Jurisdiction and Venue

Rule 22(a)(1) is a joinder rule. It allows persons whose claims may expose a plaintiff to double or multiple liability to be joined as defendants and required to interplead.¹ That text decides who may be gathered into one lawsuit. It does not decide whether a federal court may hear the lawsuit, whether the court can reach the claimants, or whether the stakeholder chose a proper district. Rule 22(a) descends from the old equitable remedy and liberalizes its classic limitations, but the normal restrictions of subject-matter jurisdiction, territorial jurisdiction, and venue still apply to rule interpleader.²

The relaxed equitable restrictions discussed above solve one problem, the stakeholder's exposure to paying twice for a single obligation. The restrictions in this section raise three separate questions about the court itself:

Subject-matter jurisdiction: may a federal court decide this kind of case at all?
Territorial jurisdiction: can the court reach and bind the claimants who have been joined?
Venue: is the chosen district a proper place to bring the suit?

A joinder rule brings parties into a case the court already has power to hear, so it cannot supply power the case lacks. The interpleader statute, which a later section compares with Rule 22, relaxes each of these burdens. It asks only for minimal diversity among the claimants, authorizes nationwide service, and has its own venue provision.³

Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

A stakeholder who sues under Rule 22 needs an independent basis for federal subject-matter jurisdiction, because the jurisdictional and procedural requirements are the same as in an ordinary civil action.⁵ That basis must be one of the usual ones, most commonly federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 or diversity under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a).⁶ All the Rule contributes is a lineup, with the stakeholder as plaintiff on one side and the adverse claimants as defendants on the other. The ordinary jurisdictional statutes are then applied to that lineup.

On the diversity route, the court compares the stakeholder's citizenship with that of each claimant. Diversity must be complete, so no claimant may share a state of citizenship with the stakeholder.⁷ The court does not compare the claimants' citizenship with one another.⁸ The test follows the caption. Diversity jurisdiction looks across the “v.,” and Rule 22 puts every claimant on the defendant side. Two claimants from the same state are therefore both strangers to a stakeholder from elsewhere, while a single claimant from the stakeholder's own state defeats complete diversity.

Diversity also requires that the stake exceed $75,000, the ordinary diversity figure, and not the $500 figure in the interpleader statute.⁹ The relaxed equitable restrictions discussed earlier go to who may be joined, and they leave this threshold in place.

Federal question jurisdiction is the second route, and it works as it does in any civil action. Rule 22 requires either complete diversity or federal question jurisdiction, so a stakeholder whose case arises under federal law does not need to satisfy the diversity requirements.¹⁰ A stakeholder who fails the diversity tests is therefore not necessarily out of federal court, and an answer that finds jurisdiction lacking should check this route first. A stem with only state-law claims and a claimant from the stakeholder's own state has no federal basis at all.

The third step does the work on most exams, and it is where students import a habit from statutory interpleader by looking for diversity among the claimants. Under the Rule, the only comparison that counts runs between the stakeholder and each claimant.

Consider an art gallery incorporated and headquartered in Illinois that holds a painting worth $125,000. Four heirs, all Oklahoma citizens, claim it under state law. Rule 22 works here. The gallery is diverse from every heir, the stake exceeds $75,000, and the heirs' shared home state does not matter.¹¹ Now change the facts. A Nevada insurer holds $100,000 in policy proceeds claimed by four people, three of them Iowa citizens and one a Nevada citizen. The stake still clears $75,000, so the amount is not what separates the two cases. The Nevada claimant shares the insurer's citizenship and destroys complete diversity, even though these claimants are more varied than the Oklahoma heirs. Variety among claimants earns nothing under the Rule, and one claimant from the stakeholder's own state costs the stakeholder the federal forum.

The same defect appears when two New Yorkers and a Californian claim a policy issued by a California-based insurer. The Californian shares the insurer's citizenship, so Rule 22 interpleader cannot be used.¹² The statute, which requires only minimal diversity among the claimants and ignores the stakeholder's citizenship, can reach that lineup.¹³

The three examples turn on different hinges. The gallery clears every requirement, the Nevada insurer fails on citizenship despite an adequate stake, and the Ohio insurer fails on the amount despite perfect diversity.

