CA3 today affirmed dismissal of a civil suit for lack of diversity jurisdiction. The suit arose from a mishap on an airplane: a man standing in the aisle waiting for the bathroom fell on another passenger and broke her arm. She invoked diversity jurisdiction to sue him in federal court. She lived in Ohio; he was a US citizen born in PA but now living in Germany. The district court dismissed, finding that he was domiciled in Germany and holding that he was stateless for diversity-jurisdiction purposes. CA3 affirmed, holding that a US citizen domiciled in another country cannot sue or be sued in diversity but finding this conclusion “troubling.”

The case is Freidrich v. Davis. Opinion by Sloviter, joined by Rendell and Greenaway. The case was submitted 10 days ago without oral argument.