Sullivan v. Direct Gen. Ins. Co. of Miss.
| Decision Date | 27 September 2013 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO.: 4:12-cv-97-SA-JMV |
| Parties | CLARENCE SULLIVAN, JR., CLYDE SMITH, DELORIS CROSS, ROBERT LEE DANIELS, LUEVINE COOPER, BILLY MCBRIDE, ALBERT MARTIN, EASER NEWSOME, SID TAYLOR, JR., and JANE STRONG PLAINTIFFS v. DIRECT GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF MISSISSIPPI, DIRECT GENERAL INSURANCE AGENCY, INC., DIRECT GENERAL CORPORATION, DIRECT GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, and NATION MOTOR CLUB (a/k/a NATION SAFE DRIVERS, LLC) DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
Presently before the Court are Plaintiffs' Motion to Remand [13], Plaintiffs' Motion to Dismiss Luevine Cooper [28], and Defendant Nation Safe's Motion to Strike [34]. Because the Court determines that there is no diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, the Court grants Plaintiffs' Motion to Remand.
The Plaintiffs in this action are Mississippi residents who purchased automobile insurance policies from Direct General. Specifically, each Plaintiff obtained a Direct General policy between 2008 and 2010 from the Direct General Insurance Agency office in Greenville, Mississippi. Each of the Plaintiffs' policies were serviced by Direct General Agents Derrick Quarles or Levar Hill. Contemporaneously with the purchase of those automobile insurance policies, Plaintiffs also purchased a number of add-on products or automobile club services.Those products, the Roadside Assistance Program and Auto Protection Plan, were not Direct General products, but were instead underwritten by Nation Safe Drivers (Nation Safe).
Contending that they were fraudulently induced to purchase those add-on products, that the products were worthless, unreasonably priced, and were sold in violation of state law, Plaintiffs filed the present action in the Circuit Court of Leflore County, Mississippi. Defendant Nation Safe thereafter removed the action to this Court on grounds of purported diversity jurisdiction. In its notice of removal, Nation Safe alleged that although Direct General Insurance Company of Mississippi and Direct General Insurance Agency Inc. (Direct Defendants) were non-diverse defendants, those parties should be overlooked under the theory of fraudulent misjoinder or improper joinder.
Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and, as such, are called to presume that a suit lies outside their jurisdictional limits. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America, 511 U.S. 375, 377, 114 S. Ct. 1673, 128 L. Ed. 2d 391 (1994); Howery v. Allstate Ins. Co., 243 F.3d 912, 916 (5th Cir. 2001). When a case is removed under the premise of the court's diversity jurisdiction, it "shall be removable only if none of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought." 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b). Thus, when there is a single defendant who is a citizen of the forum state present, removal on the basis of diversity jurisdiction is barred. Similarly, in a case with multiple plaintiffs or multiple defendants, complete diversity is required.
Significantly, the party removing the case bears the burden of showing that jurisdiction is proper in federal court. Guillory v. PPG Indus., Inc., 434 F. 3d 303, 309 (5th Cir. 2005). If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction,the case shall be remanded. 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). The removal statute is to be strictly construed, and any doubt about the propriety of removal must be resolved in favor of remand. Gasch v. Hartford Acc. & Indem. Co., 491 F. 3d 278, 281 (5th Cir. 2007).
In the case at hand, it is undisputed that the Plaintiffs are all domicilliaries of the forum state. Similarly, Defendants Direct General Mississippi and Direct General Agency Inc. are also domicilliaries of Mississippi. Defendant Nation Safe, however, contends that diversity jurisdiction is nonetheless proper under either a fraudulent misjoinder or improper joinder theory.