Service and Venue

Rule 22 borrows its service rules from Rule 4 and its venue rules from the general venue statute. The Supreme Court has noted that service of process under the Rule is confined to what Rule 4 provides.¹⁵ Usually that means the federal court may exercise personal jurisdiction to the same extent as the courts of the state where it sits, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(1)(A).¹⁶ Rule interpleader has no nationwide service of process, and service must be made as in any other diversity action, either within the state where the district court sits or under the state's long-arm statute.¹⁷ Statutory interpleader, by contrast, authorizes nationwide service.¹⁸ The claimants, who are the defendants under Rule 22, must therefore be found in the forum state or fall within its long-arm statute.

The limit matters because of what interpleader promises, one judgment that settles the stakeholder's obligation against everyone. The Supreme Court has ruled that an interpleader action is in personam, so the court must obtain personal jurisdiction over each claimant in order to bind that claimant to the decree, as New York Life Insurance Co. v. Dunlevy held.¹⁹ A claimant outside the court's reach is not bound, and the stakeholder's exposure to that claimant may survive the judgment. Service and personal jurisdiction therefore decide whether a Rule 22 judgment actually ends the stakeholder's dilemma.

Most long-arm statutes fit interpleader poorly. They typically depend on the nonresident having conducted some activity in the state, and a person who merely claims a fund deposited there has done nothing in the state at all.²⁰ A Rule 22 action is consequently often limited to claimants who live in, or can otherwise be reached in, the forum state. The sources note one exception to the requirement of personal jurisdiction under Rule 4's usual territorial limits, which is a stake that is some tangible thing. A stem with an intangible stake calls for the ordinary analysis.²¹

The cost of the limit shows most clearly when the claimants are scattered. Suppose Jaworski buys a life insurance policy from General Life in Kentucky, moves to Vermont, and dies, leaving four claimants to the proceeds who live in Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Michigan. A Rule 22 suit in Vermont might not reach the Texas, Utah, and Michigan claimants, and a suit in Texas might not reach the other three, so no single forum may be able to bind all four.²² The insurer faces a real risk of paying twice, yet the Rule may not deliver the single binding judgment that is its purpose.

Venue is governed by the general venue statute, and the special interpleader venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1397, applies only to statutory interpleader.²³ Claimants are the defendants in a Rule 22 action, so the options in 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) are read against them. Venue is proper in any of these places:

a district where any claimant resides, but only if all claimants reside in the same state;
a district where a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred;
a district where a substantial part of the property that is the subject of the action is situated;
a district where any claimant is subject to personal jurisdiction, but only if no other district exists where suit may be brought.²⁴

The sources summarize these options as places where all claimants reside, where the particular claims arise, or where a substantial part of the property is situated.²⁵ The residence option works when the claimants cluster in one state, which is the same condition that makes service work. The events option can be hard to apply, because the place where the events giving rise to a claim to a fund occurred is potentially difficult to identify in an interpleader. The last option is a fallback that opens only when no other district qualifies. In the Jaworski illustration the four claimants live in four states, so the residence option is closed and the stakeholder must look to another.

A footnote in State Farm v. Tashire shows the contrast between the two devices. The Court explained that State Farm could not have invoked Rule 22 in light of venue and service limits, since statutory interpleader may be brought where any claimant resides and permits nationwide service under 28 U.S.C. § 2361, while Rule 22 service is confined to Rule 4.²⁶ The footnote's description of diversity venue cites § 1391(a), so apply the current options in § 1391(b) listed above and use the footnote only for the comparison.

An exam stem that scatters a stakeholder's claimants across several states and asks whether a Rule 22 judgment will bind them all is testing this limit. The tempting answer borrows nationwide service from the statute. The sound answer asks whether the forum state's long-arm statute reaches each claimant. Where it does not, the court cannot bind that claimant, and the stakeholder's better route may be the statute, which a later section compares with the Rule.