Berrocal v. Samsung: Legal-Certainty Limits on Magnuson–Moss Amount-in-Controversy in Low-Value Consumer Warranty Suits

I. Introduction

In Berrocal v. Samsung, No. 25‑50259 (5th Cir. Dec. 4, 2025) (per curiam) (unpublished), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a pro se consumer’s warranty suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act (“MMWA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 2301–2312. The plaintiff, Henry Berrocal, sought nearly $900,000—and later over $160,000—in damages arising from a $2,500 Samsung refrigerator whose compressor failed during the warranty period.

The Fifth Circuit held that, as a matter of “legal certainty,” the amount in controversy in this warranty dispute could not reach the MMWA’s $50,000 jurisdictional threshold, given the low value of the product, the nature of the alleged harm, and the limits that federal and Texas law place on recoverable damages. The court concluded that many categories of damages the plaintiff claimed were either:

Not recoverable under the MMWA as a matter of federal law (e.g., personal injury-type damages), or
Not reasonably foreseeable or reasonably incurred consequential damages under Texas law.

Although the opinion is unpublished and therefore not binding precedent under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5, it meaningfully clarifies several points:

The strict jurisdictional nature of the MMWA’s $50,000 amount-in-controversy requirement;
The court’s authority to disregard patently inflated or legally impossible damage claims when applying the “legal certainty” test; and
The interaction between state-law doctrines of foreseeability and cover, and federal jurisdictional thresholds under Magnuson–Moss.

This commentary examines the decision in detail, situates it within existing precedent, and analyzes its implications for consumer warranty litigation under the MMWA.

II. Summary of the Opinion

Berrocal purchased a $2,500 Samsung refrigerator with a ten-year warranty on the compressor. When the compressor failed after about two years, Samsung attempted repairs but, according to Berrocal, failed to make the unit functional and refused to refund or replace the refrigerator because an exterior sticker was missing.

Berrocal sued Samsung in the Western District of Texas, pro se, under the MMWA and the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act), demanding over $5 million in damages and injunctive relief. The district court dismissed the FTC Act claim for lack of a private right of action (an issue not appealed), and then addressed whether the MMWA claim satisfied the Act’s jurisdictional requirement that the amount in controversy be at least $50,000.

After several iterations of claimed damages (including six-figure claims for “pain and suffering,” “emotional damage,” “forced labor,” extensive dining-out costs, time spent pursuing the claim, and “lost productivity”), the magistrate judge recommended dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The district court agreed, calling the damages “preposterous,” and dismissed the action without prejudice.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit:

Reaffirmed that the MMWA’s $50,000 amount-in-controversy requirement is jurisdictional;
Held that MMWA damages are governed by state law as to measure and scope, but subject to federal limitations excluding personal injury damages and limiting punitive damages; and
Concluded that, under Texas warranty law and federal MMWA doctrine, it was legally impossible for a $2,500 refrigerator failure to generate more than $50,000 in recoverable damages.

Applying the longstanding “legal certainty” standard from St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283 (1938), the court held that Berrocal’s claims were not made in good faith, that the alleged damages were “exorbitant” and not credibly tied to a breach-of-warranty injury, and that the amount in controversy therefore failed to meet the MMWA threshold. The court accordingly affirmed dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

III. Factual and Procedural Background

A. The Underlying Dispute

Purchase and Warranty: Berrocal bought a Samsung refrigerator for $2,500. The compressor was covered by a ten-year warranty.
Failure and Repairs: Roughly two years later, the compressor failed. Samsung sent technicians three times over three months, but the refrigerator was never successfully repaired, according to the plaintiff.
Refusal to Replace or Refund: Berrocal alleged Samsung denied his request for a refund or replacement on the ground that a sticker that should have been on the outside of the refrigerator was missing.

B. The Lawsuit in Federal Court

Berrocal filed suit in the Western District of Texas, asserting:

Claims under the MMWA, and
Claims under the FTC Act.

