United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Snyder v. Harris, 394 U.S. 332 (1969)

Snyder v. Harris

No. 109

Argued January 21, 1969

Decided March 25, 1969*

394 U.S. 332

Syllabus

Separate and distinct claims presented by and for various claimants in federal diversity actions may not be added together to provide the requisite $10,000 jurisdictional amount in controversy. Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 23, as amended in 1966, did not change the scope of the statutory grant of district court jurisdiction, as the longstanding judicial interpretation of that statute cannot be changed by an amendment to the Rules, and there is no compelling reason for overturning settled judicial construction of "matter in controversy" in the light of consistent congressional reenactment of that language against a background of judicial interpretation that the phrase does not encompass the aggregation of separate and distinct claims. Pp. 394 U. S. 332-342.

No. 109, 39,0 F.2d 204, affirmed; No. 117, 389 F.2d 831, reversed.