Due Forni LLC v. EURO RESTAURANT SOLUTIONS, INC., d/b/a Marra Forni; FRANCESCO MARRA

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 17-1096
DUE FORNI LLC,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
EURO RESTAURANT SOLUTIONS, INC., d/b/a Marra Forni; FRANCESCO
MARRA,
Defendants – Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.
Paul W. Grimm, District Judge. (8:13-cv-03861-PWG)
Submitted: January 9, 2018 Decided: February 23, 2018
Before TRAXLER and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Reversed and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Daniel Marino, Tillman J. Finley, MARINO FINLEY PLLC, Washington, D.C., for
Appellant. Levi S. Zaslow, Timothy F. Maloney, JOSEPH, GREENWALD & LAAKE,
PA, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Due Forni, LLC appeals the dismissal of its breach of contract claim for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I
This case arises from the defendants’ sale of specialized pizza ovens to Due Forni.
Due Forni filed this case in the district court, asserting diversity jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1332 and causes of action for fraud in the inducement, fraud, breach of contract,
and conversion. Due Forni alleged that the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 and
requested an award of actual and punitive damages.
The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that federal subject matter jurisdiction
is lacking because the amount in controversy does not exceed $75,000, and they included
with the motion a document (the “Terms and Conditions”) that purportedly limits Due
Forni’s contractual remedies to an amount below $75,000. Without responding directly to
the dismissal motion, Due Forni filed an amended complaint, adding a new cause of
action for unjust enrichment and specifying that it is seeking an award of compensatory
damages of at least $250,000.
The defendants did not respond to the amended complaint, and Due Forni
therefore moved for a default judgment. The defendants opposed the default motion,
arguing that their previously filed motion to dismiss was applicable to both the original
and amended complaints. Although the local rules of the district court permitted Due
Forni an opportunity to file a reply to the defendants’ response, the district court ruled on
the pending motions without oral argument before Due Forni’s reply was due.

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In a written order, the district court first construed the defendants’ motion to
dismiss the original complaint as being a sufficient response to the amended complaint.
Consequently, the court denied the default motion. Turning to the motion to dismiss, the
court concluded, based on the Terms and Conditions, that Due Forni could not recover at
least $75,000 on the contract claim. Accordingly, the court dismissed that claim for lack
of subject matter jurisdiction. However, the court held that the Terms and Conditions did
not affect the fraud claims, and after concluding that those claims met the amount in
controversy requirement, the court denied the motion to dismiss those claims. The court
also dismissed the conversion claim for failure to state a claim for relief, but it declined to
address the unjust enrichment claim because the defendants did not move to dismiss it.
Subsequently, the court granted summary judgment in the defendants’ favor on the unjust
enrichment claim, and a jury ruled in their favor on the fraud claims.
II
Except for the contract claim, all of Due Forni’s claims have been resolved and are
not before us. As to the contract claim, Due Forni contends that the district court erred by
isolating it from the other claims and determining whether it, standing alone, satisfied the
amount in controversy requirement. Having reviewed this matter de novo, see Pornomo
v. United States, 814 F.3d 681, 687 (4th Cir. 2016), we agree with Due Forni.
In Griffin v. Red Run Lodge, Inc., 610 F.2d 1198, 1204 (4th Cir. 1979), we held
that “where a plaintiff joins several claims against a defendant, and one of them satisfies
the jurisdictional amount requirement, jurisdiction is present for all counts, including
those for which the amount in controversy is patently less than [the jurisdictional

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amount].” A straightforward application of this holding compels reversal of the dismissal
order. Regardless of whether the court properly concluded that the Terms and Conditions
operate to limit Due Forni’s potential contractual remedy to an amount below $75,000, an
issue that we do not decide, the court’s separate determination that the amount in
controversy for the fraud claims exceeded $75,000 is sufficient to establish subject matter
jurisdiction over all of the claims.
Accordingly, the district court erred in dismissing the contract claim for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction. We therefore reverse the dismissal order and remand for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We dispense with oral argument because
the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before us and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
REVERSED AND REMANDED

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