A unique burden of proof falls upon defendants in cases presenting first-party bad faith claims removed to Federal Court, in which the plaintiff has not pled a specific damages amount in her, his or its complaint. “Where the plaintiff has not pled a specific amount of damages, the removing defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional requirement.”[1]
In the first-party bad faith case of Becker v. Infinity Auto Insurance Co., [2] Ms. Veronica Becker filed a complaint for damages allegedly caused by the bad faith of an underinsured motorist carrier but she did not plead a specific amount of damages. The defendant removed the case to U.S. District Court and Ms. Becker filed a motion to remand. Although she did not allege it in her complaint, Ms. Becker contended in her motion that the defendant UIM carrier confessed judgment for the $50,000.00 UM/UIM policy limit in an earlier action for breach of contract in Florida State Court.[3] She contended that, with the $50,000.00 policy limit deducted from what the record might show as the amount of damages and attorney’s fees in controversy, the jurisdictional limit of $75,000.00 was not established in her case and so the case should be remanded to Florida State Court.
Assuming without deciding that Ms. Becker had a point with that contention, the District Judge analyzed the record as to what it otherwise displayed concerning the jurisdictional amount in that case. The Court noted that in State Court, Ms. Becker had alleged various severe damages, but these allegations are general, not specific, and are of the kind that most personal injury plaintiffs are required to allege in order to pursue claims for injury. However, the Court concentrated on specific amounts of damages reflected in the record:
$60,000.00+ lost earnings, which Ms. Becker asserted in an answer to an interrogatory; and
$45,000.00+ for the cost of surgery as a result of the automobile accident in question.
Note that after putting the effect of the $50,000.00 confession of judgment to one side, this combined amount of $105,000.00+ would by itself have exceeded the jurisdictional amount of $75,000.00, exclusive of interest and costs. The Federal Judge did not mention that fact in this case, however.
Instead, the Federal Judge in this case went on to consider the issue of what amount of attorney’s fees Ms. Becker would likely obtain in the event she was successful in proving her bad faith claim. With no citation to the record of the case, here the Court chose to express the obvious: “Those fees will almost certainly exceed $20,000 if the matter proceeds through trial.”[4]
Considering the amount of $105,000.00+ in damages displayed by the record, taken together with a prevailing attorney’s fees award which would clearly bring the total amount in controversy up to at least $125,000.00+, “[e]ven after subtracting the $50,000 that Becker has already recovered, the amount at issue in these proceedings still exceeds $75,000.”
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[1] Becker v. Infinity Auto Ins. Co., No. 6:14-cv-1954-Orl-31DAB, 2015 WL 574257 *1 (M.D. Fla. February 11, 2015).
[2] Becker v. Infinity Auto Ins. Co., No. 6:14-cv-1954-Orl-31DAB, 2015 WL 574257 (M.D. Fla. February 11, 2015).
[3] Becker v. Infinity Auto Ins. Co., No. 6:14-cv-1954-Orl-31DAB, 2015 WL 574257 *2 (M.D. Fla. February 11, 2015).
[4] Becker v. Infinity Auto Ins. Co., No. 6:14-cv-1954-Orl-31DAB, 2015 WL 574257 *2 (M.D. Fla. February 11, 2015).