The
Mas's were a French man and a Mississippi woman.They were married in Mississippi and then they moved to
Louisiana for college.While
they were living in Louisiana, the Mas's discovered that Perry had been
observing them through two-way mirrors in the apartment they were renting
from him.
What
a creep.
Mas
sued for $100k in Federal Court and won (only $5k) on the merits.
During
the trial, Perry objected to the Court's subject matter jurisdiction, claiming there was no diversity between the
parties.
Federal
Trial Court, found for Mas. Perry appealed solely on jurisdictional
grounds.
The
Federal Appellate Court found that there was subject matter
jurisdiction, based on diversity
of citizenship.
Mr.
Mas was still a citizen of France at the time of the filing of the
lawsuit because he had not become a naturalized American citizen.
The
Court found that Mrs. Mas was domiciled in Mississippi at the time of the
suit.Mrs. Mas lived in
Mississippi when she married Mr. Mas, and her domicile did not change
when they moved to Louisiana because there were not going to be there
indefinitely, but only as students.
The
Courts have held that, in general, when you move to a place as a student,
your domicile does not change,
since you are only intending on living near the school temporarily.
The
Court refused to apply the general rule that a wife is domiciled where
her husband is domiciled to the case where an American woman marries a
foreign man.The court cites
a statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1489, which
says that an American woman does not lose her citizenship if she marries
a foreign man.
If
it were the other way around, where the woman was foreign, this argument
would not have worked.
It
was also argued that Federal jurisdiction only applies in cases worth
more than $10k(see 28
USC § 1332).Mas only won $5k.However, the Court found that
since they in good faith sued for more than $10k, they got jurisdiction
regardless of what the final payout was.
