Torres Vazquez v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., No. Civ.99-2131(DRD).

• Decision Date: 17 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. Civ.99-2131(DRD).
• Citation: 417 F.Supp.2d 227
• Parties: Nelson TORRES VAZQUEZ, Maria Francisca Adorno Sein, Nilsa Ivelisse Torres Adorno, and Iris Yolanda Torres Adorno, Plaintiffs, v. COMMERCIAL UNION INSURANCE CO., Reliance Insurance Company, Royal Insurance Company of America, Lexington Insurance Company, New York Marine & General Insurance Company, and American Home Assurance Co., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

Page 227

417 F.Supp.2d 227

Nelson TORRES VAZQUEZ, Maria Francisca Adorno Sein, Nilsa Ivelisse Torres Adorno, and Iris Yolanda Torres Adorno, Plaintiffs, v. COMMERCIAL UNION INSURANCE CO., Reliance Insurance Company, Royal Insurance Company of America, Lexington Insurance Company, New York Marine & General Insurance Company, and American Home Assurance Co., Defendants.

No. Civ.99-2131(DRD).

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

February 17, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Arturo Luciano-Delgado, Arturo Luciano Law Office, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs.

Vicente J. Antonetti, Goldman Antonetti & Cordova, Jaime Sifre-Rodriguez, Luis V. Villares-Sarmiento, Sanchez Betances & Sifre, P.S.C., San Juan, PR, Roberto A. Rivera-Soto, William A. Whiteside, Jr., Fox, Rothschild, O'Brien & Frankel LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

DOMINGUEZ, District Judge.

Pending before the Court is Royal Insurance Company of America's Motion for Summary Judgment on the Grounds of Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction. (Docket No. 170). Through said motion, Royal insists that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the instant claim provided that plaintiffs have failed to properly support their allegations of diversity and/or federal question. In sum, Royal avers that, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1), the insurance company must assume it's insured citizenship for diversity purposes and that the insured's citizenship is that of Puerto Rico. Thus, examining that the insured's citizenship is Puerto Rico, as well as plaintiff's, there is no diversity jurisdiction in the instant claim. Finally, defendants further allege that the only claims which remain alive are exclusively state law negligence claims provided that this Court, in a previous Opinion and Order decided that there was no maritime jurisdiction.

Plaintiffs duly opposed said request. (Docket Nos. 175, and 177). Through their scant opposition, the Court can only conclude that plaintiffs are arguing that San Juan International Terminal, Inc. ("SJIT")—Royal's insured—is a subsidiary of The Hold Group, Inc. which, in turn holds citizenship outside of Puerto Rico. Accordingly, once again, the Court can deduct that, plaintiffs are requesting that the case not be summarily denied due to there being diversity of citizenship between the subsidiary's parent company and plaintiffs. The burden to prove jurisdiction lies on plaintiffs. See Murphy v. United States, 45 F.3d 520, 522 (1st Cir. 1995).

Before entering into the parties' allegations and requests, the Court must briefly clarify that the instant case was filed before the Court in October 6, 1999. (Docket No. 1). Subsequently, due to intricate bankruptcy proceedings,¹ filings of consecutive amended complaints, and the adding of multiple new parties, who of course had to be duly summoned, this case has remained without a prompt resolution in this Court's docket. Because of said complexities, discovery could not begin until 2003. Furthermore, even as recently as March of 2004, the parties were still having great difficulties in deposing non-party member witnesses due to said witnesses lack of cooperation, if not outright disdain of court orders. Moreover, by said date, plaintiffs had even yet to file an answer to any of defendants' interrogatories, thus, further delaying the proceedings of this case. Consequently, discovery cut-off date had to be moved back even further to June of 2004. Accordingly, the Court was not in proper position to address the late filed dispositive requests until now. Therefore, the Court now proceeds to tend to the parties' final dispositive requests.

For the reasons stated below, the Court GRANTS Royal Insurance's motion for summary judgment and DISMISSES WITH PREJUDICE all of plaintiffs federal claims and WITHOUT PREJUDICE all state law claims.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The factual and procedural background is described as it appears in the Court's previous Opinion and Order found at Docket No. 150, and in Torres Vazquez v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 367 F.Supp.2d 231, 234-35 (D.P.R.2005).