The concept of fraudulent misjoinder was first articulated by the Eleventh Circuit in Tapscott v. MS Dealer Serv. Corp., 77 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 1996), abrogated on other grounds, Cohen v. Office Depot, Inc., 204 F.3d 1069 (11th Cir. 2000). Previously, fraudulent joinder provided the sole basis for disregarding the citizenship of a non-diverse party. However, in Tapscott, the Eleventh Circuit articulated that "[m]isjoinder may be just as fraudulent as the joinder of a resident defendant against whom a plaintiff has no possibility of a cause of action." Id. at 1360. Therefore, at least where the joinder of defendants constitutes an "improper and fraudulent joinder, bordering on a sham," the Eleventh Circuit has instructed that the presence of such non-diverse defendants should not destroy federal jurisdiction. In other words, "a defendant's 'right of removal cannot be defeated by a fraudulent joinder of a resident defendant having no real connection with the controversy.'" Id. at 1359 (quoting Wilson v. Republic Iron & Steel Co., 257 U.S. 92, 97, 42 S. Ct. 35, 66 L. Ed. 144 (1921)).
Although the Fifth Circuit has seemingly endorsed the theory of fraudulent misjoinder, the court has provided limited instruction on how the doctrine should be applied. See In re Benjamin Moore & Co., 309 F.3d 296, 298 (5th Cir. 2002) (); Jackson v. Truly, 307 F. Supp. 2d 818, 823 (N.D. Miss. 2004) (). Federal district courts within this state, however, have first looked to the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure in order to evaluate a party's fraudulent misjoinder claim. Palermo v. Letourneau Tech. Inc., 542 F. Supp. 2d 499, 517 (S.D. Miss. 2008); Jamison v. Purdue Pharma Co., 251 F. Supp. 2d 1315, 1323 (S.D. Miss. 2003).
Thus, under Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a), "[a]ll persons may be joined in one action as defendants if there is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative, any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences, and if any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action." Miss. R. Civ. P. 20(a). For joinder to be proper, both prongs of Rule 20(a) —(1) the right to relief arises out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences, and (2) a question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action— must be satisfied. See e.g. Wyeth-Ayerst, 905 So. 2d 1205, 1207 (Miss. 2005). In order for an alleged "occurrence" to be sufficient to satisfy the two factors required under Rule 20(a), "there must be a 'distinct litigable event linking the parties.'" Hegwood v. Williamson, 949 So. 2d 728, 730 (Miss. 2007) (quoting Wyeth-Ayerst, 905 So.2d at 1208).
Whether a "distinct litigable event" exists is determined by considering the proof necessary to succeed on the alleged claims. Id. at 730. As explained by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Hegwood:
Although both prongs of Rule 20 must be met in order to deny a motion to sever, the rule extends broad discretion to the trial courts in determining how to try claims, and such determinations are properly reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Mississippi Farm Bureau Fed. v. Roberts, 927 So. 2d 739, 741 (Miss. 2006). Moreover, when considering the propriety of a party's Rule 20(a) joinder in the fraudulent misjoinder context, mere misjoinder will not suffice for purposes of overlooking a non-diverse party's presence in the action. Sweeney v. Sherwin Williams Co., 304 F. Supp. 2d 868, 873 (S.D. Miss. 2004). Instead, the application of fraudulent misjoinder requires that the misjoinder must be grossly improper, or, as the Eleventh Circuit articulated, "bordering on a sham." Walton v. Tower Loan of Miss., 338 F. Supp. 2d 691, 695 (N.D. Miss. 2004); Tapscott, 77 F.3d at 1359. Therefore, this Court has previously stated that the doctrine is most readily applied "in cases where it seems clear that parties were misjoined specifically to defeat diversity jurisdiction as opposed to cases where such an inference is less clear." Id. at 697.
Turning to the case at hand, the Court finds that Defendant's fraudulent misjoinder argument fails. Defendant, in arguing that the Plaintiffs' claims against Nation Safe and thoseagainst the Direct General Defendants have been misjoined, relies almost exclusively on the argument that the Plaintiffs' contracts with Nation Safe and contracts with the Direct Defendants were separate and distinct transactions. Essentially, Nation Safe's argument seems to be that Plaintiffs cannot show a "distinct litigable event." Plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend that the causes of action arise "out of the same events and from numerous uniform misrepresentations." Specifically, Plaintiffs aver that each alleged fraudulent transaction "was carried out in a standardized and uniform manner by the defendants and their agents, and the misrepresentations and omissions of material fact." For present purposes, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have the more persuasive side of the argument.
Indeed, as articulated in Hegwood, "[t]he need for separate proof is lessened only where the...
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