Diaz v. Pan American Federal Sav. and Loan Ass'n, 80-1299
| Decision Date | 05 December 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1299,80-1299 |
| Parties | Leopoldo Fernandez DIAZ et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. PAN AMERICAN FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION, Defendant, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
David Rive Rivera and Calderon, Rosa, Silva & Vargas, Hato Rey, P.R., on brief for plaintiffs, appellants.
Jaime A. Garcia-Blanco and Orlin P. Goble, Hato Rey, P.R., on brief, for defendant, appellee.
Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, CAMPBELL and BOWNES, Circuit Judges.
The complaint in this case alleged that defendant Pan American Federal Savings and Loan Association maliciously or negligently caused a criminal prosecution to be instituted against plaintiff in a Puerto Rico court. The criminal charge alleged that plaintiff had caused to be circulated two checks drawn against the Savings & Loan, for which there were insufficient funds. In a subsequent pleading, plaintiff invoked federal jurisdiction under 12 U.S.C. § 632, which, in pertinent part, provides:
"all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity to which any corporation organized under the laws of the United States shall be a party, arising out of transactions involving international or foreign banking, or banking in a dependency or insular possession of the United States, or out of other international or foreign financial operations, either directly or through the agency, ownership, or control of branches or local institutions in dependencies or insular possessions of the United States or in foreign countries, shall be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States, and the district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction of all such suits;"
The district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm.
Appellant would evidently have us read the relevant statutory provision as conferring jurisdiction for a cause of action "arising out of ... banking in a(n) ... insular possession ...." He would then read the word "banking" expansively to include the appellee's filing of a criminal complaint based on the alleged passing of bad checks. We decline to read the term "banking" so broadly. 1
The statute is otherwise limited to cases arising from "transactions" and "other ... financial operations" of banking institutions. We think that this limited range of companion parts of the same statutory section militates in favor of a similar narrow limitation for the term "banking". Cf. United States v. Turkette, 632 F.2d 896, at 899 (1st Cir. 1980) (). Moreover, a commonsense approach to a statute principally concerned with...
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