Rodriguez-Diaz v. Sierra-Martinez

• Decision Date: 01 February 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1700,RODRIGUEZ-DIA,P,SIERRA-MARTINEZ,87-1700
• Citation: 853 F.2d 1027
• Parties: Wilfredolaintiff, Appellant, v. Marcelo, et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1027

853 F.2d 1027

Wilfredo RODRIGUEZ-DIAZ, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Marcelo SIERRA-MARTINEZ, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 87-1700.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Feb. 1, 1988.

Decided Aug. 10, 1988.

Keith A. Graffam, with whom Charles A. Cordero and Cordero, Miranda & Pinto, Old San Juan, P.R., were on brief, for plaintiff, appellant.

Roberto O. Maldonado, with whom Cancio, Nadal & Rivera, San Juan, P.R., was on brief, for defendants, appellees.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, and TORRUELLA and SELYA, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Wilfredo Rodriguez Diaz (Rodriguez Diaz) appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico dismissing his complaint for negligence and medical malpractice for lack of diversity jurisdiction. Rodriguez Diaz brought this action in the district court following a motor vehicle accident in Puerto Rico when he was 17 years of age. All the defendants reside in Puerto Rico. However, between the time of the accident and the commencement of this action, Rodriguez Diaz moved from his family's home in Puerto Rico to New York, and attained his 18th birthday. He then sued in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, on his own behalf and through his parents as next friends, alleging that he is a citizen of New York and that there is diversity of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332 (1982).

I.

The facts relevant to the jurisdictional issue are these: On November 21, 1984, Rodriguez Diaz, while operating a motorcycle in Caguas, Puerto Rico, was in a collision with an automobile driven by Marcelo Sierra Martinez. Rodriguez Diaz suffered bodily injuries. He was immediately taken to the Hospital Regional de Caguas, from where he was transferred to the Centro Medico for emergency treatment. Rodriguez Diaz alleges in the present complaint that the treatment he received at the Centro Medico caused him to suffer a massive bone infection and aggravation of a leg injury. From Centro Medico he was transferred to Hospital General San Carlos where he alleges he also received improper treatment. Sometime later, Rodriguez Diaz was transferred to a hospital in New York City. He alleges he was living in New York at the time he brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. He further alleges in his complaint that he intends to remain in New York and make it his permanent home, and that he is now domiciled there. Rodriguez Diaz had turned 18 by the time he brought this action. ¹ His parents were and still are residents and domiciliaries of Puerto Rico, where the age of majority is 21. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, Sec. 971 (1967).

The defendants in the action brought by Rodriguez Diaz were the driver of the automobile, Sierra Martinez, and two Puerto Rico hospitals, all of whom are residents and domiciliaries of Puerto Rico. The defendants moved in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico where the action was brought to dismiss the complaint for lack of diversity jurisdiction. The district court concluded that, under Puerto Rico law, Rodriguez Diaz is a minor, and, therefore, his domicile is that of his parents. 665 F.Supp. 96 (D.P.R.1987). Ruling that as a matter of law Rodriguez Diaz's domicile at the time of the filing of this action was Puerto Rico, the court dismissed the complaint for lack of diversity. This appeal followed.

In its decision, the district court observed that, for purposes of diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332(a)(1), state citizenship and domicile are equivalents. The court also noted that in a diversity case the capacity of a person to sue or be sued is determined by the law of the state of the litigant's domicile. Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(b). The court then made certain observations crucial to its analysis. These were that the citizenship of a minor was the citizenship of his parents, and that the latter's domicile determined whether the minor had become emancipated so that he could establish a domicile of choice elsewhere. 665 F.Supp. at 98-99. On the basis of the foregoing, the district court concluded that the law of Puerto Rico--the home of Rodriguez Diaz's parents--controlled the issue of Rodriguez Diaz's present domicile. As under Puerto Rico law plaintiff was still a minor, being under 21 at the time of suit, and as he was unemancipated under Puerto Rico law, he could not establish a domicile of choice outside Puerto Rico. It followed that he was still a domiciliary of Puerto Rico, and that, therefore, there was no diversity of citizenship. Id.

II.

While the case is close, we disagree with the district court's conclusion that the domicile of Rodriguez Diaz's parents--Puerto Rico--is the jurisdiction whose law must necessarily determine his capacity to acquire a domicile of choice.