On October 6, 1999, Plaintiffs filed a Complaint against San Juan International Terminal, Inc. ("SJIT"), San Juan International Transport Inc. ("SJ Int'l T"), Holt Hauling and Warehousing Systems, Inc. ("HHWS") and the Holt Group, Inc. ("Holt") seeking compensation for damages that Plaintiff Nelson Torres Vazquez ("Torres") allegedly suffered on October 10, 1998 while employed as a driver for Sea Land Services, Inc. ("Sea Land"). Subsequently, on March 21, 2001, SJIT filed a Voluntary Petition for Bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. (Docket No. 33). That same day, an Amended Complaint was filed against Commercial Union Insurance Company, Reliance Insurance Company, Royal Insurance Company of America ("Royal"), New York Marine and General Insurance Company, and American Home Assurance Company. (Docket Nos. 33, and 34, respectively). A Second Amended Complaint was filed on April 1, 2003 adding Lexington Insurance Company as a defendant. (Docket No. 58). Plaintiffs later voluntarily dismissed the Amended Complaints against each of these insurers except for Royal, SJIT's insurer. (Docket Nos. 37, 41, 56, 65, and 69).

In this Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs allege that, on October 10, 1998 longshoreman Torres, a 44 year old man, suffered personal injures at the Port of San Juan while performing his duties as a truck driver for Sea Land. (Docket No. 58, ¶ 11). On said date, his duty was to transport containers to the pier subsequently to be loaded onto the vessel, the M/V EXPEDITION, a vessel that is also owned by Sea Land, via the cranes installed in the loading platform. Once the container was placed behind the crane, a checker would be placed as a mark to direct the crane operator as to where the cargo would be. The cargo would then be released from the chassis which, in turn, is connected to the truck transporting the cargo. Once the crane would hit its mark, the crane operator would pick up the released cargo and proceed to loading it onto the vessel. He would, thus, lift the container and move it inside the ship for its proper stowage.

On October 10, 1998, the land-based crane, which, although owned by Sea Land, was, and had been for some time, leased and maintained by SJIT, SJ Int'l T, HHWS, and Holt, and was operated by an employee of SJIT, proceeded to grab the container while it was still attached to the truck in which longshoreman Torres was sitting. The container and the truck, with Torres still inside, were then lifted approximately twenty (20) feet into the air until the truck finally separated from the container causing the truck to fall and hit the pavement.

In their Complaint, Plaintiffs invoke jurisdiction by virtue of 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question), § 1332 (diversity of citizenship —amount in controversy), § 1331(1) (admiralty and maritime), and § 1337 (commerce and antitrust regulations —amount in controversy); the Admiralty Extension Act of 1948, 46 U.S.C. § 740; and Article III, § 2 of the Constitution of the United States. Plaintiffs also claim supplemental jurisdiction based on 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

On September 24, 2004, Royal filed a Motion to Dismiss and Memorandum of Law in support thereof, pursuant to FED. R.CIV.P. 12(b)(6), claiming: 1) lack of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331(1), 46 U.S.C. § 740 or Article III § 2 of the Constitution of the United States; 2) lack of factual allegations of intentional infliction of emotional distress; and that 3) Plaintiffs' claims are time-barred. (Docket No. 128). Subsequently, on November 8, 2004, Plaintiffs filed their Opposition arguing that admiralty and diversity jurisdictions were present; that there are, in fact, an allegation of intentional infliction of emotional distress; and that the claims are not time-barred. (Docket No. 144). Royal filed their reply on November 19, 2004.

After a Report and Recommendation from Magistrate Judge Camille L. Velez Rive was issued, which the Court adopted in part and denied in part under de novo review, the Court dismissed all claims founded on Admiralty/Maritime jurisdiction. See Torres Vazquez, 367 F.Supp.2d at 234-235. Subsequently, a motion for summary judgment, which was also referred for a Report and Recommendation, but of Magistrate Judge Gustavo A. Gelpi, was denied by the Court as premature because of uncertain and contingent events as to a declaratory judgment request under the precedent of Ernst & Young v. Depositors Economic Protection Corp., 45 F.3d 530, 536 (1st Cir.1995).

II. SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

The parties have filed the instant motion and its opposition using the framework under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 which is applicable to a summary judgment. The court in a note briefly expresses the summary judgment standard but finds for the reasons later expressed in this Opinion and Order that the proper standard to challenge federal jurisdiction is Rule 12(b)(1) of Fed. R.Civ.P.²

III. DIVERSITY OF CITIZENSHIP

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. This Court, thus, has the responsibility "to police the border of federal jurisdiction". Spielman v. Genzyme Corp., 251 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2001). This is so for all federal courts must "rigorously enforce the jurisdictional limits that Congress chooses to set in diversity cases." del Rosario Ortega v. Star Kist Foods, 213 F.Supp.2d 84, 88 (D.P.R.2002) (citing Coventry Sewage Associates v. Dworkin Realty Co., 71 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1995)). Moreover, just as a federal court cannot expand its jurisdictional horizon, the parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction on a federal court "by indolence, oversight, acquiescence, or consent." U.S. v. Horn, 29 F.3d 754, 768 (1st Cir.1994). Therefore, as stated before, a party that seeks the jurisdiction of the federal courts has the inalienable burden of demonstrating its existence. See Murphy...