Grady v. DAYTON HUDSON CORP.

• Decision Date: 10 June 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-CV-3081-DT.,84-CV-3081-DT.
• Citation: 610 F. Supp. 258
• Parties: Alice GRADY, Plaintiff, v. DAYTON HUDSON CORPORATION, a Minnesota corporation, d/b/a J.L. Hudson Company, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

610 F. Supp. 258

Alice GRADY, Plaintiff, v. DAYTON HUDSON CORPORATION, a Minnesota corporation, d/b/a J.L. Hudson Company, Defendant.

No. 84-CV-3081-DT.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, S.D.

June 10, 1985.

John C. Talpos, Troy, Mich., for plaintiff.

Scott A. Alles, Mt. Clemens, Mich., for defendant.

ORDER REMANDING ACTION TO WAYNE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT

La PLATA, District Judge.

On May 29, 1984, Plaintiff, Alice Grady, filed a lawsuit in the Wayne County Circuit Court against Defendant, Dayton Hudson Company, alleging that she sustained injuries as a result of a slip and fall incident that occurred at Defendant's Pontiac Mall outlet. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b), Defendant, which is incorporated and has its principal place of business in the State of Minnesota, caused the matter to be removed to this Court.

On May 9, 1985, the action was mediated by a three person panel, which rendered an evaluation of Five Thousand ($5,000.00) Dollars. In light of the mediation award, Defendant filed a request with this Court for a remand to the Wayne County Circuit Court.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, a federal court has original jurisdiction over a cause if it is between citizens of different states and the amount in controversy, exclusive of costs and interest, exceeds $10,000.00. See, generally, Wright, Law of Federal Courts, § 24 (3d ed. 1976). In 1958, Congress increased the jurisdictional amount from $3,000.00 to the current amount, with the design to reduce congestion in federal courts. See Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 550, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 1121, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972).

In Nelson v. Keefer, 451 F.2d 289 (3d Cir.1971), three individuals filed an action against defendants for injuries allegedly sustained in an automobile accident. In view of the fact that each plaintiff had incurred only an insignificant amount of damages, the district judge concluded that the amount in controversy did not reach the $10,000.00 level and, thus, dismissed the matter for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In upholding the lower court's dismissal of the case, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reasoned:

Nor can we bring ourselves to believe that the congressional mandate can be thwarted by the simple expedience of inflating the complainant's ad damnum clause. It is a phenomenon of both state and federal trial courts that the majority of actual recoveries by verdict and settlement are less than the jurisdictional amount, there has been no reduction in private civil litigation, including tort cases, and that the "reason for this unfortunate result is the inflexibility of the applicable `good faith-legal certainty' test." We agree. But "the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Because the federal judiciary has been too timid to execute the congressional mandate in personal injury actions, we have all contributed to clogging dockets, monopolizing trial rooms, and committing the expense and energies of our system to a plethora of cases which do not belong in federal courts.

In Burns v. Anderson, 502 F.2d 970 (5th Cir.1974), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal by the District Court of a personal injury case where the plaintiff's sole injury was a fractured thumb. Similarly, in Gill v. Allstate Insurance Co., 458 F.2d 577, 579 (6th Cir. 1972), the Court upheld the power of a trial judge to dismiss a case where the amount in dispute, in actuality, was for a sum less than the jurisdictional requirement. See, also, Nenoff v. Thompson, 480 F.2d 1221 (6th Cir.1973)).

As the above-cited cases indicate, a court can look behind the complaint to ascertain the good faith value of the claim presented. In his one volume treatise on federal law, Professor Wright expressed the following view:

Even in the simpler

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