The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida will not consider the defendant's counterclaim in determining the amount in controversy requirement in the context of removal jurisdiction based on diversity.
On October 20, 2014, Alex Rosenthal, Esq. and Amanda Jassem Jones, Esq. of Rosenthal Law Group, representing Design Center of the Americas, LLC were successful in remanding a lawsuit back to state court while simultaneously making precedential law within the United States District Court Southern District of Florida.
Prior to the case of Design Center of the Americas, LLC v. Mike Bell, Inc., 2014 WL 5343630, there were no known published cases within the Southern District of Florida that had dealt with whether a District Court can consider the amount alleged in a counterclaim to support diversity jurisdiction. While the issue had been addressed by other courts in other jurisdictions including the Middle District of Florida and the Northern District of Florida, the issue remained unanswered in the Southern District until the Design Center of the Americas case.
