ABRO Management Corp. v. Midvale Indemnity Company
- Sidney Stein
- 1:20-cv-07030
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In ABRO Management v. Midvale Indemnity, Judge Stein denied remand after finding diversity jurisdiction and granted ABRO leave to amend its complaint.
ABRO Management Corp.’s case remains in federal court, and ABRO may file and serve an amended summons and complaint. Midvale Indemnity Company and Dual Commercial LLC remain defendants.
What happened
ABRO Management Corp. sued Midvale Indemnity Company and Dual Commercial LLC in New York state court over an insurance policy. Midvale removed the case to federal court, claiming diversity jurisdiction.
ABRO asked the federal court to send the case back to state court, arguing that the parties were not completely diverse and that less than $75,000 was at stake. ABRO later said the policy had lapsed and asked to amend its complaint to claim breach-of-contract damages for buying replacement coverage at substantially greater expense.
Judge Sidney H. Stein found that the defendants had shown complete diversity and that the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000. He denied ABRO’s motion to remand and granted its request to amend and serve its complaint.
The detailed version
- ABRO Management Corp. v. Midvale Indemnity Company · No. 1:20-cv-07030
- Sidney Stein
- Oct. 19, 2020
Background
Midvale Indemnity Company removed ABRO Management Corp.’s action from New York State Supreme Court, New York County, to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Midvale relied on diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, which allows federal jurisdiction over certain disputes between citizens of different states when the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.
ABRO moved to remand, meaning it asked the federal court to return the case to state court. ABRO argued that the defendants had not shown complete diversity of citizenship and that the amount in controversy did not exceed $75,000 because the action sought declaratory relief rather than money damages.
Jurisdiction
The defendants responded that, in a case seeking declaratory or injunctive relief, the amount in controversy is measured by the value of the object of the litigation. They showed that the value to ABRO of maintaining the insurance policy at issue exceeded the jurisdictional minimum.
The court separately required the defendants to identify the citizenship of each member of Dual Commercial LLC. The defendants represented that Dual Commercial had one member, DUAL North America, Inc., which was a citizen of Delaware and Florida. The court concluded that the defendants had demonstrated complete diversity between the parties and that the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000.
Request to Amend
After ABRO stated that the insurance policy had lapsed, it represented that it had suffered monetary damages because it had to purchase alternative coverage at substantially greater expense. ABRO asked for permission to file and serve an amended summons and complaint alleging breach of contract and damages from the improper cancellation of insurance.
Ruling
The court denied ABRO’s motion to remand the action to state court. The court granted ABRO’s request for leave to file and serve an amended summons and complaint. The opinion does not decide the merits of ABRO’s proposed breach-of-contract or damages allegations.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.