Miranda v. Miranda

• Decision Date: 10 June 1988
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 87-0295 (JP).
• Citation: 686 F. Supp. 44
• Parties: Geigel MIRANDA and Ivan Negron, for himself and representing his deceased mother Solerta Davila, Plaintiffs, v. Gloria Morales MIRANDA, Enrique Marquez Santos, and Royal Insurance Company of Puerto Rico, Inc., Defendants and Third Party Plaintiffs, v. The BLACK & DECKER CORP., et al., Third Party Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

686 F. Supp. 44

Geigel MIRANDA and Ivan Negron, for himself and representing his deceased mother Solerta Davila, Plaintiffs, v. Gloria Morales MIRANDA, Enrique Marquez Santos, and Royal Insurance Company of Puerto Rico, Inc., Defendants and Third Party Plaintiffs, v. The BLACK & DECKER CORP., et al., Third Party Defendants.

Civ. No. 87-0295 (JP).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

June 10, 1988.

Aníbal Medina Ríos, José Antonio Lugo, Lugo & Berkowitz, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, for plaintiffs.

José Luis Ubarri, Law Offices of Benjamín Acosta, Teresita Picó Vidal, San Juan, Puerto Rico, for defendants and third party plaintiffs.

Darío Rivera Carrasquillo, Cordero, Miranda & Pinto, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, for third party defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

PIERAS, District Judge.

This diversity action arises out of a fire at defendant Gloria Morales Miranda's home on December 11, 1986.

Solerta Dávila was killed by injuries received in that fire. Her widower, Geigel Miranda, and her surviving son Ivan Negrón, are suing Morales, her insurance company, and a workman who was present at Miranda's home on December 11, 1986, whose actions and omissions may have caused the fire. Defendants have moved to dismiss the case, arguing that plaintiff Geigel Miranda was, like defendants, a citizen of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on the date of the complaint, February 25, 1987. As such, defendants argue, complete diversity of citizenship between the parties is lacking and this Court is berift of subject matter jurisdiction over this case.

The Court has before it transcripts of plaintiff Miranda's deposition. Defendants have further submitted plaintiff Miranda's answers to interrogatories. Plaintiffs rely on defendants' evidentiary submissions.

I. Findings of Fact

1. Plaintiffs Geigel Miranda and Iván Negrón filed the original complaint in this case on February 25, 1987. The complaint was amended on June 16, 1987. It is not disputed that plaintiff Iván Negrón is a citizen of the State of New Jersey.

2. Defendants Gloria Morales Miranda, Royal Insurance Company, and Enrique Marquez Santos are all citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

3. Miranda and his wife were married in Puerto Rico in 1981. They purchased a house at Street 10, E-18, Villas de Loiza, Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, that year. Electricity and water accounts, driver's licenses, and automobile registration documents all list Miranda at this Canóvanas address. Mortgage and water payments were received by the appropriate entities for crediting to Miranda's account after the date of filing of the original complaint. Miranda's house, under the terms of a mortgage subsidy program from which it benefits, cannot be rented. If sold, Miranda would be subject to a monetary penalty under a mortgage subsidy program.

4. By his own testimony, taken at deposition, plaintiff Miranda admitted having deliberately misrepresenting his addresses in Puerto Rico on his marriage certificate and application to the mortgage subsidy program. Miranda stated that he gave a Puerto Rico address on the mortgage subsidy program application merely to take advantage of the program.

5. Miranda testified to holding jobs in both Puerto Rico and New Jersey throughout his life. Miranda holds a current Puerto Rico driver's license and a New Jersey driver's license that expired in mid-1986.

6. After his release from the hospital, Miranda left Puerto Rico and took up residence with his daughter at 1120 Hudson Street, Hoboken, New Jersey. Miranda left Puerto Rico "around Three Kings Day." In 1987, Three Kings Day was Tuesday, January 6.

7. Plaintiff testified that he now resides at 527 Park Avenue, Hoboken, New Jersey with his sister. He testified that he receives public assistance in New Jersey. He is being treated for a cancer at St. Mary's Hospital in Hoboken. Miranda is also receiving psychiatric counseling at St. Mary's Mental Health Center in Hoboken. This counseling is subsidized.

8. On March 5, 1987, after the filing of the complaint, Miranda registered to vote in Hoboken. By his own admission, he gave a false address. The address he gave was that of a cousin in Hoboken. Miranda testified that he gave his cousin's address so that he could vote in a particular "section" of Hoboken at the behest of his family.

