Matchett v. Wold

• Citation: 818 F.2d 574
• Decision Date: 04 May 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1345,86-1345
• Parties: Hugh M. MATCHETT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ruth A. WOLD, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 574

818 F.2d 574

Hugh M. MATCHETT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ruth A. WOLD, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 86-1345.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Submitted March 20, 1987.

Decided May 4, 1987.

Hugh M. Matchett, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Ruth A. Wold, pro se.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and POSNER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

This suit was dismissed for want of complete diversity of citizenship (citizens of the same state must not appear on both sides of the lawsuit, Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. City of Sheboygan Falls, 713 F.2d 1261, 1264 (7th Cir.1983)), and the plaintiff, Matchett, has appealed. A citizen of Illinois, he sued his former client, Wold, a Wisconsin citizen, in a federal district court in Illinois, seeking to recover fees for legal work that he had allegedly performed for her in several lawsuits, and basing federal jurisdiction on diversity. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332. He filed an amended complaint which named as additional defendants all the defendants in the suits that he had brought on Mrs. Wold's behalf when he was her lawyer. Some of these defendants are citizens of Illinois. Holding that the joinder of these defendants had destroyed the complete diversity on which the federal court's jurisdiction depends, the district judge dismissed the complaint on his own initiative.

We commend the judge for his vigilance in policing the limits on our jurisdiction, see, e.g., Kanzelberger v. Kanzelberger, 782 F.2d 774 (7th Cir.1986), but we are unable to determine from the record whether the joinder of the additional defendants destroyed the diversity jurisdiction of the district court, and we must therefore remand the case for further proceedings in the district court.

Matchett was proceeding against these defendants under Illinois' attorney's lien statute. See Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 13, p 14; Rhoades v. Norfolk & Western Ry., 78 Ill.2d 217, 226-27, 35 Ill.Dec. 680, 684, 399 N.E.2d 969, 973 (1979); McKee-Berger-Mansueto, Inc. v. Board of Education, 691 F.2d 828, 834 (7th Cir.1982). That statute empowers an attorney to affix a lien for his unpaid legal fees to any verdict or judgment that may be entered on behalf of the person who owes him those fees. He does this by mailing the defendants in that action a registered or certified letter informing them of his claim. Should he later join those defendants as additional parties in a collection suit against his client, this would not necessarily destroy complete diversity. The addition to a lawsuit of a purely nominal party--the holder of the stakes of the dispute between the plaintiff and the original defendant--does not affect diversity jurisdiction. This principle is illustrated by Bacon v. Rives, 106 U.S. (16 Otto) 99, 1 S.Ct. 3, 27 L.Ed. 69 (1882), where the plaintiff named as additional defendants persons who were in effect garnishees, and the Court held that this didn't affect diversity jurisdiction.

It is true that in an old but still (so far as we are aware) authoritative decision the Illinois Supreme Court distinguished between the Illinois statutory attorney's fee lien and an ordinary lien. See Baker v. Baker, 258 Ill. 418, 420-21, 101 N.E. 587, 587-88 (1913). An ordinary lien attaches to property in being; the statutory attorney's lien attaches to an expectation, and the court thought the statute better described therefore as making the attorney in effect a partial assignee of his client's interest in the lawsuit in which the attorney was representing him. But we do not see why this should change the case. In either way of looking at it the attorney's interest remains contingent on the outcome of the dispute between his client and his client's adversary.

The difficulty...