He alleged breach of an implied warranty “in bad faith,” and sought both injunctive relief and extensive monetary damages, initially including:

Over $5 million total, including
$10,000 labeled as a “refund,” and
$2.5 million in punitive damages.

The district court dismissed the FTC Act claim for lack of a private right of action—consistent with prevailing federal law that the FTC Act vests enforcement in the Federal Trade Commission, not private litigants. Only the MMWA claim remained as a potential basis for federal-question jurisdiction.

C. The Amount-in-Controversy Dispute

The MMWA contains its own jurisdictional provisions limiting which warranty cases may be brought in federal court. One of these is the “amount in controversy” requirement for individual actions:

“[N]o claim shall be cognizable in a suit brought [in federal court] ... if the amount in controversy is less than the sum or value of $50,000 (exclusive of interest and costs) computed on the basis of all claims to be determined in this suit.” —15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(3)(B)

The magistrate judge questioned whether Berrocal’s claimed damages were sufficient and ordered him to show cause. In response, Berrocal filed a notice itemizing his damages, now totaling $897,780, including:

$300,000 for “pain and suffering”;
$250,000 for “emotional damage”;
$147,000 for “unwanted force[d] labor as a chef” and “food delivery driver” arising from allegedly having to cook for himself and go to the grocery store.

The magistrate judge concluded that:

Personal injury-type damages and punitive damages were not recoverable under the MMWA in this context;
The claimed economic damages were unsubstantiated, “exorbitant,” and not credibly related to a broken refrigerator; and
The MMWA’s $50,000 amount-in-controversy threshold was not satisfied.

Berrocal objected and submitted a revised calculation totaling $164,291.81, comprising:

$5,000 for the refrigerator and a replacement unit;
$39,285.71 for storage of the refrigerator, plus $1,000 for disposal;
$29,600 for dining out three times a day for 22 months, and $5,238.10 for spoiled groceries during that period;
$6,288 for gas and car maintenance related to shopping and restaurant trips;
$11,880 for time spent communicating with Samsung and visiting its service center; and
$66,000 for “lost productivity.”

The district court rejected these amounts as not reflecting a good-faith estimate of recoverable damages, characterizing the damages claim as “preposterous,” and dismissed the MMWA claim without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

On appeal, Berrocal maintained that his damages exceeded $50,000, relying on the $164,291.81 calculation.

IV. Legal Framework

A. The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act and Federal Jurisdiction

The MMWA creates a federal cause of action for consumers against warrantors who fail to comply with written or implied warranties or service contracts:

“A consumer who is damaged by the failure of a supplier, warrantor, or service contractor to comply with any obligation ... under a written warranty, implied warranty, or service contract, may bring suit for damages and other legal and equitable relief.” —15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(1)

Ordinarily, a federal cause of action under a federal statute would suffice for federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. But Congress, in the MMWA, imposed additional jurisdictional constraints. As the Fifth Circuit quoted from the Seventh Circuit:

“That reasoning works under most federal statutes, but [the MMWA] has additional jurisdictional criteria for federal-question jurisdiction.” —Ware v. Best Buy Stores, L.P., 6 F.4th 726, 731 (7th Cir. 2021)

For individual claims like Berrocal’s, the key criterion is that the “amount in controversy” must be at least $50,000. If it is not, the claim is “not cognizable” in federal court. The Fifth Circuit treats this as a genuine jurisdictional limitation, enforceable through dismissal under Rule 12(h)(3) whenever the court recognizes that jurisdiction is lacking.

B. General Amount-in-Controversy Doctrine

The core doctrinal tool is the Supreme Court’s “legal certainty” test from St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co.:

The amount claimed by the plaintiff in good faith generally controls the jurisdictional analysis;
The court may dismiss for lack of jurisdiction only if it appears to a “legal certainty” that the claim is really for less than the jurisdictional amount.

