541 U.S. 567 (2004)
In November 1997, Atlas Global Group, L.P., a limited partnership created under Texas law, filed a state-law suit against Grupo Dataflux, a Mexican corporation, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The complaint contained claims for breach of contract and in quantum meruit, seeking over $1.3 million in damages, and alleged that federal jurisdiction was proper based upon diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), as this suit is between a Texas citizen and a citizen or subject of Mexico.1
At the time of filing, Atlas had two partners who were Mexican citizens, along with partners from Delaware and Texas, while Dataflux was a Mexican corporation.2 The parties consented to a jury trial presided over by a Magistrate Judge.3 After a six-day trial in October 2000, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Atlas awarding $750,000 in damages on October 27, 2000.4
On November 18, 2000, before entry of the judgment, Dataflux filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the parties were not diverse at the time the complaint was filed.5 The Magistrate Judge granted the motion.6 On appeal, Atlas did not dispute the finding of no diversity at the time of filing but urged reversal because the Mexican partners had left the partnership in a transaction consummated the month before trial began.7
The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to the District Court to enter judgment in favor of Atlas.8 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.9
Whether a party's post-filing change in citizenship can cure a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction that existed at the time of filing in an action premised upon diversity of citizenship?10
The jurisdiction of the court depends upon the state of things at the time of the action brought, and where there is no change of party, a jurisdiction depending on the condition of the party is governed by that condition, as it was at the commencement of the suit.11
No. In November 1997, Atlas Global Group, L.P., a limited partnership created under Texas law, filed a state-law suit against Grupo Dataflux, a Mexican corporation, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.12 The complaint contained claims for breach of contract and in quantum meruit, seeking over $1.3 million in damages, and alleged that federal jurisdiction was proper based upon diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), as this suit is between a Texas citizen and a citizen or subject of Mexico. At the time of filing, Atlas had two partners who were Mexican citizens, along with partners from Delaware and Texas, while Dataflux was a Mexican corporation. The parties consented to a jury trial presided over by a Magistrate Judge.
After a six-day trial in October 2000, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Atlas awarding $750,000 in damages on October 27, 2000. On November 18, 2000, before entry of the judgment, Dataflux filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the parties were not diverse at the time the complaint was filed. The Magistrate Judge granted the motion. On appeal, Atlas did not dispute the finding of no diversity at the time of filing but urged reversal because the Mexican partners had left the partnership in a transaction consummated the month before trial began.
The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to the District Court to enter judgment in favor of Atlas. The Supreme Court granted certiorari. The time-of-filing rule measures all challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction premised upon diversity of citizenship against the state of facts that existed at the time of filing.13 Application of that rule to the established facts requires dismissal because aliens were on both sides of the case when the complaint was filed.14
The post-filing withdrawal of the Mexican partners changed only the citizenship of the continuing party Atlas and did not constitute a change in the parties to the action.15 This case is therefore unlike Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, in which dismissal of a diversity-destroying party converted incomplete diversity into complete diversity between the remaining parties to the final judgment.16
A party's post-filing change in citizenship cannot cure a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction that existed at the time of filing in an action premised upon diversity of citizenship.17
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, And Breyer
Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion in which she contended that the postfiling withdrawal of the Mexican-citizen partners from the partnership cured the absence of complete diversity before trial commenced.18 She reasoned that minimal diversity within the compass of Article III had existed from the start of the litigation.19 Ginsburg stressed that the considerations of finality, efficiency, and economy that the Court had found overwhelming in Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis and Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain had undiluted application to this case.20
She viewed the change in the composition of the partnership as indistinguishable from a change in the parties to the action.21 This made the case analogous to those precedents rather than to a situation in which a plaintiff relocates to manufacture diversity.22 Ginsburg concluded that the Fifth Circuit had correctly followed the path marked by Newman-Green and Caterpillar, and that the judgment should be affirmed to avoid burdening the district court with relitigation of a case already fully and fairly tried.23