Affiliated FM Insurance Company on July 10 removed a water damage case from a Missouri Circuit Court to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri due to federal diversity jurisdiction.
HH St. Louis Railway LP and Railway Exchange Owner LLC sued over an insurance coverage dispute involving water damage to a commercial building and adjoining property in the State of Missouri Circuit Court, Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit Court against Affiliated FM Insurance Company on Sept. 26, 2017.
On March 1, the petition was amended to include the Missouri Development Finance Board as an additional plaintiff. The motion for the additional plaintiff was granted, and Affiliated FM filed a motion to dismiss the additional plaintiff with resolution still pending in trial court.
Interrogatories between the plaintiffs and defendants revealed that the U.S. District Court should have jurisdiction because the water damage suit was a civil matter exceeding $75,000 between parties that had citizenship in different states.
According to US Code, Title 28, the United States District Court has reigning jurisdiction over the circuit court because of the amount in damages and varying state residency.
Originally, all of the parties were not aware that residency amongst them varied. HH St. Louis Railway is a Missouri organized in a limited partnership with HH Railway LP, Railway Investors LLC and Hudson St. Louis Real Estate Manager LLC. Andrew Greenbaum and Steve Michael are constituent partners of Hudson Real Estate Manager, and they are both residents of Florida.
Plaintiff Railway Exchange Owner LLC has principal business in Missouri; however, its constituent partnerships have members residing in Texas.
Affiliated FM is a Rhode Island corporation.
Affiliated FM believes that the Missouri Development Finance Board was later added to the plaintiff list in an attempt to demolish diversity jurisdiction. The board is a nominal plaintiff and can be ignored if it is not a plaintiff of real interest in the case, according to Affiliated FM.
Since Affiliated FM was not initially aware of the varying residency, it requested removal in a timely manner after finding out through interrogatories. Affiliated FM followed proper procedure redacting and the matter will now be resolved in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri.