Stafford v. Mobil Oil Corp.
| Decision Date | 07 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-2694,90-2694 |
| Parties | Burr STAFFORD, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Cynthia T. Sheppard, Robert P. Houston, Houston, Marek & Griffin, Victoria, Tex., for defendants-appellants.
Tom Alexander, Alexander & McEvily, Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Before REAVLEY, GARWOOD, and BARKSDALE, Circuit Judges.
Defendants-appellants Mobil Oil Corporation, Mobil Pipe Line Company, and Mobil Exploration and Producing, U.S., Inc. (collectively defendants), appeal from the district court's issuance of a preliminary injunction ordering defendants to create and deliver a map showing the location of defendants' pipelines on the lands of plaintiffs-appellees Burr Stafford, Harrison Stafford, Harrison Stafford II, Mourine Stafford and Fred Stanford, Jr. (collectively plaintiffs). 1 Defendants contend that plaintiffs failed to allege in any of their pleadings facts sufficient to establish the district court's jurisdiction. We agree and accordingly vacate the district court's order.
Plaintiffs allege in substance that they have succeeded to rights of the oil, gas and mineral lessor of certain lands in Jackson County, Texas and that defendants have succeeded to the lessee's interest in that oil, gas and mineral lease with respect to the same land. Plaintiffs claim that defendants have violated a term of the lease that requires that the lessee bury all of its pipelines below ordinary plow depth upon request by the lessor. Defendants deny, inter alia, that any pipelines are not buried below plow depth.
Plaintiffs filed the instant complaint in the court below, formally requesting damages resulting from defendants' failure to bury their pipelines and injunctive relief requiring defendants to create and deliver to plaintiffs a map of defendants' pipelines on the land. Plaintiffs also filed an application for a preliminary injunction ordering defendants to bury all of their pipelines below ordinary plow depth and to provide plaintiffs with such a map.
Plaintiffs stated in their complaint that the district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1). The complaint suggests no other basis of jurisdiction. Section 1332(a)(1) provides that the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of civil actions between citizens of different states. The complaint alleges plaintiffs are each citizens of Texas and that the defendants are a New York corporation and two Delaware corporations, each authorized to do and doing business in Texas and having a Texas office. Defendants, in their response to plaintiffs' application for a preliminary injunction, asserted, inter alia, that the suit should be dismissed because diversity jurisdiction did not exist.
Following an evidentiary hearing, the district court issued a preliminary injunction ordering defendants to make and provide plaintiffs "an accurate, scaled map showing the exact location and depth of all" of defendants' pipelines on plaintiffs' property actively used for the transmission of oil or gas and to update such map until final resolution of plaintiffs' suit. The court did not address defendants' jurisdictional claim. 2 Defendants timely filed a notice of appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).
On appeal, defendants contend that the district court lacked jurisdiction and that the preliminary injunction therefore must be vacated. Defendants claim that plaintiffs did not allege facts in their pleadings sufficient to establish the existence of diversity jurisdiction. Specifically, they claim that plaintiffs failed to allege that the principal place of business of all of the defendants was not Texas.
We have previously stated that "[w]here a federal court proceeds in a matter without first establishing that the dispute is within the province of controversies assigned to it by the Constitution and statute, the federal tribunal poaches upon the territory of a coordinate judicial system, and its decisions, opinions, and orders are of no effect." B. Inc. v. Miller Brewing Co., 663 F.2d 545, 548 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981). In order for a federal court to assert diversity jurisdiction, diversity must be complete; the citizenship of all of the plaintiffs must be different from the citizenship of all of the defendants. Getty Oil Corp., Div. of Texaco, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of North Am., 841 F.2d 1254, 1258-59 (5th Cir.1988); Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Hillman, 796 F.2d 770, 773 (5th Cir.1986).
"The burden of proving that complete diversity exists rests upon the party who seeks to invoke the court's diversity jurisdiction." Getty Oil, 841 F.2d at 1259; see McGovern v. American Airlines, Inc., 511 F.2d 653, 654 (5th Cir.1975) (). "When jurisdiction depends on citizenship, citizenship should be 'distinctly and affirmatively alleged.' " McGovern, 511 F.2d at 654 (quoting 2A Moore's Federal Practice p 8.10, at 1662); see also Powell v. Abney, 83 F.R.D. 482, 487 (S.D.Tex.1979) (). Failure adequately to allege the basis for diversity jurisdiction mandates dismissal. Patterson v. Patterson, 808 F.2d 357, 357 (5th Cir.1986); McGovern, 511 F.2d at 654.
In their complaint, plaintiffs alleged the following facts to establish the existence of diversity jurisdiction:
"For diversity jurisdiction purposes, a corporation is a citizen of the state in which it was incorporated and the state in which it has its principal place of business." Getty Oil, 841 F.2d at 1258 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)). Plaintiffs have stated facts alleging only one of these two possible states of corporate citizenship with respect to each defendant, which is not enough to establish diversity jurisdiction. Leigh v. National Aeronautics & Space Admin., 860 F.2d 652, 653 (5th Cir.1988).
Plaintiffs do not dispute that they failed to allege sufficient facts in their pleadings for the purpose of establishing the existence of diversity jurisdiction. Nor do plaintiffs dispute that the record as made below when defendan...
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