State Farm Fire Casualty Company v. Tashire/Opinion of the Court

by Abe Fortas

United States Supreme Court

386 U.S. 523

State Farm Fire Casualty Company  v.  Tashire

 Argued: Feb. 14 and 15, 1967. --- Decided: April 10, 1967

Early one September morning in 1964, a Greyhound bus proceeding northward through Shasta County, California, collided with a southbound pickup truck. Two of the passengers aboard the bus were killed. Thirty-three others were injured, as were the bus driver, the driver of the truck and its lone passenger. One of the dead and 10 of the injured passengers were Canadians; the rest of the individuals involved were citizens of five American States. The ensuing litigation led to the present case, which raises important questions concerning administration of the interpleader remedy in the federal courts.

The litigation began when four of the injured passengers filed suit in California state courts, seeking damages in excess of $1,000,000. Named as defendants were Greyhound Lines, Inc., a California corporation; Theron Nauta, the bus driver; Ellis Clark, who drove the truck; and Kenneth Glasgow, the passenger in the truck who was apparently its owner as well. Each of the individual defendants was a citizen and resident of Oregon. Before these cases could come to trial and before other suits were filed in California or elsewhere, petitioner State Farm Fire & Casualty Company, an Illinois corporation, brought this action in the nature of interpleader in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.

In its complaint State Farm asserted that at the time of the Shasta County collision it had in force an insurance policy with respect to Ellis Clark, driver of the truck, providing for bodily injury liability up to $10,000 per person and $20,000 per occurrence and for legal representation of Clark in actions covered by the policy. It asserted that actions already filed in California and others which it anticipated would be filed far exceeded in aggregate damages sought the amount of its maximum liability under the policy. Accordingly, it paid into court the sum of $20,000 and asked the court (1) to require all claimants to establish their claims against Clark and his insurer in this single proceeding and in no other, and (2) to discharge State Farm from all further obligations under its policy-including its duty to defend Clark in lawsuits arising from the accident. Alternatively, State Farm expressed its conviction that the policy issued to Clark excluded from coverage accidents resulting from his operation of a truck which belonged to another and was being used in the business of another. The complaint, therefore, requested that the court decree that the insurer owed no duty to Clark and was not liable on the policy, and it asked the court to refund the $20,000 deposit.

Joined as defendants were Clark, Glasgow, Nauta, Greyhound Lines, and each of the prospective claimants. Jurisdiction was predicated upon 28 U.S.C. § 1335, the federal interpleader statute, ^[1] and upon general diversity, of citizenship, there being diversity between two or more of the claimants to the fund and between State Farm and all of the named defendants.

An order issued, requiring the defendants to show cause why they should not be restrained from filing or prosecuting 'any proceeding in any state or United States Court affecting the property or obligation involved in this interpleader action, and specifically against the plaintiff and the defendant Ellis D. Clark.' Personal service was effected on each of the American defendants, and registered mail was employed to reach the 11 Canadian claimants. Defendants Nauta, Greyhound, and several of the injured passengers responded, contending that the policy did cover this accident and advancing various arguments for the position that interpleader was either impermissible or inappropriate in the present circumstances. Greyhound, however, soon switched sides and moved that the court broaden any injunction to include Nauta and Greyhound among those who could not be sued except within the confines of the interpleader proceeding.

When a temporary injunction along the lines sought by State Farm was issued by the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, the present respondents moved to dismiss the action and, in the alternative, for a change of venue-to the Northern District of California, in which district the collision had occurred. After a hearing, the court declined to dissolve the temporary injunction, but continued the motion for a change of venue. The injunction was later broadened to include the protection sought by Greyhound, but modified to permit the filing-although not the prosecution-of suits. The injunction, therefore, provided that all suits against Clark, State Farm, Greyhound, and Nauta be prosecuted in the interpleader proceeding.

