Lee v. American National Insurance

Opinion by Judge BERZON; Partial Concurrence by Judge KOZINSKI

This case presents the question whether, in a diversity action removed from state court, the entire case must be remanded if the plaintiff lacks Article III standing as to one of several defendants. We conclude that the case need not be remanded, and therefore affirm the district court’s denial of plaintiff Howard Lee’s motion to remand his suit, in its entirety, to state court.

I. Background

Howard Lee purchased several life insurance policies for himself and members of his family from American National Insurance Company (“ANI”). In exchange for fixed premium payments for a preset number of years, these policies promised a specific schedule of increasing dividends. According to Lee’s complaint, however, these benefits were never realized. Similar life insurance policies were issued by the American National Life Insurance Company of Texas (“ANTEX”), a wholly owned subsidiary of ANI, but Lee never bought one of these policies.

On March 26, 1997, Lee filed a complaint in California Superior Court on behalf of himself and all other buyers of similar ANI and ANTEX life insurance policies since January 1, 1988. Lee’s…

joining in part and concurring in the judgment:

I reach the same result as the majority, but am unable to join all of its opinion. Specifically, I can’t sign on to Part II.2.A, which needlessly complicates the question of whether the district court properly removed the case from state court.

District courts have “original jurisdiction” under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (a) so long as the parties are completely diverse and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. And 28 U.S.C. § 1441 says that a case is removable where it falls within the district court’s “original jurisdiction.” Here, the parties are completely diverse and more than $75,000 is at stake. Therefore, the district court would have had original jurisdiction over the case, and it is removable. The statutory command could hardly be clearer.

It’s true that, in federal question cases, a jurisdictional bar against some claims does not deprive a court of jurisdiction where other claims arise under federal law. See City of Chicago v. Int’l Coll. of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 166 , 118 S.Ct. 523 , 139 L.Ed.2d 525 (1997); Kruse v. Hawai‘i, 68 F.3d 331 , 334-35 (9th Cir.1995). But here we don’t have a case where some claims arise under…