Travelers Insurance Company v. Harville
Decision Date | 12 September 1985 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 85-0786-X-C. |
Parties | TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, a corporation, Plaintiff, v. Agatha HARVILLE, Individually and as the Administratrix of the Estate of Samuel Williams; Gurther Dean Thompkins Williams, Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama |
Wade K. Wright, Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A., Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiff.
Barry R. Bennett, Hobbs & Hain, Selma, Ala., for defendant Gurther Dean Thompkins Williams.
This action is an interpleader action under 28 U.S.C. § 1335, brought by the Travelers Insurance Co. as disinterested stakeholder seeking to force the two allegedly adverse claimants to litigate the right to the two thousand dollars ($2,000.00) in proceeds from a policy of life insurance. This Court now raises, for the first time, the question of whether it has jurisdiction of this action. Federal courts, being courts of limited jurisdiction, are required to question their jurisdiction sua sponte if no party raises a jurisdictional defect. See Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126 (1908); 13 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3522 at 70 (1984).
The complaint herein invoked this Court's jurisdiction on the basis that section 1335 allows this interpleader action. Section 1335 of Title 28 states, in pertinent part, as follows:
28 U.S.C. § 1335(a)(1) (1976). The plaintiff-interpleader has tendered into court more than $500.00, so the issue is whether there are properly diverse parties. The statute requires "two or more adverse claimants, of diverse citizenship." Both claimants in this action are citizens of Alabama, while Travelers is a citizen of the states of Connecticut and Delaware. . There is only diversity, therefore, between the stakeholder and the claimants, not between the claimants themselves. The statute plainly requires, however, and the decisions have interpreted it to require, diversity of citizenship between the claimants, without regard to the citizenship of the disinterested stakeholder. See State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Tashire, 386 U.S. 523, 530, 87 S.Ct. 1199, 1203, 18 L.Ed.2d 270 (1967); Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U.S. 66, 71-72, 60 S.Ct. 44,...
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