Plaintiff's-Viewpoint Rule Law and Legal Definition
Plaintiff's viewpoint rule is a principle that courts should measure the amount in controversy in a case by analyzing only the amount of damages claimed by the plaintiff. According to this rule, the courts while attempting to determine the value of a claim for purposes of the amount in controversy requirement should look only to the benefit to the plaintiff, rather than to the potential loss to the defendant. This does not mean that the plaintiff's view of what the asserted right is worth is controlling. The question is not how a plaintiff subjectively values a right or even what his or her good-faith estimate of its objective value is. The question is the actual value of the object of the suit.
Under the plaintiff's viewpoint rule, value is measured by focusing on the object of the particular litigation brought by the plaintiff. [Advance Am. Servicing of Ark., Inc. v. McGinnis, 526 F.3d 1170 (8th Cir. Ark. 2008)]