On interlocutory appeal, ^[2] the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 363 F.2d 7. The court found it unnecessary to reach respondents' contentions relating to service of process and the scope of the injunction, for it concluded that interpleader was not available in the circumstances of this case. It held that in States like Oregon which do not permit 'direct action' suits against insurance companies until judgments are obtained against the insured, the insurance companies may not invoke federal interpleader until the claims against the insured, the alleged tortfeasor, have been reduced to judgment. Until that is done, said the court, claimants with unliquidated tort claims are not 'claimants' within the meaning of § 1335, nor are they '(p) ersons having claims against the plaintiff' within the meaning of Rule 22 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. ^[3] Id., at 10. In accord with that view, it directed dissolution of the temporary injunction and dismissal of the action. Because the Court of Appeals' decision on this point conflicts with those of other federal courts, ^[4] and concerns a matter of significance to the administration of federal interpleader, we granted certiorari. 385 U.S. 811, 87 S.Ct. 90, 17 L.Ed.2d 52 (1966). Although we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals upon the jurisdictional question, we direct a substantial modification of the District Court's injunction for reasons which will appear.

Before considering the issues presented by the petition for certiorari, we find it necessary to dispose of a question neither raised by the parties nor passed upon by the courts below. Since the matter concerns our jurisdiction, we raise it on our own motion. Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U.S. 66, 70, 60 S.Ct. 44, 47, 84 L.Ed. 85 (1939). The interpleader statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1335, applies where there are 'Two or more adverse claimants, of diverse citizenship * * *.' This provision has been uniformly construed to require only 'minimal diversity,' that is, diversity of citizenship between two or more claimants, without regard to the circumstance that other rival claimants may be co-citizens. ^[5] The language of the statute, the legislative purpose broadly to remedy the problems posed by multiple claimants to a single fund, and the consistent judicial interpretation tacitly accepted by Congress, persuade us that the statute requires no more. There remains, however, the question whether such a statutory construction is consistent with Article III of our Constitution, which extends the federal judicial power to 'Controversies * * * between citizens of different States * * * and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.' In Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267, 2 L.Ed. 435 (1806), this Court held that the diversity of citizenship statute required 'complete diversity': where co-citizens appeared on both sides of a dispute, jurisdiction was lost. But Chief Justice Marshall there purported to construe only 'The words of the act of congress,' not the Constitution itself. ^[6] And in a variety of contexts this Court and the lower courts have concluded that Article III poses no obstacle to the legislative extension of federal jurisdiction, founded on diversity, so long as any two adverse parties are not co-citizens. ^[7] Accordingly, we conclude that the present case is properly in the federal courts.

We do not agree with the Court of Appeals that, in the absence of a state law or contractual provision for 'direct action' suits against the insurance company, the company must wait until persons asserting claims against its insured have reduced those claims to judgment before seeking to invoke the benefits of federal interpleader. That may have been a tenable position under the 1926 ^[8] and 1936 interpleader statutes. ^[9] These statutes did not carry forward the language in the 1917 Act authorizing interpleader where adverse claimants 'may claim' benefits as well as where they 'are claiming' them. ^[10] In 1948, however, in the revision of the Judicial Code, the 'may claim' language was restored. ^[11] Until the decision below, every court confronted by the question has concluded that the 1948 revision removed whatever requirement there might previously have been that the insurance company wait until at least two claimants reduced their claims to judgments. ^[12] The commentators are in accord. ^[13]

Considerations of judicial administration demonstrate the soundness of this view which, in any event, seems compelled by the language of the present statute, which is remedial and to be liberally construed. Were an insurance company required to await reduction of claims to judgment, the first claimant to obtain such a judgment or to negotiate a settlement might appropriate all or a disproportionate slice of the fund before his fellow claimants were able to establish their claims. The difficulties such a race to judgment pose for the insurer, ^[14] and the unfairness which may result to some claimants, were among the principal evils the interpleader device was intended to remedy. ^[15]

The fact that State Farm had properly invoked the interpleader jurisdiction under § 1335 did not, however, entitle it to an order both enjoining prosecution of suits against it outside the confines of the interpleader proceeding and also extending such protection to its insured, the alleged tortfeasor. Still less was Greyhound Lines entitled to have that order expanded so as to protect itself and its driver, also alleged to be tortfeasors, from suits brought by its passengers in various state or federal courts. Here, the scope of the litigation, in terms of parties and claims, was vastly more extensive than the confines of the 'fund,' the deposited proceeds of the insurance policy. In these circumstances, the mere existence of such a fund cannot, by use of interpleader, be employed to accomplish purposes that exceed the needs of orderly contest with respect to the fund.

