Jurisdiction Over Crossclaims

Jurisdiction Over Crossclaims

A proper crossclaim needs no jurisdictional footing of its own, because the relatedness that qualifies it under Rule 13(g) also carries it into federal court on the strength of the main claim. The Rule admits a crossclaim only when it arises out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the original action or of a counterclaim, or relates to property that is the subject matter of the original action.¹ That single limit answers the jurisdictional question the earlier sections deferred.

The Rule itself supplies no jurisdiction. A federal court may decide a claim only when some grant of jurisdiction reaches it, and the Federal Rules cannot enlarge that grant.² Rule 13(g) works instead through ancillary jurisdiction. Once a federal court validly acquires jurisdiction over a main claim, its jurisdiction extends to matters ancillary to that claim, even when those matters lack the jurisdictional requisites of a separate suit.³ Crossclaims qualify because the Rule requires each one to arise from the transaction or occurrence underlying the original action or a counterclaim, or to relate to property in the original action.⁴ The older opinions call this ancillary jurisdiction. The statute calls it supplemental jurisdiction, and 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) extends it to claims that form part of the same case or controversy as the original claim.⁵

Why Relatedness Works as the Test

Revere Copper & Brass, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. gave the idea content by surveying the joinder devices to which ancillary jurisdiction applies. A claim is logically related to the original claim, the court concluded, when it arises out of the same aggregate of operative facts in one of two senses. Either the same aggregate of operative facts serves as the basis of both claims, or the aggregate core of facts behind the original claim activates additional legal rights in a defendant that would otherwise remain dormant.⁶ Crossclaims fit both senses. A coparty's claim for his own losses from the accident the plaintiff sues over rests on the same facts as the plaintiff's claim. A claim that a coparty is or may be liable to the crossclaimant for part of the plaintiff's claim fits the second sense, because the plaintiff's lawsuit is what awakens that liability.⁷

Revere Copper added a reason grounded in who is asking. Ancillary jurisdiction is generally available to litigants in a defensive posture, who would otherwise be prevented or greatly burdened in protecting their interests. The court saw much to be said for letting parties who are involuntarily brought into federal court assert all their claims arising out of the controversy in one proceeding, and it treated that concern as one factor in deciding whether ancillary jurisdiction exists.⁸ A defendant did not choose the federal forum. Sending that defendant to another court with a related claim against a codefendant would mean trying the same events twice.

The same test does double duty. In a counterclaim case, one court explained that whether ancillary jurisdiction exists and whether a counterclaim is compulsory are answered by the same test, and it stressed that the Federal Rules cannot expand federal jurisdiction.⁹ The consequence is settled for compulsory counterclaims: they fall within supplemental jurisdiction and need no independent jurisdictional ground.¹⁰ Rule 13(g) borrows the same transactional limit, so the reasoning carries over to crossclaims. The limit marks off the claims that the court's jurisdiction over the main claim already reaches.

A Worked Example

Return to Pete's diversity action against Deborah and Dell. Deborah, a defendant, crossclaims against her codefendant Dell for $30,000 in damage to her car, well under the $75,000 amount in controversy that a separate diversity suit would require. The court hears the crossclaim anyway. It arises from the same collision as Pete's claim, so it forms part of the same case or controversy under § 1367(a).¹¹ Section 1367(b) is no obstacle, because it restricts certain claims by plaintiffs in diversity cases and Deborah is a defendant.¹² That line between plaintiffs and defendants follows the defensive-posture reasoning above. Deborah had no say in where Pete filed, while the limit in § 1367(b) protects the diversity requirements against a plaintiff's use of joinder.

Where the Tie Is Missing

A permissive counterclaim shows what the transactional tie accomplishes. Under the older decisions, a compulsory counterclaim falls within ancillary jurisdiction because it necessarily arises out of the same transaction or occurrence as the original claim. A permissive counterclaim under Rule 13(b) requires an independent ground of federal jurisdiction because it does not.¹³ Jones v. Ford Motor Credit Co. recites that rule: for decades, federal courts have required a permissive counterclaim to be maintainable on some jurisdictional basis that would have sufficed had it been brought as a separate action. The court also marked the effect of § 1367 on that proposition as deserving careful consideration.¹⁴

The word permissive means different things for the two claims. A crossclaim is permissive only because the pleader may choose whether to assert it, as an earlier section explained, and every crossclaim must still be related to the main case. A permissive counterclaim is permissive because it is unrelated. Rule 13(g) has no counterpart to the unrelated counterclaim, so a proper crossclaim always carries the tie that the permissive counterclaim lacks.¹⁵

Danner v. Anskis shows a crossclaim with nothing to attach to. Two Pennsylvania families sued a New Jersey driver in diversity, the driver defaulted, and one family crossclaimed against the other for injuries from the same accident. The court refused to hear the crossclaim. A crossclaim, it reasoned, states a claim ancillary to a claim already filed against the party stating it, and without that limit Rule 13(g) could extend the district court's jurisdiction to controversies beyond the federal judicial power, a result Rule 82 forbids.¹⁶ The Rule therefore does not let a plaintiff crossclaim against a coplaintiff on the transaction that is also the subject of their common complaint against the defendant.¹⁷ Without ancillary status, the crossclaim was a freestanding suit between citizens of the same state.

The accident cannot be what separates Danner from Deborah's case, because both crossclaims grew out of one. The difference is attachment. Pete's claim is pending against Deborah, and her crossclaim attaches to it. The defaulted driver had asserted nothing against the two families, so their crossclaim attached to nothing. Had the driver counterclaimed against both families, a crossclaim between them about the subject matter of that counterclaim would have had a pending claim to attach to, and the ancillary analysis would have been available.¹⁸

Two Questions the Earlier Sections Deferred

A claim joined under Rule 18(a) alongside a proper crossclaim clears the joinder screen, but Rule 18(a) is a joinder rule, and it cannot enlarge federal jurisdiction any more than Rule 13(g) can.¹⁹ An unrelated claim has no tie to the main case on which supplemental jurisdiction could rest. It must therefore find its own basis for subject-matter jurisdiction, such as diversity with the required amount in controversy.²⁰

The same two steps govern a person added under Rule 13(h). Rules 19 and 20 decide whether that person may be joined. Jurisdiction over the claim against the person is a separate question. Section 1367(a) answers it when the claim is part of the same case or controversy, and an independent basis is required when it is not.²¹ In a diversity case, § 1367(b) adds a check on a plaintiff's claim against a person made a party under Rules 14, 19, 20, or 24: supplemental jurisdiction is unavailable where it would be inconsistent with § 1332's requirements.²²