L.Ed. 155; Kimel v. Missouri State Life Insurance Co., 10 Cir. 71 F.2d 921; Provident Mutual Insurance Company of Philadelphia v. Parsons, 4 Cir., 70 F.2d 863, certiorari denied 293 U.S. 582, 55 S.Ct. 95, 79 L.Ed. 678; Simecek v. United States National Bank of Omaha, Neb., 8 Cir., 91 F.2d 214."

In the case at bar there is a joinder of causes of action aggregating over $600,000, so that the jurisdictional requirement has been met. That part of the motion is, therefore, denied.

I come now to the part of the motion which involves the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Section 1404(a) of Title 28, United States Code, which was amended on June 25, 1948, provides as follows: "For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district * * * where it might have been brought." (Emphasis supplied.) This section provides, not for the dismissal of a cause where the convenience of parties and witnesses would be served by its trial in another district, as the section provided prior to its amendment, but for the transfer thereof to the more convenient place. However, the doctrine that the plaintiffs' choice of forum should rarely be disturbed has been universally recognized by our Courts. In the case of Gulf Oil Corp....