Lamm v. Bekins Van Lines Co.

• Decision Date: 17 April 2001
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 00-T-224-S.
• Parties: Mark D. LAMM, an individual, and Beate Lamm, an individual, Plaintiffs, v. BEKINS VAN LINES CO., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

139 F.Supp.2d 1300

Mark D. LAMM, an individual, and Beate Lamm, an individual, Plaintiffs, v. BEKINS VAN LINES CO., et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 00-T-224-S.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Southern Division.

April 17, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edward S. Brown, Reese, Reese & Brown, Daleville, AL, for plaintiffs.

Richard Warren Whittaker, Enterprise, Richard L. Seelman, Philip S. Brooks, Jr., Francis A. Courtenay, Jr., Courtenay, Forestall, Hunter & Fontana, New Orleans, LA, Donald B. Sweeney, Jr., Rives & Peterson, David P. Condon, Bradley, Arant, Rose & White, LLP, Birmingham, AL, for defendants.

OPINION

MYRON H. THOMPSON, District Judge.

The question presented is whether this federal court has removal jurisdiction based on, among other things, "complete preemption" under the Carmack Amendment, 49 U.S.C.A. § 14706.¹ For the reasons that follow, the court concludes that it does not.

I.

Plaintiffs Mark D. and Beate Lamm brought this lawsuit to recover for damage done to their household goods while the goods were being shipped from Alabama to Hawaii pursuant to an arrangement with private companies secured by the United States military, of which Mrs. Lamm is an active servicemember; they also seek to recover for emotional injuries they say they suffered while their belongings were being packed for shipment. The plaintiffs have named the following interstate transport companies as defendants: Bekins Van Lines Co., Inc.; Swanner Transfer and Storage, Inc.; H.C. & D. Forwarders, Inc.; and Worldwide Moving and Storage, Inc.

The plaintiffs initially brought this suit in state court in January 2000, asserting only state-law causes of action. But, on February 25, 2000, the defendants removed the case to federal court on the ground that the court has federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1331, 1337 & 1441, because the plaintiffs' state-law claims are completely preempted by the Carmack Amendment. The parties then proceeded to prepare for trial.

However later, while considering a motion for summary judgment filed by some of the defendants, the court realized that it might actually be without removal jurisdiction, and the parties were asked to brief the issue. In addition, in the wake of the court's announcement of its concern about the presence of removal jurisdiction, the plaintiffs filed a motion seeking to maintain jurisdiction in this court by adding allegations to support diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction and by adding a Carmack Amendment claim to support federal-question jurisdiction.

This opinion now addresses the removal-jurisdictional issue.

II.

The first question is whether the court has properly raised the jurisdictional issue on its own. It is beyond doubt that it has. As recently as this year, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed that a court "must zealously insure that jurisdiction exists over a case, and should itself raise the question of subject matter jurisdiction at any point in the litigation where a doubt about jurisdiction arises." Smith v. GTE Corp., 236 F.3d 1292, 1299 (11th Cir.2001); see also 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446(c) ("If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded."); Charles Alan Wright, Law of Federal Courts 250 (5th ed.1994) ("[s]ince parties cannot confer jurisdiction on the federal court by consent, the court may act on its own motion"). The court therefore now properly turns to the jurisdiction question.

III.

A.

"[S]ubject matter jurisdiction exists only where granted by statute." GTE Corp., 236 F.3d at 1299. With exceptions not relevant here, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1441 provides that "any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction, may be removed by the defendant or the defendants, to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place where such action is pending."

Congress has granted original federal-question jurisdiction to United States district courts for any action "arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331. Congress has also defined federal-question jurisdiction to encompass: "any civil action or proceeding arising under any Act of Congress regulating commerce or protecting trade and commerce against restraints and monopolies: Provided, however, That the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of an action brought under section 11706 or 14706 of title 49, only if the matter in controversy for each receipt or bill of lading exceeds $ 10,000, exclusive of interest and costs." 28 U.S.C.A. § 1337.

Whether a complaint meets the "arises under" test of § 1331 or § 1337— or, put another way, presents a "federal question"—must be determined from the face of the plaintiff's complaint. See Franchise Tax Board v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 9-11, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2846-47, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983). This requirement, which is known as the "well-pleaded complaint" rule, applies to a defendant's right to removal, with the determinative factor being whether the plaintiff's complaint, and not the removal petition, presents a federal question. See id. at 10 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. at 2847 n. 9. Moreover, the plaintiff "is master to decide what law she will rely upon," The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U.S. 22, 25, 33 S.Ct. 410, 411, 57 L.Ed. 716 (1913), and thus has the prerogative to rely on state law alone although both state and federal law may give her a cause of action. See Caterpillar, Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392, 107 S.Ct. 2425, 2429, 96 L.Ed.2d 318 (1987) (the plaintiff "may avoid federal jurisdiction by exclusive reliance on state law"). Therefore, the fact that a plaintiff has elected to pursue her claims under state law alone does not justify removal even if the plaintiff also has an unpursued claim under federal law.

Further, "[t]he presence of a federal defense does not make the case removable, even if the defense is preemption, and even if the validity of the preemption defense is the only issue to be resolved in the case." BLAB T.V. of Mobile Inc. v. Comcast Cable Communications, Inc., 182 F.3d 851, 854 (11th Cir.1999) (internal citations omitted); see also Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 63, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 1546, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987) ("As a defense, [federal preemption] does not appear on the face of a well-pleaded complaint, and therefore, does not authorize removal to federal court").

Despite the well-pleaded complaint rule, the defendants argue that removal jurisdiction exists for the present case because the Carmack Amendment is subject to complete preemption, a doctrine constituting a narrow exception or "independent corollary" to the well-pleaded complaint rule. See BLAB T.V., 182 F.3d at 854. The complete-preemption doctrine, first recognized by the Supreme Court in Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge, 390 U.S. 557, 88 S.Ct. 1235, 20 L.Ed.2d 126 (1968), states "that Congress may so completely pre-empt a particular area that any civil complaint raising this select group of claims is necessarily federal in character." Metropolitan Life, 481 U.S. at 63-64, 107 S.Ct. at 1546 (1987). In certain rare instances, the preemptive power of a statute is so "extraordinary" that it "converts an ordinary state common law complaint into one stating a federal claim for purposes of the well-pleaded complaint rule." Id. at 65, 107 S.Ct. at 1547; see also Arthur R. Miller, Artful Pleading: A Doctrine in Search of Definition, 76 Tex. L.Rev. 1781 (1998); 14B Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller and Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3722.1 (3d ed.1998).

Complete preemption is importantly distinct from the ordinary preemption of state law by federal law although, as the Eleventh Circuit has observed, the two categories of preemption have often been conflated: "[U]se of the term `preemption' in this context has caused a substantial amount of confusion between the complete preemption doctrine and the broader and more familiar doctrine of ordinary preemption. For that reason, it is worth pointing out that: complete preemption functions as a narrowly drawn means of assessing federal removal jurisdiction, while ordinary preemption operates to dismiss state claims on the merits and may be invoked in either federal or state court." GTE Corp., 236 F.3d at 1313 (internal citations and quotations omitted); see also Lister v. Stark, 890 F.2d 941, 943 n. 1 (7th Cir.1989) (use of the "complete preemption" label is unfortunate because the doctrine is one of federal jurisdiction not preemption).²

Complete preemption resembles "ordinary preemption" in that its applicability is a matter of positive law: "the touchstone of the federal district court's removal jurisdiction is ... the intent of Congress." Metropolitan Life, 481 U.S. at 66, 107 S.Ct. at 1548. However, complete preemption is unlike ordinary preemption in that the ultimate intent inquiry for the former is not the choice-of-law question of whether a particular federal law is designed to trump state law but rather the forum-selection question of whether Congress intended to establish federal-question removal jurisdiction for claims that appear from the plaintiff's complaint to be rooted only in state law and thus otherwise subject to the well-pleaded complaint rule. See BLAB T.V., 182 F.3d at 857; See also Metropolitan Life, 481 U.S. at 67-68, 107 S.Ct. at 1548 (Brennan, J., concurring). The specific nature of this intent inquiry for complete preemption has been explained by the Eleventh Circuit as follows: "[A]ll [the appellate court tests for complete preemption] focus on a similar goal: to determine whether Congress not only intended a given federal statute to provide a federal defense to a state cause of action that could be asserted either in a state or federal court, but...