There are situations, of a type not present here, where the effect of interpleader is to confine the total litigation to a single forum and proceeding. One such case is where a stakeholder, faced with rival claims to the fund itself, acknowledges-or denies his liability to one or the other of the claimants. ^[16] In this situation, the fund itself is the target of the claimants. It marks the outer limits of the controversy. It is, therefore, reasonable and sensible that interpleader, in discharge of its office to protect the fund, should also protect the stakeholder from vexatious and multiple litigation. In this context, the suits sought to be enjoined are squarely within the language of 28 U.S.C. § 2361, which provides in part:

'In any civil action of interpleader or in the nature of interpleader under section 1335 of this title, a district court may issue its process for all claimants and enter its order restraining them from instituting or prosecuting any proceeding in any State or United States court affecting the property, instrument or obligation involved in the interpleader action * * *.' (Emphasis added.)

But the present case is another matter. Here, an accident has happened. Thirty-five passengers or their representatives have claims which they wish to press against a variety of defendants: the bus company, its driver, the owner of the truck, and the truck driver. The circumstance that one of the prospective defendants happens to have an insurance policy is a fortuitous event which should not of itself shape the nature of the ensuing litigation. For example, a resident of California, injured in California aboard a bus owned by a California corporation should not be forced to sue that corporation anywhere but in California simply because another prospective defendant carried an insurance policy. And an insurance company whose maximum interest in the case cannot exceed $20,000 and who in fact asserts that it has no interest at all, should not be allowed to determine that dozens of tort plaintiffs must be compelled to press their claims-even those claims which are not against the insured and which in no event could be satisfied out of the meager insurance fund-in a single forum of the insurance company's choosing. There is nothing in the statutory scheme, and very little in the judicial and academic commentary upon that scheme, which requires that the tail be allowed to wag the dog in this fashion.

State Farm's interest in this case, which is the fulcrum of the interpleader procedure, is confined to its $20,000 fund. That interest receives full vindication when the court restrains claimants from seeking to enforce against the insurance company any judgment obtained against its insured, except in the interpleader proceeding itself. To the extent that the District Court sought to control claimants' lawsuits against the insured and other alleged tortfeasors, it exceeded the powers granted to it by the statutory scheme.

We recognize, of course, that our view of interpleader means that it cannot be used to solve all the vexing problems of multiparty litigation arising out of a mass tort. But interpleader was never intended to perform such a function, to be an all-purpose 'bill of peace.' ^[17] Had it been so intended, careful provision would necessarily have been made to insure that a party with little or no interest in the outcome of a complex controversy should not strip truly interested parties of substantial rights-such as the right to choose the forum in which to establish their claims, subject to generally applicable rules of jurisdiction, venue, service of process, removal, and change of venue. None of the legislative and academic sponsors of a modern federal interpleader device viewed their accomplishment as a 'bill of peace,' capable of sweeping dozens of lawsuits out of the various state and federal courts in which they were brought and into a single interpleader proceeding. And only in two reported instances has a federal interpleader court sought to control the underlying litigation against alleged tortfeasors as opposed to the allocation of a fund among successful tort plaintiffs. See Commercial Union Insurance Co. of New York v. Adams, 231 F.Supp. 860 (D.C.S.D.Ind.1964) (where there was virtually no objection and where all of the basic tort suits would in any event have been prosecuted in the forum state), and Pan American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Revere, 188 F.Supp. 474 (D.C.E.D.La.1960). Another district court, on the other hand, has recently held that it lacked statutory authority to enjoin suits against the alleged tortfeasor as opposed to proceedings against the fund itself. Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 260 F.Supp. 530 (D.C.W.D.La.1966).

In light of the evidence that federal interpleader was not intended to serve the function of a 'bill of peace' in the context of multiparty litigation arising out of a mass tort, of the anomalous power which such a construction of the statute would give the stakeholder, and of the thrust of the statute and the purpose it was intended to serve, we hold that the interpleader statute did not authorize the injunction entered in the present case. Upon remand, the injunction is to be modified consistently with this opinion. ^[18]

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Judgment of Court of Appeals reversed and case remanded to the District Court.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, dissenting.

