Dassinger v. South Central Bell Tel. Co., 74-2171

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
• Citation: 505 F.2d 672
• Docket Number: No. 74-2171,74-2171
• Parties: Peter DASSINGER, d/b/a Peter Dassinger Modeling Studios, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTH CENTRAL BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Summary Calendar.* *Rule 18, 5 Cir.; see Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York et al., 5 Cir. 1970, 431 F.2d 409, Part I.
• Decision Date: 20 December 1974

Page 672

505 F.2d 672 Peter DASSINGER, d/b/a Peter Dassinger Modeling Studios,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SOUTH CENTRAL BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. No. 74-2171 Summary Calendar.*
*Rule 18, 5 Cir.; see Isbell Enterprises, Inc.
v.
Citizens Casualty Co. of New York et al., 5 Cir. 1970, 431
F.2d 409, Part I. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. Dec. 20, 1974.

Page 673

Darleen M. Jacobs, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Raymond J. Salassi, Jr., New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellee.

Before WISDOM, GOLDBERG and GEE, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Plaintiff-appellant Dassinger owns and operates a modeling and motion picture studio in New Orleans, Louisiana. At various times between Cecember 1, 1970, and September 30, 1971, potential clients contacted defendant-appellee South Central Bell's (Bell's) directory assistance service and asked for plaintiff's business number. Dassinger alleges that the Bell operators on several of those occasions refused to impart the requested information, on the ground that the number was a semi-private one which could not be given out to the general public. After some of these frustrated customers contacted Dassinger by other means and informed him of the difficulty, plaintiff filed this lawsuit in federal district court on the basis of the federal diversity jurisdiction, complaining that the conduct of Bell's employees had caused some potential clients to go elsewhere with lucrative contracts, to his great financial and emotional detriment. On April 4, 1974, the district court dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction and at the same time granted Bell's motion for summary judgment against Dassinger. We believe that the district court should neither have dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction nor have awarded summary judgment to Bell. We reverse.

The jurisdiction of a federal court in a diversity case such as this one is limited to actions in which the matter in controversy exceeds $10,000. ¹ Dassinger has made a formal allegation that the amount in controversy does in fact exceed $10,000 and he has supplemented that formal allegation with two affidavits from frustrated clients tending to show that the conduct of Bell's employees At various times between December 1, with a total face value of $50,000. ² Unfortunately, plaintiff has not indicated how much of this $50,000 would have been profit. Bell contends, on the basis of Dassinger's unhappy business history, that whatever profits Dassinger might have made on the contracts would not have satisfied the requirements of federal jurisdiction.

Althouth discretion is vested in the trial court to determine whether the claim meets the jurisdictional amount, Gibbs v. Buck, 1939, 307 U.S. 66, 59 S.Ct. 725, 83 L.Ed. 1111, the Supreme Court has...