Opinion
No. 15-15275
11-21-2016
MICHAEL SAMMONS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RINO INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 2:14-cv-00574-GMN-VCF MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada
Gloria M. Navarro, Chief Judge, Presiding Before: LEAVY, BERZON, and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Michael Sammons appeals pro se from the district court's judgment dismissing for lack of subject matter jurisdiction his diversity action seeking the appointment of a receiver. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Naffe v. Frey, 789 F.3d 1030, 1035 (9th Cir. 2015), and we reverse and remand.
The district court dismissed Sammons's action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because it concluded that Sammons did not plead an amount in controversy over $75,000. However, Sammons's proposed First Amended Complaint alleges that Rino International Corporation holds ownership interests in foreign companies, previously valued at $258 million, which makes his shareholder interest worth more than $75,000. Based on those allegations, it cannot be determined to a legal certainty that Sammons failed to meet the amount in controversy requirement. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a); Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1039-40 (setting forth elements of diversity jurisdiction and explaining that the "legal certainty" test requires a "district court [to] accept the amount in controversy claimed by the plaintiff unless it can declare to a legal certainty that the case is worth less"); see also Geographic Expeditions, Inc. v. Estate of Lhotka ex rel. Lhotka, 599 F.3d 1102, 1106 (9th Cir. 2010) (under the legal certainty test, "a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction unless upon the face of the complaint, it is obvious that the suit cannot involve the necessary amount" (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.
Sammons's motion to submit the case on the briefs, filed on February 21, 2015, and his motion to submit the case to a screening panel, filed on February 24, 2015, are granted.
REVERSED and REMANDED.