Golatte v. Mathews

• Decision Date: 09 May 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 75-14-E.
• Citation: 394 F. Supp. 1203
• Parties: Victor Lewis GOLATTE, etc., Plaintiff, v. Sue Wilson MATHEWS, etc., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

394 F. Supp. 1203

Victor Lewis GOLATTE, etc., Plaintiff, v. Sue Wilson MATHEWS, etc., Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 75-14-E.

United States District Court, M. D. Alabama, E. D.

May 9, 1975.

Ruth S. Sullivan, Dadeville, Ala., for plaintiff.

J. Gusty Yearout, Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville, Birmingham, Ala., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

VARNER, District Judge.

This cause is now before the Court on two separate motions, viz., the Plaintiff's motion to remand this suit to the Circuit Court of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, filed herein March 28, 1975, and the Defendant's motion to quash the revival of this suit or in the alternative motion to dismiss filed herein March 19, 1975.

The facts of the case are that the Plaintiff filed a complaint in State Court on July 26, 1975, in a typical negligence suit, demanding of the Defendant, Jack T. Mathews, damages of $25,000.00. However, the Defendant, Jack T. Mathews, had died on June 15, 1974. On February 4, 1975, the Plaintiff filed a motion in State Court asking that his suit against Jack T. Mathews be revived against Sue Wilson Mathews, as Executrix of the Estate of Jack T. Mathews. This motion was granted by the State Court on February 5, 1975. The substituted Defendant, Sue Wilson Mathews, filed a petition for removal of the suit to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on March 19, 1975. Jurisdictional amount was adequate from the face of the original complaint and diversity of citizenship has never been challenged by the Plaintiff. On March 28, 1975, after the removal, the Plaintiff amended his complaint to claim damages less than the jurisdictional amount of $10,000.00, i. e., $9,950.00, and filed a motion to remand the suit to State Court on the grounds that this Court cannot properly hear this case since the requisite jurisdictional amount was not satisfied. Previously, on March 19, 1975, the Defendant filed her motion to quash the order issued by the State Court which allowed revival of the Plaintiff's suit (and which, in the alternative, prayed for dismissal of the suit), the Defendant giving her reasons for so moving.

I. Plaintiff's motion to remand. The initial inquiry is whether the requisite jurisdictional amount appears in view of the Plaintiff's amendment of his complaint to claim an amount less than the jurisdictional amount. The leading case is St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 58 S.Ct. 586, 82 L.Ed. 845 (1938). Also see Handbook of the Law of Federal Courts, Charles Alan Wright, 2nd Edition 1970, § 33 for discussion. The general rule set forth in St. Paul Mercury Co. v. Red Cab Co., supra, for determining the presence or absence of jurisdictional amount in a given case is as follows:

"The rule governing dismissal for want of jurisdiction (amount) in cases brought in the federal courts is that, unless the law gives a different rule, the sum claimed by the plaintiff controls if the claim is apparently made in good faith. It must appear to a legal certainty that the claim is really for less than the jurisdictional amount to justify dismissal." (parenthetical expression added)

Applying this rule to the Plaintiff's original complaint, it can hardly be said that the Plaintiff's original claim for $25,000.00 of damages in State Court has been made in other than good faith. In addition, granting for purposes of argument that there may be very little chance factually for the value of the Plaintiff's claim to be greater than the jurisdictional amount, there is still no legal certainty in the instant case that the claim is really for less than the jurisdictional amount. In his original complaint, the Plaintiff claimed a full $25,000.00 as damages which the Plaintiff alleged resulted from a single act of negligence of Jack T. Mathews. The extent of those damages is a question for the jury and cannot be reduced to a sum below the jurisdictional amount by the resolution by this Court of some question of law. See Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U.S. 550, 6 S.Ct. 501, 29 L.Ed. 729; Bell v. Preferred Life Assurance, 320 U.S. 238, 64 S.Ct. 5, 88 L.Ed. 15 (1943).

In St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., supra, the United States Supreme Court did not permit ouster of federal jurisdiction based on jurisdictional amount once it attached, stating:

"A different situation is presented in the case of a suit instituted in a state court and thence removed. There is a strong presumption that the plaintiff has not claimed a large amount in order to confer jurisdiction on a federal court or that the parties have colluded to that end. * * * Moreover, the status of the case as disclosed by the plaintiff's complaint is controlling in the case of a removal, since the defendant must file his petition before the time for answer or forever lose his right to remove. * * * And though, as here, the plaintiff after removal, by stipulation, by affidavit, or by amendment of his pleadings, reduces the claim below the requisite amount, this does not deprive the district court of jurisdiction." (at 290-292, 58 S.Ct. at 591)

Consequently, the Plaintiff's motion to remand this suit to State Court should be denied.