9. Since the death of his wife, Miranda has not maintained banking or credit accounts in Puerto Rico.

10. Miranda has never filed federal, New Jersey, or Puerto Rico income tax returns, although he has paid taxes through withholding at jobs in New Jersey or Puerto Rico. He is currently unemployed.

11. The only occasion plaintiff has had to return to Puerto Rico since his departure in 1987 was to attend depositions in this case.

II. Conclusions of Law

The issue is whether Geigel Miranda was domiciled in New Jersey or in Puerto Rico on February 25, 1987, the date on which the original complaint was filed in this case. For purposes of diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1), state citizenship is the equivalent of domicile. Williamson v. Osenton, 232 U.S. 619, 34 S.Ct. 442, 58 L.Ed. 758 (1914). The determination of a party's citizenship for diversity purposes is a mixed question of law and fact. Hawes v. Club Ecuestre El Comandante, 598 F.2d 698, 702 (1st Cir.1979). The Court may consider matters outside of the pleadings without holding a hearing. Gibbs v. Buck, 307 U.S. 66, 71-72, 59 S.Ct. 725, 728-29, 83 L.Ed. 1111 (1939); O'Toole v. Arlington Trust Co., 681 F.2d 94, 98 (1st Cir.1982); Hawes, 598 F.2d at 699; Kressen v. National Insurance Co., 648 F.Supp. 1165, 1167 (D.P.R.1986). In this case, plaintiff was deposed extensively and both parties rely on his deposition testimony and answers to interrogatories in support of their respective position. "As is usual in domicile cases, there is no dispute as to the facts; it is their interpretation that gives rise to the problem." Hawes, 598 F.2d at 699.

Two elements are necessary to establish domicile: (1) physical presence in the claimed domicile; and (2) an intent to remain there indefinitely. Sun Printing & Publishing Assn. v. Edwards, 194 U.S. 377, 383, 24 S.Ct. 696, 698, 48 L.Ed. 1027 (1904). Both elements must be met but once they are, domicile is instantly acquired. Id.; White v. All American Cable & Radio, Inc., 642 F.Supp. 69, 72 (D.P.R. 1986). These elements must be shown by competent proof and the burden falls on plaintiff. O'Toole, 681 F.2d at 98; Kressen, 648 F.Supp. at 1167. Because the law presumes that established domicile continues unless and until new domicile is acquired, plaintiff's burden in proving the establishment of new domicile is heavy. White, 642 F.Supp. at 72. It is not, however, insurmountable. Plaintiff must show the establishment of new domicile by a preponderance of the evidence.

Mr. Justice Holmes characterized domicile as "the technically pre-eminent headquarters that every person is compelled to have in order that certain rights and duties that have been attached to by law may be determined." Williamson v. Osenton, 232 U.S. 619, 625, 34 S.Ct. 442, 443 (1914). Not all the citizenry, however, treats their living arrangements with the observance of technicalities that Mr. Justice Holmes envisioned would make life more orderly. In this case, plaintiff has flitted between New Jersey and Puerto Rico most of his life, holding jobs but never a career in either place. Plaintiff has never filed income tax returns and voted only at the prompting of his family. He avails himself not of the banks of Puerto Rico, except to acquire a subsidized house using an address that he acknowledges was deliberately misleading. That his New Jersey driver's license is expired concerns him not for he has one still in force from Puerto Rico.

Nevertheless, these are not controlling considerations. Defendants have argued, persuasively, that up to and including the date of the fire in December 1986, Miranda was a domiciliary of Puerto Rico. That, however, is not the issue at hand. Although defendants' showing places the burden on plaintiff to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that he changed domicile, it does not establish that Miranda is now a domiciliary of Puerto Rico. Plaintiff has not rebutted the evidence that he still maintains ties to Puerto Rico. He is still deed holder of record for the Canóvanas property. The mortgage and ancillary upkeep is apparently still met, although the source of those funds is not in the record. He still holds a Puerto Rico driver's license, although it was acquired before even the fire. Defendants' showing of plaintiff's domicile as of the date of the original complaint, however, goes only this far.

What plaintiff has shown is the following: On the date of the original complaint, plaintiff was physically present in New Jersey, residing with his sister. The physical presence requirement is met. Plaintiff has joined his family in New Jersey within a few weeks of the sudden and awful loss of his wife. Miranda is availing himself of social services in New Jersey and thereby assisting his sister in his care of him. Also, Miranda is a sick man and is receiving cancer therapy in Hoboken. The logical and inescapable conclusion is that Miranda, burdened with these personal tragedies, has elected to be near his family. The language that Miranda used throughout his lengthy deposition reads as that of a visitor who intends to return to New Jersey. Although such self-serving statements should be treated...