Travelers Property Casualty v. Good

Dist. Ct. lacked diversity jurisdiction to consider plaintiffs-insurance companies' action seeking declaration that plaintiffs owed no duty to defend insured in underlying state-court class action lawsuit alleging violations of federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. Record showed that insured had previously transferred its interests in insurance policies to defendants-class members, with none of said members having individual claim worth more than $75,000 jurisdictional minimum to support instant diversity action. General rule is that claims of multiple litigants cannot be aggregated to reach $75,000 jurisdictional minimum, and said rule applies both to multiple plaintiffs seeking to combine their claims against single defendant, and to those claims brought by single plaintiff against multiple defendants. Ct. rejected plaintiffs' claim that amount in controversy jurisdictional amount was met since defendants held common and undivided interest in single right to proceeds from policies after Ct. noted that claims of class members arose from separate transactions.