Key authorities cited by the Fifth Circuit include:

St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283 (1938) – The plaintiff’s claimed amount controls if made in good faith, unless it appears to a legal certainty that the claim is actually for less.
St. Paul Reinsurance Co. v. Greenberg, 134 F.3d 1250 (5th Cir. 1998) – If it is not “facially apparent” that the jurisdictional amount is met, courts may consider “summary judgment-type” evidence.
Diefenthal v. C.A.B., 681 F.2d 1039 (5th Cir. 1982) – Courts must give “due credit” to a plaintiff’s good-faith claims but need not accept every claimed sum at face value “no matter how trivial the underlying injury.”
Smithers v. Smith, 204 U.S. 632 (1907) – The legal-certainty test does not remove the court’s power to protect itself against fraud; courts may disregard damage figures alleged solely to manufacture jurisdiction.
De Aguilar v. Boeing Co., 47 F.3d 1404 (5th Cir. 1995) – Discusses manipulation of jurisdiction by pleading below the jurisdictional amount; cited here by analogy to manipulation by pleading above the jurisdictional amount with legally impossible damages.

The Fifth Circuit also recognized that when a complaint alleges a confusing or ambiguous amount, courts may treat later submissions as clarifications of the jurisdictional facts that existed when the suit commenced. The court cited Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3706 (5th ed. 2025) for this point.

C. Damages Under the MMWA: Federal and State Law Interaction

The MMWA does not comprehensively define the measure of damages; instead, it typically borrows state law to determine the scope and measure of recoverable warranty damages. The Fifth Circuit reaffirmed this approach:

MacKenzie v. Chrysler Corp., 607 F.2d 1162, 1166 (5th Cir. 1979) – To determine the applicable measure of damages under the MMWA, courts look to state law.

However, federal law does impose some categorical limits on what kinds of damages are available under the MMWA:

Boelens v. Redman Homes, Inc., 748 F.2d 1058 (5th Cir. 1984) – Held that “damages for economic loss ... are recoverable under the MMWA”; – Held that “personal injury damages for breach of warranty are not recoverable under the MMWA”; – Held that punitive damages are available under the MMWA only if they are available for breach-of-warranty claims under the governing state law.

In short, the MMWA:

Permits recovery of economic losses tied to the product and the warranty breach;
Does not permit personal injury damages for breach of warranty as a matter of federal law; and
Allows punitive damages only if state law allows such damages in breach-of-warranty actions.

D. Texas Warranty Law: Measure of Damages

Because the transaction occurred in Texas, Texas law governs the measure of warranty damages:

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 2.714(b) – The basic measure of damages for breach of warranty is:
“the difference at the time and place of acceptance between the value of the goods accepted and the value they would have had if they had been as warranted, unless special circumstances show proximate damages of a different amount.”
The Fifth Circuit summarized this as recovery for “the diminished value of the good caused by the breach of warranty,” citing:
- Scarlott v. Nissan N. Am., Inc., 771 F.3d 883, 888 (5th Cir. 2014).
Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §§ 2.714(c), 2.715 – In a proper case, a buyer may also recover:
- Incidental damages: reasonable expenses incident to the breach (e.g., reasonable costs of inspection, transportation, care, etc.);
- Consequential damages: for example, losses resulting from the buyer’s specific needs that the seller had reason to know of at the time of contracting, if such losses could not reasonably have been prevented by cover or otherwise.

Texas also forbids punitive damages in breach-of-warranty cases:

Boelens, 748 F.2d at 1070–71 – Texas law does not allow punitive damages in pure breach-of-warranty actions; thus punitive damages are not recoverable under MMWA breach-of-warranty claims governed by Texas law.

Further, Texas law imposes standard tort-style limits on consequential damages:

Stuart v. Bayless, 964 S.W.2d 920, 921 (Tex. 1998) (per curiam) – Consequential damages must be foreseeable, directly traceable to the wrongful act, and must result from it.
Toshiba Mach. Co. Am. v. SPM Flow Control, Inc., 180 S.W.3d 761, 781 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2005), pet. granted, judgment vacated w.r.m. – A buyer can recover consequential damages only to the extent they “could not reasonably be prevented by cover.”

