Deceased v. Michelin North America Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 August 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-15141.,09-15141.
• Citation: 613 F.3d 1058
• Parties: Donald B. ROE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Socorro Mejia, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MICHELIN NORTH AMERICA, INC., Michelin Americas Research & Development Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

613 F.3d 1058

Donald B. ROE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Socorro Mejia, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.MICHELIN NORTH AMERICA, INC., Michelin Americas Research & Development Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 09-15141.

United States Court of Appeals,Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 5, 2010.

J. Stuart McAtee, Fields, McAtee & Lorant, Birmingham, AL, Dana G. Taunton, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Metnvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Bonnie Lassiter, Robert P. Monyak, Peters & Monyak, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Charles A. Stewart, III, Bradley Arant Rose & White, LLP, Montgomery, AL, Scott Burnett Smith, Bradley Arant Rose & White, LLP, Huntsville, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Leila Hirayama Watson, Cory Watson Crowder & DeGaris, Birmingham, AL, Joana S. Ellis, Holtsford Gilliland Higgins Hitson & Howard, PC, Montgomery, AL, David G. Wirtes, Jr., Cunningham, Bounds, Yance, Crowder, Brown & Breedlove, Mobile, AL, for Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before BLACK, HULL and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.

BLACK, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellant Donald Roe, representing the estate of Socorro Mejia, sued Michelin North America, Inc. and Michelin Americas Research and Development Corp. (together, Michelin). Roe sought to recover unspecified damages under Alabama's Wrongful Death Act. Michelin, invoking diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, removed the case to federal court pursuant to § 1441 and the first paragraph of § 1446(b). Roe moved to remand, claiming Michelin failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000. The district court denied Roe's motion, finding the complaint sufficiently showed that the jurisdictional requirement was satisfied. Roe appeals the order.

The parties dispute whether a defendant can carry its jurisdictional burden by relying merely on the nature of the plaintiff's allegations, when only punitive damages are available and the plaintiff does not specify his monetary expectations. We conclude Michelin has carried its jurisdictional burden in this case and affirm the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

Socorro Mejia, the decedent, was a passenger in a Ford Explorer when the tread on the vehicle's Michelin tire separated and caused the Explorer to lose control. The vehicle rolled over, and both Mejia and the driver were killed. Roe, as the representative of Mejia's estate, sued Michelin claiming the company was negligent and wanton in designing, developing, and selling a tire that had a tendency to fail under foreseeable driving conditions. Roe sought to recover damages under Alabama's Wrongful Death Act, a statute that allows plaintiffs to recover punitive, but not compensatory, damages. See Campbell v. Williams, 638 So.2d 804, 809 (Ala.1994) (citing Ala. Great S. R.R. v. Burgess, 116 Ala. 509, 22 So. 913 (1987)). The complaint does not specify the amount of punitive damages Roe seeks, but merely prays “for damages allowed under Alabama's Wrongful Death Act, in an amount to be determined by a jury.”

Prior to discovery, Michelin removed the case to federal district court. Its notice of removal stated the parties were diverse and that, although Roe did “not state a specific amount of damages sought,” it was facially apparent from the complaint that the case met the $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement. Roe did not deny that the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000 but nevertheless moved to remand, claiming Michelin failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that more than $75,000 was at issue. Michelin opposed the motion, asserting that the nature of Roe's allegations alone was sufficient to show that the jurisdictional amount in controversy was satisfied. The district court found that Michelin had met its burden and denied Roe's motion to remand. Roe now challenges that denial on appeal. ¹

II. DISCUSSION

A. Removal

If a state-court complaint states a case that satisfies federal jurisdictional requirements, a defendant may remove the action to federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b). ² The defendant's notice of removal must contain “a short and plain statement of the grounds for removal,” and must be “signed pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” § 1446(a).