II. Defendant's motion to quash revival and in the alternative motion to dismiss. In the case before the Court, the Plaintiff asked the State Court to revive the suit the Plaintiff had originally filed against Jack T. Mathews in the name of Sue Wilson Mathews, as Executrix of the Estate of Jack T. Mathews. The State Court granted the Plaintiff's request. The significant fact is that the original Defendant, Jack T. Mathews, had died before the Plaintiff ever filed his complaint against Jack T. Mathews. Arguably, there was never a valid pending suit against Jack T. Mathews as he was not living when it was filed. Thus, the question for decision is may lawsuits in Alabama be revived against the legal representatives of deceased tortfeasors who have died before the original complaint against them was filed?

The Defendant in her motion to quash the revival of the suit is asking this Court, in effect, to review the order of the Alabama Circuit Court which granted the Plaintiff's motion to revive the suit. Although federal courts do not have the power to review the acts of State courts per se, federal courts do have the power (and indeed the duty) to do so insofar as consistent with the dictates of the developed Erie doctrine (see Erie Railroad Co. v. Thompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938); Wright, Federal Courts, supra, §§ 55, 58). According to Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 87 S. Ct. 1776, 18 L.Ed.2d 886 (1967), a leading interpretive case of Erie, a federal court in determining State law is not necessarily bound by the holding of a State trial court, even in the absence of controlling decisions by the State's highest court; rather, all the federal court need do in that situation is to "apply what they find to be the state law after giving `proper regard' to the relevant rulings of other (lower) courts of the State" (at 465, 87 S.Ct. at 1783). Thus, within these parameters, this Court can review the Alabama Circuit Court's order allowing the Plaintiff's motion to revive as requested by the Defendant in her motion to quash revival. See also, Roginsky v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 378 F.2d 832 (2nd Cir. 1967).

The Code of Alabama, Title 7, § 153, provides in part:

"No action abates by the death or other disability of the plaintiff or defendant, if the cause of action survive or continue; but the same must, on motion, within twelve months thereafter, be revived in the name of or against the legal representative of the deceased. * * *." (emphasis added)

This section was superseded by Rule 25 of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, which states in pertinent part:

"If a party dies and the claim is not thereby extinguished, the court may order substitution of the proper parties. * * *." (emphasis added)

The nature of both of these statutes is to function as a statute of limitations to bar the right to revive if it is not exercised in the mode and within the time prescribed. See Smith v. Woodall, 276 Ala. 666, 166 So.2d 395 (1964); see the annotations to the 1973 Cumulative Supplement of the Code of Alabama, Title 7, § 153. The purpose of the new Rule 25 is to change the mode and time constraint within which to exercise this right, which change is not relevant to the discussion here.¹ (See Committee Comments to Rule 25 of the Final Draft Proposed Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, 1972). In spite of this difference between the two statutes, the circumstances under which rights attach under them as to this case are the same.² This last observation is crucial for this case.

The Alabama Supreme Court draws a distinction between "actions" and "causes of actions" when it analyzes statutes which deal with the abatement, survival and revival of actions, such as the Code of Alabama, Title 7, § 153, and Rule 25, Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure.³ In McDowell v. Henderson Mining Co., 276 Ala. 202, 160 So.2d 486 (1963), the Alabama Supreme Court expressed this distinction as follows:

"An `action' is a proceeding pending in court to determine the parties' rights and liabilities with respect to a legal wrong or cause of action. A `cause of action' is a legal wrong for which an `action' may be, but has not been, brought in court." 160 So.2d 486, 488.

See also Carroll v. Florala Memorial Hospital, 288 Ala. 118, 257 So.2d 837 (1972). Applying this distinction to the statutes set forth above, special attention must be placed on the word "action" underlined in the above quotation of the Code of Alabama, Title 7, § 153, and the word "party" underlined in the above quotation of Rule 25, Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure. Reading the underlined word "action" in Title 7, § 153 as meaning a pending proceeding, that section can only be interpreted to allow the revival of lawsuits which are, in fact,...