Putting this together, the Fifth Circuit framed the recoverable MMWA damages here as:

The refrigerator’s diminished value (essentially the purchase price if the refrigerator had no value in its broken state), plus
Reasonably foreseeable and reasonably incurred incidental and consequential damages under §§ 2.714(c) and 2.715,
excluding personal injury and punitive damages as a matter of federal and Texas law.

V. Precedents Cited and Their Significance

A. Jurisdictional and Procedural Precedents

Carver v. Atwood, 18 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2021) – Reiterated that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and must dismiss sua sponte when they discover a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. – The Fifth Circuit invoked this principle to emphasize that dismissal was mandatory once the court determined the MMWA threshold was not met.
Villegas v. Noem, 149 F.4th 554 (5th Cir. 2025) – Cited for the standard of review: dismissals for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction are reviewed de novo.

B. MMWA Damages and State Law: MacKenzie and Boelens

MacKenzie v. Chrysler Corp., 607 F.2d 1162 (5th Cir. 1979) – Established that MMWA damages are determined by reference to state warranty law. This provides the doctrinal foundation for the court’s reliance on Texas UCC provisions.
Boelens v. Redman Homes, Inc., 748 F.2d 1058 (5th Cir. 1984) – Crucial for three propositions the court uses:
- Economic loss (e.g., diminished value, incidental and consequential economic harms) is recoverable under the MMWA.
- Personal injury damages for breach of warranty are not recoverable under MMWA.
- Punitive damages under MMWA follow state law: if state law does not allow punitive damages for breach of warranty, neither does the MMWA.
These holdings enabled the Fifth Circuit to treat Berrocal’s claimed pain-and-suffering, emotional distress, and punitive damages as legally unavailable under the MMWA in this Texas case.

C. Texas Warranty Damages: Scarlott and UCC Provisions

Scarlott v. Nissan N. Am., Inc., 771 F.3d 883 (5th Cir. 2014) – Confirmed that under Texas UCC § 2.714(b), the measure of damages is the difference between the value of goods as accepted and as warranted, i.e., the diminished value.

Together with Texas Business and Commerce Code §§ 2.714 and 2.715, Scarlott supports the court’s view that the core recoverable damages here were limited to:

The loss in value of a $2,500 refrigerator;
Reasonable incidental expenses; and
Reasonably foreseeable and unavoidable consequential losses.

D. Comparing with Other Circuits: Ware v. Best Buy

Ware v. Best Buy Stores, L.P., 6 F.4th 726 (7th Cir. 2021) – The Seventh Circuit held that troubles with a “four-year-old $3,000 television could not possibly leave more than $75,000 in controversy” between the plaintiffs and Samsung, in the context of MMWA jurisdiction.

The Fifth Circuit cited Ware to reinforce its common-sense conclusion that a relatively low-cost consumer product typically cannot generate extraordinary consequential damages in the absence of special, well-pleaded circumstances. Ware thus provides an inter-circuit analogue: both courts use the low base value of the product as a reality check on claimed damages.

E. The Legal Certainty Standard: St. Paul Mercury, Diefenthal, Smithers

St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283 (1938) – Provides the controlling legal-certainty test: the plaintiff’s good-faith claim controls unless it appears to a legal certainty that the amount in controversy is less.
Diefenthal v. C.A.B., 681 F.2d 1039 (5th Cir. 1982) – Emphasized that courts must be skeptical of claims that bear no reasonable relationship to the underlying injury. The Fifth Circuit quoted its warning that a court would be “remiss” if it accepted every claimed amount “no matter how trivial the underlying injury.”
Smithers v. Smith, 204 U.S. 632 (1907) – Recognized that courts can and should protect themselves against fraudulent or colorable claims of damages asserted solely to confer jurisdiction.

These cases justify the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to accept Berrocal’s inflated valuations, and underpin its characterization of his damages claims as not made in good faith.

