Watts v. SCI Funeral Servs., LLC
| Decision Date | 18 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: 2:19-cv-01219-JHE |
| Parties | JERRY W. WATTS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SCI FUNERAL SERVICES, LLC, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
On July 31, 2019, Defendants SCI Funeral Services, LLC ("SCI Funeral Services"), SCI Alabama Funeral Services, LLC ("SCI Alabama"), and Service Corporation International ("SCI," and collectively with the others, "Defendants") removed this action from the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, to this court. (Doc. 1). Plaintiffs Jerry W. Watts and Allyne Watts ("Plaintiffs," or the "Watts") timely moved to remand the action. (Doc. 7). Defendants oppose remand, (doc. 11), and Plaintiffs have filed a reply in support, (doc. 15), as well as a supplemental reply, (doc. 20), to which Defendants have filed a sur-reply, (doc. 21). Plaintiffs have also moved for leave to amend their complaint to add a new defendant in place of a fictitious defendant identified in their complaint. (Doc. 14). Defendants also oppose that motion. (Doc. 19). For the reasons stated below, the motion to remand is DENIED, but the motion for leave to amend is GRANTED. Because the amendment causes this court to lose jurisdiction over the case, it is due to be REMANDED to the Circuit Court of Jefferson County.
Defendants provide funeral services. (Doc. 1-1 at 6, ¶ 6). Specifically, SCI Alabama does business as Elmwood Cemetery. (Id.). Plaintiff Jerry Watts owns a family burial plot in Elmwood Cemetery (the "Watts Plot") containing four spaces. (Id. at 7, ¶ 8). Jerry Watts' mother and father are buried in two of those spaces. (Id.). Two remain for Jerry Watts' use. (Id., ¶ 9). On or about March 26, 2019, Plaintiffs' son Patrick passed away. (Id., ¶ 10). When Jerry Watts arrived at Elmwood Cemetery to arrange for Patrick's burial, he found that a stranger, Alma Louise Ward ("Ward"), had been buried in one of the spaces in the Watts Plot. (Id.).
On these facts, Plaintiffs sued Defendants and twenty fictitious defendants for outrage, breach of contract, trespass, conversion, and negligence/wantonness.3 Included in the list of fictitious defendants were the following:
Defendants timely removed the action to this court, arguing that the complaint supports federal diversity of citizenship jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). (Doc. 1).
Plaintiff's motion to remand and motion for leave to amend present two distinct but related issues. Because the resolution of the motion for leave to amend depends in part on whether the case was properly removed, the undersigned addresses the motion to remand first.
"[A]ny civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction, may be removed by the defendant or the defendants, to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place where such action is pending." 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). "Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and there is a presumptionagainst the exercise of federal jurisdiction, such that all uncertainties as to removal jurisdiction are to be resolved in favor of remand." Russell Corp. v. Am. Home Assur. Co., 264 F.3d 1040, 1050 (11th Cir. 2001).
Here, Defendants asserted in their notice of removal that this court has jurisdiction based on 28 U.S.C. § 1332. (Doc. 1). Under that statute, federal courts "have original jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between . . . . citizens of different States . . . ." 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Plaintiffs contend that their complaint does not facially support § 1332 jurisdiction because it both (1) includes non-diverse fictitious defendants and (2) lacks a basis for the court to conclude more than $75,000 is at stake. (Doc. 7). Objecting to both of these characterizations, Defendants argue fictitious parties' citizenship must be disregarded and the complaint is sufficient for the court to conclude the amount in controversy is met. (Doc. 11).
To establish the propriety of removal via diversity jurisdiction under § 1332, every plaintiff must be diverse from every defendant—no plaintiff's citizenship may overlap with any defendant's citizenship. Triggs v. John Crump Toyota, Inc., 154 F.3d 1284, 1287 (11th Cir. 1998). An individual is considered a citizen of the state of his domicile—that is, the last state in which he lived with an intention to remain there indefinitely. Mas v. Perry, 489 F.2d 1396, 1399 (5th Cir. 1974).1 "[A] corporation shall be deemed to be a citizen of every State and foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the State or foreign state where it has its principal place of business . . . ." 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1). All other entities are deemed citizens wherever a member of that entity is a citizen. Carden v. Arkoma Assoc., 494 U.S. 185, 195 (1990).
Plaintiffs concede at the outset that the removing defendants are diverse.4 (Doc. 7 at 2). However, they claim that the fictitious defendants identified in their complaint should be taken into account in determining whether diversity of citizenship actually exists. (Id.). The problem for Plaintiffs is that 28 U.S.C. §1441(b) states that "[i]n determining whether a civil action is removable on the basis of the jurisdiction under section 1332(a) of this title, the citizenship of defendants sued under fictitious names shall be disregarded."
Plaintiffs point to Delorenzo v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 5:17-CV-01762-AKK, 2017 WL 6525009 (N.D. Ala. Dec. 21, 2017), but that case involved a plaintiff's motion for leave to amend to add non-diverse defendants, which the court analyzed under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e). Although the § 1447(e) standard is relevant to Plaintiffs' motion for leave to amend and is discussed further below, it has no bearing on whether the court should consider their fictitious defendants in determining whether this case was removable. Indeed, the court in Delorenzo declined to consider the plaintiffs' contention that the case was never appropriately removed in the first place because of her description of fictitious defendants in light of its determination that remand was warranted under § 1447(e). Id. at *1. Plaintiffs' reliance on Smith v. Dollar Gen. Corp., No. 1:16-CV-1673-SGC, 2017 WL 3492831 (N.D. Ala. Aug. 15, 2017), is flawed for substantially the same reason: it too is a case in which a plaintiff sought leave to join a non-diverse defendant (or, as the court found, identify a previously fictitious defendant), not a case in which a plaintiff alleged that her complaint was not removable in the first instance.
The remainder of the law Plaintiffs cite is outdated and has since been abrogated. For example, Plaintiffs offer a blockquote from McAllister v. Henderson, 698 F. Supp. 865, 868-69 (N.D. Ala. 1988), in which the court cited Coker v. Amoco Oil Co., 709 F.2d 1433, 1440-41 (11th Cir. 1983), for the proposition that "unserved resident fictitious defendants may not be ignored on removal if the complaint's allegations are directed at all defendants without elaboration as to the particular role of any one defendant." (Doc. 7 at 5). But in "reaction to decisions like Coker," Congress amended § 1441 to explicitly provide that fictitious defendants' citizenship is disregarded. Wilson v. Gen. Motors Corp., 888 F.2d 779, 782 n.3 (11th Cir. 1989). Whatever guidance McAllister and Coker could offer to this particular issue has long since receded into the past. Accordingly, applying the law that controls the issue, diversity of citizenship existed at the time of removal.
The party removing on § 1332 grounds also bears the burden...
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