This article needs to be updated.(January 2022) |
Rogers v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. | |
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Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit |
Full case name | Shirley K. Rogers v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. |
Argued | September 13, 2000 |
Decided | October 26, 2000 |
Citation(s) | 230 F.3d 868 |
Case history | |
Prior history | Motion to remand denied by U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, June 23, 1999 |
Court membership | |
Judge(s) sitting | Ralph B. Guy Jr., Karen Nelson Moore, David D. Dowd, Jr. (N.D. Ohio) |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Dowd, joined by a unanimous court |
Laws applied | |
28 U.S.C. § 1441 |
Rogers v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 230 F.3d 868 (6th Cir. 2000), [1] was a case decided by the 6th Circuit that held that remand to a state court cannot be achieved after removal to a federal court by lowering the damages sought to fall below the amount in controversy requirement. [2]
The plaintiff sued Walmart in state court for a state law negligence action, seeking $950,000 in damages. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441, [3] the defendant removed to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. The plaintiff reduced the damages sought to less than $75,000 and petitioned for remand to state court because the amount in controversy requirement was no longer met. The 6th Circuit upheld a denial of the petition for remand, holding that the amount in controversy at the time of removal was what mattered. [4]
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In the law of the United States, diversity jurisdiction is a form of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives U.S. federal courts the power to hear lawsuits that do not involve a federal question. For a U.S. federal court to have diversity jurisdiction over a lawsuit, two conditions must be met. First, there must be "diversity of citizenship" between the parties, meaning the plaintiffs must be citizens of different U.S. states than the defendants. Second, the lawsuit's "amount in controversy" must be more than $75,000. If a lawsuit does not meet these two conditions, U.S. federal courts will normally lack the power to hear it unless it involves a federal question, and the lawsuit would need to be heard in state court instead.
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