Miller v. Woods

185 F.2d 499, 87 U.S. App. D.C. 324

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: October 6, 1950
• Docket: 10764
• Status: Published

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

Certain tenants sued the Blousing Expediter to enjoin him from terminating federal rent control in Los Angeles, which he threatened to do because he had received a resolution of the Council of that City that there no longer existed therein such a shortage in rental housing accommodations as to require rent control. The City of Los Angeles was permitted to intervene and moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter and .for failure to state a claim upon which relief could .be granted. We are asked to review the action of the district court in granting the motion and dismissing the complaint.

The jurisdictional amount was not shown to be present here. This is a spurious class action, Knowles v. War Damage Corporation, 1948, 83 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 171 F.2d 15, and the claims of the several plaintiffs cannot be aggregated to confer jurisdiction. See also Spieler v. Haas, D.C., 1948, 79 F.Supp. 835; Fox v. 34 Hillside Realty Corporation, D.C., 1948, 79 F.Supp. 832; Luftman v. Ross, D.C., 1948, 75 F.Supp. 627.

There was ample notice that the amount of damages was in issue. The complaint contained a general allegation that the matters in controversy exceeded $3,000. The intervenor-defendant City denied that allegation. The individual plaintiffs pleaded in the complaint damages in amounts of $3,500 or $5,000 each due to eviction. The intervenor-defendant City pleaded in answer that in respect to those allegations it was without sufficient information to form a belief. The plaintiffs also alleged generally that they would suffer great and irreparable damage, the exact and entire amount whereof it was impossible to determine. The intervenor-defendant 'City specifically denied that allegation, saying that it denied “that plaintiffs will suffer damage in any sum * * The intervenor-defendant owners answering denied allegations of damage “in the sum of $5,000.00 or any lesser sum, or any sum at all,” and again “or that plaintiffs will suffer any damage in any sum whatsoever * * *.” The plaintiffs filed affidavits showing the rent increases with which some plaintiffs were threatened (none of which totaled $3,000) and also tables showing average increases in rents (none of which totaled $3,000), and asserting damages in total by all tenants in Los Angeles considerably in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars; and also in one instance asserting additional damage by reason of the necessity for storing much of that affiant’s personal goods. Answering affidavits were filed. In that state of the record a motion to dismiss was made, specifically asserting lack of jurisdiction as a ground for dismissal.

It is true that in injunction suits to protect property the value of the property, rather than the specific monetary damage threatened, may be the jurisdictional amount, but in the present case the complaints were laid in monetary damages, the complainants being tenants without leases and so without interest in the property itself.

Since the record does not show that the jurisdictional amount was involved, for that reason the complaint was properly dismissed, and we need not consider the other questions pressed upon us by the parties.

Affirmed.