First Assembly of God v. Ch Mtl Ins

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: January 21, 2025
• Docket: 24-30173
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 24-30173 Document: 100-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/21/2025

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

____________ FILED January 21, 2025 No. 24-30173 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk

First Assembly of God Church Incorporated of Leesville Louisiana,

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I.,

Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana USDC No. 2:21-CV-378 ______________________________

Before Dennis, Haynes, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * This case involves an insurance dispute that arose in the wake of Hurricane Laura. It went to trial, and the jury reached a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. But all along, there was a problem with the jurisdictional pleadings below. 1 Before reaching the merits of this appeal, we “are duty-

_____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. 1 We note too that the plaintiff’s statement of jurisdiction in its appellate brief does not provide a basis for the district court’s jurisdiction. Case: 24-30173 Document: 100-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/21/2025

No. 24-30173

bound to examine the basis of subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte.” Union Planters Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Salih, 369 F.3d 457, 460 (5th Cir. 2004). The operative complaint in this case alleges subject matter jurisdiction based on the diversity of the two corporate parties but does not adequately plead corporate citizenship. The diversity statute says that 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. But the operative complaint alleges only the “domicile” of each corporate party. That is not enough. MidCap Media Fin., LLC v. Pathway Data, Inc., 929 F.3d 310, 314 (5th Cir. 2019) (“[A]llegations regarding the citizenship of a corporation must set out the principal place of business of the corporation as well as the state of its incorporation.” (quotation omitted)). Fortunately, 28 U.S.C. § 1653 “allows us to overlook a party’s failure to plead diversity if a party can identify allegations and evidence in the record demonstrating diversity.” Id. at 315 (cleaned up) (quotation omitted). We therefore sent a letter to the parties asking them to do so. The parties’ responses represent that they are indeed diverse but fail to identify allegations and evidence in the record sufficient to demonstrate diversity. At oral argument, both parties again represented that they are diverse but acknowledged that the jurisdictional pleadings may be insufficient. “[W]here jurisdiction is not clear from the record, but there is . . . reason to believe that jurisdiction exists,” remand to the district court for amendment of the jurisdictional allegations and supplementation of the record is appropriate. Molett v. Penrod Drilling Co., 872 F.2d 1221, 1228 (5th Cir. 1989) (per curiam); see 28 U.S.C. § 1653. That is the situation here. Accordingly, we ORDER a limited remand to the district court to determine whether diversity jurisdiction exists. If the district court

2 Case: 24-30173 Document: 100-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/21/2025

concludes that it has diversity jurisdiction, the Clerk of the district court shall promptly supplement the appellate record with copies of the new filings below and the district court’s opinion on jurisdiction and forward the supplemental record to this court. Upon return to this court, no further briefing will be necessary. The case will be returned to this panel for disposition on the merits. If the district court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction, then it must vacate its judgment and dismiss the case. LIMITED REMAND.