Michelin's notice of removal states that it is facially apparent from Roe's complaint that the case, more likely than not, exceeds the $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement. Roe argues it is not for the district court to determine whether the claim likely exceeds $75,000, if the plaintiff has not explicitly stated the amount of damages he seeks. ³

1. Eleventh Circuit Precedent

If a plaintiff makes “an unspecified demand for damages in state court, a removing defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy more likely than not exceeds the ... jurisdictional requirement.” Tapscott v. MS Dealer Service Corp., 77 F.3d 1353, 1357 (11th Cir.1996), abrogated on other grounds by Cohen v. Office Depot, Inc., 204 F.3d 1069 (11th Cir.2000). In some cases, this burden requires the removing defendant to provide additional evidence demonstrating that removal is proper. ⁴ See, e.g., Pretka v. Kolter City Plaza II, Inc., 608 F.3d 744 (11th Cir.2010). In other cases, however, it may be “facially apparent” from the pleading itself that the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional minimum, even when “the complaint does not claim a specific amount of damages.” See id. at 754 (quoting Williams v. Best Buy Co., Inc., 269 F.3d 1316, 1319 (11th Cir.2001)).

If a defendant alleges that removability is apparent from the face of the complaint, the district court must evaluate whether the complaint itself satisfies the defendant's jurisdictional burden. In making this determination, the district court is not bound by the plaintiff's representations regarding its claim, nor must it assume that the plaintiff is in the best position to evaluate the amount of damages sought. Id. at 771. Indeed, in some cases, the defendant or the court itself may be better-situated to accurately assess the amount in controversy. See id. (explaining that “sometimes the defendant's evidence on the value of the claims will be even better than the plaintiff's evidence,” and that a court may use its judgment to determine “which party has better access to the relevant information.”).

Eleventh Circuit precedent permits district courts to make “reasonable deductions, reasonable inferences, or other reasonable extrapolations” from the pleadings to determine whether it is facially apparent that a case is removable. See id. at 754. Put simply, a district court need not “suspend reality or shelve common sense in determining whether the face of a complaint ... establishes the jurisdictional amount.” See id. at 770 (quoting Roe v. Michelin N. Am., Inc., 637 F.Supp.2d 995, 999 (M.D.Ala.2009)); see also Williams, 269 F.3d at 1319 (11th Cir.2001) (allowing district courts to consider whether it is “facially apparent” from a complaint that the amount in controversy is met). Instead, courts may use their judicial experience and common sense in determining whether the case stated in a complaint meets federal jurisdictional requirements. ⁵ This approach is consistent with those of other circuits.

2. Other Circuits' Removal Precedent

Michelin removed this case pursuant to the first paragraph of § 1446(b). Because our precedent is relatively sparse in this area, we consider decisions from other circuits as persuasive authority. In doing so, however, we look only to those cases that have evaluated the allegations in plaintiffs' complaints to determine the value of unspecified amounts in controversy. In other words, we look only to other § 1446(b) first-paragraph cases in which the plaintiff does not make a specific damages demand. One circuit in particular, the Fifth Circuit, has often considered whether removability is “facially apparent” from an initial complaint, notwithstanding the omission of a specific damage request. The issue arises with some frequency in the Fifth Circuit, because “plaintiffs in Louisiana state courts, by law, may not specify the numerical value of claimed damages.” Gebbia v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 233 F.3d 880, 882 (5th Cir.2000) (citing La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 893). ⁶

Like the Eleventh Circuit, the Fifth Circuit requires that when the complaint omits a specific allegation as to the damage amount, “the removing defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy is adequate.” See Felton v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 324 F.3d 771, 773 (5th Cir.2003) (quotations omitted). The defendant may meet its burden “by establishing that it is ‘facially apparent’ that the claims probably exceed $75,000.” Id.

In Luckett v. Delta Airlines, Inc., for example, the Fifth Circuit held that a complaint sufficiently established federal diversity jurisdiction in a case removed from Louisiana state court, despite the lack of a specific damage request. 171 F.3d 295, 298 (5th Cir.1999). The Fifth Circuit “found [the] complaint's allegations of property damage, travel expenses, [an] emergency ambulance trip, six days in the hospital, pain and suffering, humiliation, and a temporary inability to do housework ... combined to meet the jurisdictional requirement even though no amount of damages was pled.” Felton, 324 F.3d at 774 (summarizing the holding in Luckett); Luckett, 171 F.3d at 298 (“Reading the face of the complaint, the district court did not err in finding that Luckett's claims exceeded $75,000.”).

Similarly, in Gebbia, the Fifth Circuit held that a complaint lacking a specified damage request met the amount-in-controversy requirement. The court explained that the plaintiff's allegations-that her slip and fall resulted in severe physical injury, lost wages, lost enjoyment of life, and pain and...