Nathan S. Smith v. Commanding Officer, Air Force Accounting and Finance Center, Arthur R. Grimm and Jeannine Grimm

Smith appeals from an order of the District Court denying leave to amend the jurisdictional allegations of Smith’s complaint and dismissing the action. We affirm.

The relevant facts are discussed in Smith v. Grimm, 534 F.2d 1346 (9th Cir. 1976). Briefly, Smith is an attorney who represented Grimm, on a contingent fee basis, in an action in which it was established that Grimm had been wrongfully discharged from the Air Force. Smith now seeks a declaration that he holds an attorney’s lien on amounts of retirement pay the Air Force owes Grimm. Smith alleges that Grimm has refused to pay him 50% of the amounts recovered from the Air Force as agreed under the terms of the contingent fee agreement. We reversed a judgment in Smith’s favor in Smith v. Grimm, supra, because we were unable to discern any basis of federal subject matter jurisdiction as to the individual defendants. We remanded the cause to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the action, but we stated, in an order denying a petition for rehearing and rejecting a suggestion for en banc rehearing, that “nothing in this order is intended to preclude such amendment of allegations of federal jurisdiction as the trial…