We begin with certain generally accepted principles: As the lower court correctly noted, state citizenship ² for diversity purposes is ordinarily equated with domicile. Hawes v. Club Ecuestre El Comandante, 598 F.2d 698, 701 (1st Cir.1979). A person's domicile "is the place where he has his true, fixed home and principal establishment, and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning." C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, 13 B Federal Practice & Procedure Sec. 3612, at 526 (1984). Domicile generally requires two elements: 1) physical presence in a state, and 2) the intent to make such a state a home. J. Moore, J. Lucas, H. Fink, D. Weckstein & J. Wicker, 1 Moore's Federal Practice p 0.74[.3-1] (1988). It is the domicile at the time suit is filed which controls, and the fact that the plaintiff has changed his domicile with the purpose of bringing a diversity action in federal court is irrelevant. Id. at p 0.74[3.-1]. Thus, except for the possible effect of his being a minor under Puerto Rico law, plaintiff's settling in New York with the requisite domiciliary intent would make him a citizen of New York and entitle him to pursue this action.

The district court ruled that since plaintiff was under 21, the age of majority in Puerto Rico, he was a minor as a matter of law, and as such he could have only one domicile, that of his parents, which in this case is Puerto Rico. It so ruled even though the age of majority in New York is 18, so that, in the eyes of New York, plaintiff could acquire a personal domicile of his own there. We shall assume for purposes of resolving the legal issue raised in this appeal that New York is plaintiff's "true, fixed home." ³ C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, 13 B Federal Practice & Procedure Sec. 3612, at 526. The question before us is whether this is enough for plaintiff to have acquired a New York domicile for diversity jurisdiction purposes.

The parties and the district court have framed the issue as one of choice of law: which law is applicable, Puerto Rico law or New York law. It is a general principle of common law, recognized also in Puerto Rico, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 1, Sec. 8 (1967), that the domicile of an unemancipated minor is ordinarily that of his parents. The age of majority in Puerto Rico is 21, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, Sec. 971 (1967), while in New York it is 18. N.Y.Civ.Prac.L. & R. 105(j) (Supp.1988). Plaintiff was 18 when he filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Depending on which law is applied, the argument goes, Rodriguez Diaz will be treated as an adult or as a minor, with the capacity or lack of capacity to establish his own independent domicile. Plaintiff argues that we have to apply New York law, because that was his "domicile" at the time the action was filed. Not surprisingly, defendants argued, and the district court agreed, that whether Rodriguez Diaz was an adult with capacity to establish his domicile of choice is governed by Puerto Rico law.

As we see it, resolution of the issue before us does not and should not turn solely upon a conflicts of laws analysis. Although federal courts have to apply the choice of law rules of the forum to determine the substantive law in diversity cases, Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941); Day & Zimmermann, Inc. v. Challoner, 423 U.S. 3, 96 S.Ct. 167, 46 L.Ed.2d 3 (1975), the "determination of litigant's state citizenship for purposes of section 1332(a)(1) is controlled by federal common law, not by the law of any state." Kantor v. Wellesley Galleries, Ltd., 704 F.2d 1088, 1090 (9th Cir.1983). The issue of what substantive law applies in a diversity case "is surely a different problem from that of whether a litigant should have access to federal court, and it does not conduce to clarity of analysis to suppose that the same answers will suffice for different questions." C. Wright, The Law of Federal Courts Sec. 26, at 147 n. 4 (1983). As stated by the Fourth Circuit,

The question of domicile can arise, in regard to the diversity clause of Article III, Sec. 2 of the Federal Constitution and under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1332, only in federal court. The problem is, therefore, one uniquely of federal cognizance and the considerations underlying Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 [58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188] (1938), do not obtain.

Ziady v. Curley, 396 F.2d 873, 874 (4th Cir.1968). That does not mean that state law and state conflicts rules regarding domicile should be ignored. At very least, they are "useful in providing basic working definitions." Stifel v. Hopkins, 477 F.2d 1116, 1120 (6th Cir.1973). However, as the Sixth Circuit pointed out in Stifel, the considerations undergirding state choice-of-law rules have often been "developed in such diverse contexts as probate jurisdiction, taxation of incomes or intangibles, or divorce laws." Id. Choice-of-law formulae, therefore, cannot be the sole guideposts when determining, for federal diversity purposes, whether a party is domiciled in one...