Notes

1. 28 U.S.C. § 1335(a) provides: 'The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action of interpleader or in the nature of interpleader filed by any person, firm, or corporation, association, or society having in his or its custody or possession money or property of the value of $500 or more, or having issued a * * * policy of insurance * * * of value or amount of $500 or more * * * if
2. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).
3. We need not pass upon the Court of Appeals' conclusions with respect to the interpretation of interpleader under Rule 22, which provides that '(1) Persons having claims against the plaintiff may be joined as defendants and required to interplead when their claims are such that the plaintiff is or may be exposed to double or multiple liability * * *' First, as we indicate today, this action was properly brought under § 1335. Second, State Farm did not purport to invoke Rule 22. Third, State Farm could not have invoked it in light of venue and service of process limitations. Whereas statutory interpleader may be brought in the district where any claimant resides (28 U.S.C. § 1397), Rule interpleader based upon diversity of citizenship may be brought only in the district where all plaintiffs or all defendants reside (28 U.S.C. § 1391(a)). And whereas statutory interpleader enables a plaintiff to employ nationwide service of process (28 U.S.C. § 2361), service of process under Rule 22 is confined to that provided in Rule 4. See generally 3 Moore, Federal Practice 22.04.
4. See, e.g., Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 260 F.Supp. 530 (D.C.W.D.La.1966); Commercial Union Insurance Co. of New York v. Adams, 231 F.Supp. 860 (D.C.S.D.Ind.1964); Pan American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Revere, 188 F.Supp. 474 (D.C.E.D.La.1960); Onyx Refining Co. v. Evans Production Corp., 182 F.Supp. 253 (D.C.N.D.Tex.1959). Although Travelers and Revere were brought in Louisiana, a State which authorizes 'direct action' suits against insurance companies, the statute was not relied upon in Travelers (see 260 F.Supp., at 533, n. 3), and furnished only an alternative ground in Revere (see 188 F.Supp., at 482-483).
5. See, e.g., Haynes v. Felder, 239 F.2d 868, 872-875 (C.A.5th Cir. 1957); Holcomb v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 255 F.2d 577, 582 (C.A.10th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Fleming v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 358 U.S. 879, 79 S.Ct. 118, 3 L.Ed.2d 110 (1958); Cramer v. Phoenix Mut.Life Ins. Co., 91 F.2d 141, 146-147 (C.A.8th Cir.), cert. denied, 302 U.S. 739, 58 S.Ct. 141, 82 L.Ed. 571 (1937); Commercial Union Insurance Co. of New York v. Adams, 231 F.Supp. 860, 863 (D.C.S.D.Ind.1964); 3 Moore, Federal Practice 22.09, at 3033.
6. Subsequent decisions of this Court indicate that Strawbridge is not to be given an expansive reading. See, e.g., Louisville C. & C. Railroad Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497, 554-556, 11 L.Ed. 353 (1844), expressing the view that in 1839 Congress had in fact acted to 'rid the courts of the decision in the case of Strawbridge and Curtis.' Id., at 556.
7. See, e.g., American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 10, n. 3, 71 S.Ct. 534, 538, 95 L.Ed. 702 (1951), and Barney v. Latham, 103 U.S. 205, 213, 26 L.Ed. 514 (1881), construing the removal statute, now 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c); Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U.S. 356, 41 S.Ct. 338, 65 L.Ed. 673 (1921), concerning class actions; Wichita R.R. & Light Co. v. Public Util. Comm., 260 U.S. 48, 43 S.Ct. 51, 67 L.Ed. 124 (1922), dealing with intervention by co-citizens. Fulldress arguments for the constitutionality of 'minimal diversity' in situations like interpleader, which arguments need not be rehearsed here, are set out in Judge Tuttle's opinion in Haynes v. Felder, 239 F.2d, at 875-876; in Judge Weinfeld's opinion in Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. Taylor, 239 F.Supp. 913, 918-921 (D.C.S.D.N.Y.1965); and in ALI, Study of the Division of Jurisdiction Between State and Federal Courts 180-190 (Official Draft, Pt. 1, 1965); 3 Moore, Federal Practice 22.09, at 3033-3037; Chafee, Federal Interpleader Since the Act of 1936, 49 Yale L.J. 377, 393-406 (1940); Chafee, Interpleader in the United States Courts, 41 Yale L.J. 1134, 1165 1169 (1932). We note that the American Law Institute's proposals for revision of the Judicial Code to deal with the problem of multiparty, multijurisdiction litigation are predicated upon the permissibility of 'minimal diversity' as a jurisdictional basis.
