Rapp v. Fowler
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:20-cv-09586
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Rapp v. Fowler, Judge Kaplan denied remand, allowed limited jurisdictional discovery, and permitted renewal if jurisdiction remains unresolved.
Anthony Rapp and C.D., who sought to return the case to state court, and Kevin Spacey Fowler, whose alleged Maryland domicile supported federal diversity jurisdiction.
What happened
Rapp v. Fowler began in New York state court, where Anthony Rapp and C.D. sued Kevin Spacey Fowler over alleged sexual misconduct involving the plaintiffs when they were minors. The case was moved to federal court based on alleged diversity of citizenship.
Spacey asserted that he was domiciled in Maryland, while the plaintiffs argued that he was domiciled in the United Kingdom and therefore was not a citizen of any state for diversity purposes. The plaintiffs supported their remand request mainly with their lawyer’s declaration and news and magazine materials; Spacey submitted his own declaration about his domicile.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied the motion to return the case to state court. He ruled that Spacey’s declaration could not be disregarded and that the domicile issue could not be decided from the plaintiffs’ submitted materials alone. Judge Kaplan allowed proportional discovery on that jurisdictional issue and said the plaintiffs could renew their motion after that discovery if the issue remained unresolved.
The detailed version
- Rapp v. Fowler · No. 1:20-cv-09586
- Lewis Kaplan
- Jan. 5, 2021
Background
Anthony Rapp and C.D. originally brought claims for assault, battery, and other torts in New York state court against Kevin Spacey Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey. The claims arose from alleged sexual misconduct involving the plaintiffs when they were minors, 34 and 40 years earlier.
Spacey removed the action to federal court based on alleged diversity jurisdiction. He claimed to be a citizen of Maryland, and the opinion states that the plaintiffs claimed to be citizens of New York. The plaintiffs moved to remand, meaning they asked the federal court to return the case to state court. They argued that Spacey was domiciled in the United Kingdom and therefore was not a citizen of a U.S. state for purposes of diversity jurisdiction.
Jurisdictional dispute
The court stated that Spacey, as the party invoking federal jurisdiction, had the burden of establishing that jurisdiction existed. The plaintiffs argued that the court should disregard Spacey’s declaration as self-serving and incompetent. The court rejected that argument. It explained that domicile means a person’s true fixed home and principal establishment, together with the intention to return there when absent. Because Spacey was the person with personal knowledge of his intention to return to Maryland, the court concluded that his declaration could not simply be disregarded.
The court also concluded that the question whether Maryland was Spacey’s true fixed home and principal establishment could not be decided based on the newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, and other materials submitted by the plaintiffs.
Ruling and next steps
The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to remand. It stated that the plaintiffs could seek evidence during discovery concerning Spacey’s domicile, but that discovery had to be proportional to the need to resolve the jurisdictional issue. The parties were ordered to confer within two weeks and file a joint report by January 26, 2021, identifying their agreement or the boundaries of any dispute about that discovery. Until then, no discovery on the jurisdictional issue could occur without both sides’ consent. If the jurisdictional issue remained unresolved after the court-authorized discovery, the plaintiffs would be permitted to renew their remand motion. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did not finally resolve Spacey’s domicile in this order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.