Wachovia Bank, National Association v. Daniel G. Schmidt, Iii, et al. (546 U.S. 303)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 17, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 546 U.S. 303 · 126 S. Ct. 941
- Decided
- January 17, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the citizenship, for purposes of federal-court diversity jurisdiction, of national banks, i. e., corporate entities chartered not by any State, but by the Comptroller of the Currency of the U. S. Treasury. Congress empowered federal district courts to adjudicate civil actions between “citizens of different States” where the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(1). A business organized as a corporation, for diversity jurisdiction purposes, is “deemed to be a citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated” and, since 1958, also “of the State where it has its principal place of business.” § 1332(c)(1). State banks, usually chartered as corporate bodies by a particular State, ordinarily fit comfortably within this prescription. Federally chartered national banks do not, for they are not incorporated by “any State.” For diversity jurisdiction purposes, therefore, Congress has discretely provided that national banks “shall ... be deémed citizens of the States in which they are respectively located.” § 1348. The question presented turns on the meaning, in § 1348’s context, of the word “located.” Does it signal, as the petitioning national bank and the United States, as amicus curiae, urge, that the bank’s citizenship is determined by the place designated in the bank’s articles of…
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