Moe v. Geico Indemnity Company

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: May 22, 2025
• Docket: 24-3271
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 22 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BRANDON L. MOE, individually and on No. 24-3271 behalf of all individuals of the class D.C. No. similarly situated, 2:19-cv-00023-BMM Plaintiff - Appellant, MEMORANDUM* v.

GEICO INDEMNITY COMPANY; GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES INSURANCE COMPANY,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Brian M. Morris, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 13, 2025 San Francisco, California

Before: McKEOWN and DE ALBA, Circuit Judges, and BENNETT, District Judge.**

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Richard D. Bennett, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation. Brandon Moe appeals the district court’s ruling that it had subject-matter

jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d),

and the district court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of GEICO. We

have an “independent obligation to ensure that both the district court and this court

have subject matter jurisdiction,” Moe v. GEICO Indem. Co. (Moe I), 73 F.4th 757,

761 (9th Cir. 2023), and reverse.

1. CAFA. Where, as here, the court questions a removing defendant’s

amount-in-controversy allegation, the defendant must establish “‘by the

preponderance of the evidence, that the amount in controversy exceeds’ the

jurisdictional threshold.” Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. v. Owens, 574 U.S.

81, 88 (2014) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(2)(B)). The defendant may aggregate

the claims of individual class members, and may “rely on reasonable assumptions”

to show the amount in controversy of the aggregated claims. Arias v. Residence

Inn by Marriott, 936 F.3d 920, 922 (9th Cir. 2019). We review “de novo whether

the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction,” and we review “any factual

findings relevant to jurisdiction for clear error.” Singh v. Am. Honda Fin. Corp.,

925 F.3d 1053, 1062 (9th Cir. 2019).

GEICO did not meet its burden to show the amount in controversy of the

aggregated claims exceeded $5 million. GEICO assumed, and the district court

found, that the total amount of money GEICO paid to claimants who submitted a

2 24-3271 bodily injury claim represented the aggregate damages potentially in dispute. The

court’s finding did not rely on reasonable assumptions.

First, the district court unreasonably assumed that every bodily injury

claimant to whom GEICO paid money was a potential class member. However,

Moe seeks to represent a “narrowly defined class of accident victims,” see Moe I,

73 F.4th at 762, entitled to advance payments under Ridley v. Guaranty Nat’l Ins.

Co., 951 P.2d 987 (Mont. 1997) because GEICO’s liability “was/is reasonably

clear for those damages . . . .” See Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, 568 U.S.

588, 592 (9th Cir. 2013) (“[T]he [CAFA] statute tells the District Court to

determine whether it has jurisdiction by adding up the value of the claim of each

person who falls within the definition of [the] proposed class . . . .”). While Moe

alleges that GEICO “programmatically” violates its Ridley obligations when a

claimant is entitled to advance payments, Moe does not allege, and GEICO does

not present evidence suggesting, how frequently injury claimants are entitled to

advanced payments and are therefore, members of the class. See Arias, 936 F.3d at

925 (“An assumption may be reasonable if it is founded on the allegations of the

complaint,” but “cannot be pulled from thin air” (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted)).

Second, the district court unreasonably assumed that the amount of money

GEICO has already paid a claimant reflects what the claimant may now recover for

3 24-3271 GEICO’s Ridley violations. Moe does not seek to recover all damages incurred by

bodily-injury claimants. He seeks to recover “delay-based individual damages,”

see Moe I, 73 F.4th at 762, and outstanding expenses that GEICO has not yet paid.

GEICO does not show that all money previously paid to a bodily injury claimant

reasonably reflects the potential damages its asserted Ridley violations caused. See

Greene v. Harley-Davidson, Inc., 965 F.3d 767, 772 (9th Cir. 2020) (explaining

that the amount in controversy represents the defendant’s possible damages

liability in the litigation).

2. Traditional Diversity Jurisdiction. “Where, as here, it is unclear

from the face of the complaint whether the amount in controversy exceeds

$75,000, ‘the removing defendant bears the burden of establishing, by a

preponderance of the evidence, that the amount in controversy exceeds the

jurisdictional threshold.’” Chavez v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 888 F.3d 413, 416

(9th Cir. 2018) (quoting Urbino v. Orkin Servs. of Cal., Inc., 726 F.3d 1118, 1121–

22 (9th Cir. 2013)). Because Moe did not preserve his objection to jurisdiction at

the time of removal, the question on appeal is “‘whether the federal district court

would have had original jurisdiction of the case had it been filed’ in federal court at

the time of final judgment.” Singh, 925 F.3d at 1065 (quoting Grubbs v. General

Elec. Credit Corp., 405 U.S. 699, 703 (1972)).

GEICO did not meet its burden to show the amount in controversy of Moe’s

4 24-3271 individual claims exceeded $75,000. GEICO relies on a single, pretrial statement

that Moe filed in the district court stating he was seeking $100,000 in emotional

distress damages. However, GEICO did not argue or offer evidence in the district

court to show that Moe’s demand “reasonably estimate[d] the value of [his]

claims.” Acad. of Country Music v. Cont’l Cas. Co., 991 F.3d 1059, 1061 (9th Cir.

2021). GEICO argued for the first time at oral argument that Moe’s demand

reflected a reasonable estimate of the value of his claims, citing King v. GEICO

Indem. Co., 712 Fed. App’x 649 (9th Cir. 2017). Id. at 650. However, this court’s

unpublished decision in King does not, standing alone, show Moe’s demand

reflected a reasonable estimate of his potential emotional distress damages.

Because the decision in King included no discussion of the facts underlying the

plaintiff’s case, this court cannot determine whether Moe might reasonably recover

up to $100,000 in emotional distress damages under Montana law, like the plaintiff

in King. Nor is it clear from King whether the plaintiff’s bad-faith claim was based

on asserted Ridley violations.

For these reasons, GEICO failed to meet its burden to show the amount in

controversy necessary to establish the court’s jurisdiction under either CAFA or

traditional diversity jurisdiction. On remand, GEICO may present additional

evidence and offer additional assumptions to establish the jurisdictional threshold.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

5 24-3271