Thornton v. New York Life Insurance

211 F.R.D. 606, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23764, 2002 WL 31770669
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedDecember 10, 2002
DocketNo. C-02-3360 SC
StatusPublished

This text of 211 F.R.D. 606 (Thornton v. New York Life Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thornton v. New York Life Insurance, 211 F.R.D. 606, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23764, 2002 WL 31770669 (N.D. Cal. 2002).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO AMEND AND REMANDING CASE TO STATE COURT

CONTI, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This case involves an insurance coverage dispute between plaintiff Corazon Thornton and the defendant insurance companies and a related dispute between Thornton and David Walsh, the agent from whom she bought her policies. Plaintiff originally brought her claims in state court. The insurance companies removed this action to federal court, arguing that Walsh was a sham defendant whose presence did not destroy the Court’s diversity jurisdiction. Finding that Plaintiff had failed to state any claim against Walsh, the Court agreed with Defendants and denied Plaintiffs motion to remand. Plaintiff now seeks leave to amend her complaint, adding more substance to her allegations against Walsh, and, should leave be granted, again asks the Court to remand the case. For the following reasons, the Court grants leave to amend and does remand the case to state court.1

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff filed suit in San Francisco County Superior Court against New York Life Insurance Company, The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company, Unumprovident, David R. Walsh, and Does 1-20 (collectively “Defendants”). Thornton v. New York Life Insurance Company et al., Case No. 408244. In her complaint, Plaintiff set forth four state law causes of action against Does 1-10 and the insurance company defendants and an additional two state law causes of action against Walsh and Does 11-20.

Plaintiffs legal claims are all related to the insurance company defendants’ denial of her claim for disability insurance coverage. [608]*608Plaintiff alleges that in January 2001, she injured her back and became unable to do her job. She subsequently filed a claim for benefits under her insurance policy. The insurance company defendants denied this claim.

Defendant Walsh was the agent who sold plaintiff the insurance policies. In both complaints, Plaintiff claims that Walsh breached an oral contract and engaged in both negligent and intentional misrepresentation in association with the sale of those policies.

On July 12, 2002, the insurance company defendants filed a notice of removal, pursuant to which Plaintiffs state action was removed to this court. Defendant Walsh did not join in the removal action. In their notice of removal, the insurance company defendants argued that Walsh was a sham defendant and-that this court had diversity jurisdiction in spite of Walsh’s California citizenship.

On August 6, 2002, Plaintiff filed a notice of her motion to remand the case to state court. On September 9, the Court denied this motion. It found that Plaintiff failed to allege the existence of a contract between her and Walsh, and thus that her breach of contract claim could not prevail. In addition, while finding that Plaintiff stated the elements of a negligent misrepresentation claim, the Court concluded that her claim was precluded by Lippert v. Bailey, 241 Cal.App.2d 376, 50 Cal.Rptr. 478 (1966), and related cases that made an insurance company, not its agent, liable for the agent’s misrepresentations. Accordingly, the Court concluded that Walsh was a sham defendant and that his presence could be disregarded for purposes of determining jurisdiction.

On October 16, Plaintiff filed a motion to amend her complaint. She seeks to add several allegations providing more specific information about the nature of her relationship with Walsh and the exact representations made by Walsh to her concerning the scope of her coverage. These additional allegations, she argues, establish that her claims fall within the exceptions to the Lippert rule, meaning that she now has stated a claim against Walsh and he no longer is a sham defendant. Plaintiff also argues that if the amendments are accepted, the case now should be remanded to state court.

III. LEGAL STANDARD

The heart of this dispute concerns the applicable legal standard. Plaintiff argues that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), with its permissive standard for amendments to complaints, applies. Defendants contend that since Plaintiffs amendment would destroy diversity, the applicable rule is supplied by 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e), which creates a somewhat more restrictive standard for joining new parties if their joinder will destroy the court’s diversity jurisdiction.

Section 1447(e) states that “if after removal the plaintiff seeks to join additional defendants whose joinder would destroy subject matter jurisdiction, the court may deny joinder, or permit joinder and remand the action to the State court.” Cases applying § 1447(e) generally involve post-removal attempts to join new defendants. E.g. Newcombe v. Adolf Coors Co., 157 F.3d 686, 691 (9th Cir.1998); Clinco v. Roberts, 41 F.Supp.2d 1080 (C.D.Cal.1999); IBC Aviation Services, Inc. v. Compania Mexicana, 125 F.Supp.2d 1008 (N.D.Cal.2000). Neither the Court nor the parties have found any case in which a plaintiff seeks, by providing more substantial allegations, to turn a fraudulently joined non-diverse party into a legitimate defendant.

Defendants argue that this is the equivalent of adding a new defendant. There is some basis for this view. A court may disregard a sham defendant when assessing diversity. Moreover, language of past cases suggests that § 1447(e) applies when any amendment to the complaint would destroy a federal court’s diversity jurisdiction. E.g. IBC Aviation Services, 125 F.Supp.2d at 1011 (“courts use the factors recently listed in Palestini (Palestini v. General Dynamics Corporation, 193 F.R.D. 654, 658 (S.D.Cal. 2000)) to scrutinize amendment more closely when the amendment will defeat diversity jurisdiction”).

Nevertheless, the plain language of the statute indicates that it does not apply. Walsh simply is not an “additional defen[609]*609dant.” Plaintiff named him at the outset of this action and has endeavored throughout the case to make him a party. This is not, as in other cases involving § 1447(e), a situation in which a plaintiff seeks to add a completely new party following removal. Instead, Plaintiff merely seeks to revise her pleading to add allegations substantiating already-made claims against an already-named party to the action. To prevent Plaintiff from doing this would effectively deny her the ability to revise her allegations — an opportunity the federal rules favor liberally granting — based upon a statutory rule intended to limit the introduction of new parties. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)(“The Federal Rules reject the approach that pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel may be decisive to the outcome and accept the principle that the purpose of pleading is to facilitate a proper decision on the merits.”). Thus, the Court determines that Rule 15(a), not 28 U.S.C. § 1447

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Related

Conley v. Gibson
355 U.S. 41 (Supreme Court, 1957)
Lippert v. Bailey
241 Cal. App. 2d 376 (California Court of Appeal, 1966)
Paper Savers, Inc. v. Nacsa
51 Cal. App. 4th 1090 (California Court of Appeal, 1996)
Clinco v. Roberts
41 F. Supp. 2d 1080 (C.D. California, 1999)
IBC Aviation Services, Inc. v. Compañia Mexicana De Aviacion
125 F. Supp. 2d 1008 (N.D. California, 2000)
Palestini v. General Dynamics Corp.
193 F.R.D. 654 (S.D. California, 2000)

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Bluebook (online)
211 F.R.D. 606, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23764, 2002 WL 31770669, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thornton-v-new-york-life-insurance-cand-2002.