Caudle v. Life Insurance Co. of North America

33 F. Supp. 3d 1288, 2014 WL 2999178, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87647
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Alabama
DecidedJune 27, 2014
DocketCase No. 1:14-CV-545-VEH
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 33 F. Supp. 3d 1288 (Caudle v. Life Insurance Co. of North America) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Caudle v. Life Insurance Co. of North America, 33 F. Supp. 3d 1288, 2014 WL 2999178, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87647 (N.D. Ala. 2014).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

VIRGINIA EMERSON HOPKINS, District Judge.

I. Introduction

This lawsuit arises under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). (Doc. 1 at 1). Plaintiff Vanessa Caudle (“Ms. Caudle”) filed her complaint on March 25, 2014. (Doc. 1). The defendants named in Ms. Caudle’s lawsuit are Life Insurance Company of North America (“LINA”); Cigna Corporation (“Cigna”); Honda Manufacturing Health & Welfare Benefits Plan No. 501(“Honda Health Plan”); Honda Retirement Plan, Plan No. 334 (“Honda Retirement Plan”); and Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC (“Honda”). (Id. at 1; id. at 2 ¶ 1; id. at 4-11 ¶¶ 13-60); (see also Docs. 7, 8, 9 (copies of executed summonses)).

Pending before the court are six motions: (1) Honda’s Motion To Dismiss (Doc. 14) (“Honda’s Motion”) filed on April 18, 2014; (2) Honda Health Plan’s Motion To Dismiss (Doc. 16) (“Honda Health Plan’s Motion”) filed on April 21, 2014; (3) Honda Retirement Plan’s Motion To Dismiss (Doc. 17) (“Honda Retirement Plan’s Motion”) filed on April 22, 2014; (4) LINA’s Motion To Dismiss Count II of Plaintiffs Complaint (Doc. 20) (“LINA’s Partial Motion”) filed on May 5, 2014;1 (5) Cigna’s Motion To Dismiss (Doc. 22) (“Cig-na’s Motion”) filed on May 5, 2014; and (6) Ms. Caudle’s Motion for Leave To Conduct Limited Jurisdictional Discovery (Doc. 26) (the “Discovery Motion”) filed on May 19, 2014.

The parties have briefed these motions (Docs.18, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33), and they are ready for disposition. For the reasons explained below, they are all GRANTED except for Cigna’s Motion, which is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART, and Ms. Caudle’s Discovery Motion, which is TERMED as MOOT.

[1292]*1292II. Standards

A. Rule 12(b)(2)

Because subject matter jurisdiction in this case is based upon federal question, a different personal jurisdiction constitutional standard applies than the one set forth in Madara v. Hall, 916 F.2d 1510 (11th Cir.1990), which test arises under the Fourteenth Amendment and is applicable only in diversity cases. “[Wjhen, as here, a federal statute provides the basis for jurisdiction, the constitutional limits of due process .derive from the Fifth, rather _ than the Fourteenth, Amendment.” Republic of Panama v. BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A., 119 F.3d 985, 942 (11th Cir.1997) (emphasis added) (citing In re Chase & Sanborn, 835 F.2d 1341, 1344 (11th Cir.1988), rev’d on other grounds sub. nom, Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33, 109 S.Ct. 2782, 106 L.Ed.2d 26 (1989)); see also BCCI, 119 F.3d at 946 (“As we noted in' Chase & Sanborn, ‘[tjhe due process concerns of the fifth and fourteenth amendments are not precisely parallel.’ ”).

Under the Rule 12(b)(2) framework applicable to federal question cases when the subject federal statute provides for nationwide service of process:2

[A] defendant’s contacts with the forum state play no magical role in the Fifth Amendment analysis. “As a practical matter ... state lines cannot provide an accurate measure of the burdens that would be imposed on a defendant by requiring him to defend an action in a particular forum. There is nothing inherently burdensome about crossing a state line.” Wright & Miller, supra, § 1067.1, at 327. Thus, determining whether litigation imposes an undue burden on a litigant cannot be determined by evaluating only a defendant’s contacts with the forum state. A court must therefore examine a defendant’s aggregate contacts with the nation as a whole rather than his contacts with the forum state in conducting the Fifth Amendment analysis. See United States Securities and Exchange Comm’n v. Carrillo, 115 F.3d 1540, 1543-44 (11th Cir.1997).
A defendant’s “minimum contacts” with the United States do not, however, automatically satisfy the due process requirements of the Fifth Amendment. There are circumstances, although rare, in which a defendant may have sufficient contacts with the United States as a whole but still will be unduly burdened by the assertion of jurisdiction in a faraway and inconvenient forum.

BCCI, 119 F.3d at 946-47 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

However, the Eleventh Circuit has “emphasizefdj that it is only in highly unusual cases that inconvenience will rise to a level of constitutional concern.” Id. at [1293]*1293947 (emphasis added). Additionally, u[t]he burden is on the defendant to demonstrate that the assertion of jurisdiction in the forum will ‘make litigation so gravely difficult and inconvenient that [he] unfairly is at a severe disadvantage in comparison to his opponent.’ ” Id. (some internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added) (second alteration in original) (quoting Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 478, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 2185, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985)).

In those unusual instances in which “a defendant makes a showing of constitutionally significant inconvenience, jurisdiction will comport with due process only if the federal interest in litigating the dispute in the chosen forum outweighs the burden imposed on the defendant.” BCCI, 119 F.3d at 948. “In evaluating the federal interest, courts should examine the federal policies advanced by the statute, the relationship between nationwide service of process and the advancement of these policies, the connection between the exercise of jurisdiction in the chosen forum and the plaintiffs vindication of his federal right, and concerns of judicial efficiency and economy.” Id. “Where, as here, Congress has provided for nationwide service of process, courts should presume that nationwide personal jurisdiction is necessary to further congressional objectives.” Id.

B. Rule 12(b)(6)

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion attacks the legal sufficiency of the complaint. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) (“[A] party may assert the following defenses by motion: (6) failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted[.]”). The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require only that the complaint provide ‘“a short and plain statement of the claim’ that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiffs claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 103, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) (footnote omitted) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)), abrogated by Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1965, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see also Fed.R.Civ.P.

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33 F. Supp. 3d 1288, 2014 WL 2999178, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87647, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/caudle-v-life-insurance-co-of-north-america-alnd-2014.