Civil Procedure – Hypotheticals Practice Test

In diversity jurisdiction with multiple plaintiffs, the amount in controversy is determined by aggregating all claims in the action. That means adding up the value of every plaintiff’s claim against every defendant, not looking at a single claim or averaging them. This total governs whether the case satisfies the AIC requirement and can be heard in federal court.

For example, if one plaintiff seeks 60k and another seeks 50k, the total is 110k, which meets the threshold. The rule isn’t about the largest single claim, nor the average, nor the smallest claim—the court looks at the combined value of all claims.