8. 44 Stat. 416 (1926), which added casualty companies to the enumerated categories of plaintiffs able to bring interpleader, and provided for the enjoining of proceedings in other courts.
9. 49 Stat. 1096 (1936), which authorized 'bill(s) in the nature of interpleader,' meaning those in which the plaintiff is not wholly disinterested with respect to the fund he has deposited in court. See Chafee, The Federal Interpleader Act of 1936: I, 45 Yale L.J. 963 (1936).
10. 39 Stat. 929 (1917). See Klaber v. Maryland Casualty Co., 69 F.2d 934, 938-939, 106 A.L.R. 617 (C.A.8th Cir. 1934), which held that the omission in the 1926 Act of the earlier statute's 'may claim' language required the denial of interpleader in the face of unliquidated claims (alternative holding).
11. Although the Reviser's Note did not refer to the statutory change or its purpose, we have it on good authority that it was the omission in the Note rather than the statutory change which was inadvertent. See 3 Moore, Federal Practice 22.08, 3025 3026, n. 13. And it was widely assumed that restoration of the 'may claim' language would have the effect of overruling the holding in Klaber, supra, that one may not invoke interpleader to protect against unliquidated claims. See e.g., Chafee, 45 Yale L.J., at 1163-1167; Chafee, Federal Interpleader Since the Act of 1936, 49 Yale L.J. 377, 418-420 (1940). In circumstances like these, the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code worked substantive changes. Ex parte Collett, 337 U.S. 55, 69 S.Ct. 944, 93 L.Ed. 1207 (1949).
12. See cases listed in n. 4.
13. 3 Moore, Federal Practice 22.08, at 3024-3025; Keeton, Preferential Settlement of Liability-Insurance Claims, 70 Harv.L.Rev. 27, 41-42 (1956).
14. See Keeton, op. cit. supra, n. 13.
15. The insurance problem envisioned at the time was that of an insurer faced with conflicting but mutually exclusive claims to a policy, rather than an insurer confronted with the problem of allocating a fund among various claimants whose independent claims may exceed the amount of the fund. S.Rep. No. 558, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3, 7, 8 (1935); Chafee, Modernizing Interpleader, 30 Yale L.J. 814, 818-819 (1921).
16. This was the classic situation envisioned by the sponsors of interpleader. See n. 15, supra.
17. There is not a word in the legislative history suggesting such a purpose. See S.Rep. No. 558, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935). And Professor Chafee, upon whose work the Congress heavily depended, has written that little thought was given to the scope of the 'second stage' of interpleader, to just what would be adjudicated by the interpleader court. See Chafee, Broadening the Second Stage of Federal Interpleader, 56 Harv.L.Rev. 929, 944-945 (1943). We note that in Professor Chafee's own study of the bill of peace as a device for dealing with the problem of multiparty litigation, he fails even to mention interpleader. See Chafee, Some Problems of Equity 149-198 (1950). In his writing on interpleader, Chafee assumed that the interpleader court would allocate the fund 'among all the claimants who get judgment within a reasonable time * * *.' Chafee, The Federal Interpleader Act of 1936: II, 45 Yale L.J. 1161, 1165 (1936). See also Chafee, 49 Yale L.J., at 420-421.
18. We find it unnecessary to pass upon respondents' contention, raised in the courts below but not passed upon by the Court of Appeals, that interpleader should have been dismissed on the ground that the 11 Canadian claimants are 'indispensable parties' who have not been properly served. The argument is that 28 U.S.C. § 2361 provides the exclusive mode of effecting service of process in statutory interpleader and that § 2361-which authorizes a district court to 'issue its process for all claimants' but subsequently refers to service of 'such process' by marshals 'for the respective districts where the claimants reside or may be found'-does not permit service of process beyond the Nation's borders. Since our decision will require basic reconsideration of the litigation by the parties as well as the lower courts, there appears neither need nor necessity to determine this question at this time. We intimate no view as to the exclusivity of § 2361, whether it authorizes service of process in foreign lands, whether in light of the limitations we have imposed on the interpleader court's injunctive powers the Canadian claimants are in fact 'indispensable parties' to the interpleader proceeding itself, or whether they render themselves amenable to service of process under § 2361 when they come into an American jurisdiction to establish their rights with respect either to the alleged tortfeasors or to the insurance fund. See 2 Moore, Federal Practice 4.20, at 1091-1105.