F. Jurisdictional Manipulation: De Aguilar

De Aguilar v. Boeing Co., 47 F.3d 1404 (5th Cir. 1995) – Addressed the opposite scenario: plaintiffs pleading damage amounts below thresholds to avoid removal to federal court. The Fifth Circuit cited it to underscore that artificially manipulating damage numbers—whether downward or upward—to control jurisdiction is considered “bad faith.”

By analogy, the court treated Berrocal’s attempt to claim legally impossible or wildly inflated damages as a form of jurisdictional manipulation in the opposite direction.

G. Foreseeability and Cover: Stuart and Toshiba

Stuart v. Bayless, 964 S.W.2d 920 (Tex. 1998) (per curiam) – Consequential damages must be “foreseeable and directly traceable” to the wrongful act.
Toshiba Mach. Co. Am. v. SPM Flow Control, Inc., 180 S.W.3d 761 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2005), pet. granted, judgment vacated w.r.m. – Reinforced that consequential damages must not be reasonably avoidable by “cover”; that is, by making a reasonable substitute purchase after a seller’s breach.

These authorities allowed the Fifth Circuit to conclude that:

It was not reasonably foreseeable that a $2,500 refrigerator failure would generate $50,000-plus in downstream expenses such as storage, dining out, gas, and “lost productivity,” especially over an extended period; and
Any such prolonged expenses should have been mitigated by obtaining a replacement refrigerator (“cover”), and thus are not properly recoverable consequential damages.

VI. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

A. Step One: Identify Legally Recoverable Damages Under MMWA and Texas Law

The court began by determining what categories of damages are legally recoverable in an MMWA/Texas warranty case:

Economic loss is recoverable under the MMWA, including diminution in value and possibly incidental and consequential economic damages, as governed by Texas law.
Personal injury damages are not recoverable under the MMWA for breach of warranty (Boelens).
Punitive damages are not recoverable here because Texas law does not allow punitive damages for breach of warranty (Boelens again).

Thus, the amount in controversy for jurisdictional purposes is confined to:

The diminished value of the refrigerator, and
Reasonable incidental and consequential damages that satisfy Texas foreseeability and mitigation standards.

B. Step Two: Apply the Legal-Certainty Test to the Claimed Damages

Under St. Paul Mercury, the court considered whether it appears to a “legal certainty” that Berrocal’s recoverable damages are less than $50,000.

Key elements of the court’s reasoning:

Initial Complaint: Ignoring conclusory labels (e.g., “fraud,” “false advertisement” unsupported by factual allegations) and punitive damages, the complaint effectively claimed about $10,000 in economic damages, plus a massive punitive component.
Later Clarifications: The court treated Berrocal’s later filings (the notices and objections itemizing damages of $897,780 and then $164,291.81) as “clarifications” of the amount sought at filing, not as new claims. Even accepting these later figures as his stated claim, they did not show good-faith or legally recoverable damages over $50,000.
Exclusion of Legally Unavailable Categories: Personal injury-type damages (pain and suffering, emotional damages) and punitive damages were categorically excluded from the calculation, as they are not recoverable under MMWA/Texas warranty law.

C. Step Three: Common-Sense and Legal Limits on Economic Damages

The court focused heavily on the relationship between:

The base value of the product ($2,500), and
The claimed incidental and consequential damages.

Relying both on common sense and on the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning in Ware, the court concluded:

“It appears to a legal certainty that a $2,500 refrigerator breaking could not generate $50,000 in reasonably foreseeable damages, particularly given that Berrocal apparently made no effort at cover.”

The reasoning combined several doctrinal strands:

Foreseeability: Under Texas law, only those consequential damages that the seller had reason to foresee at the time of contracting are recoverable. Multi-year dining expenses, massive storage charges, and six-figure “lost productivity” stemming from a consumer appliance failure are not reasonably foreseeable in the ordinary course of things for a household refrigerator.
Mitigation/Cover: A buyer must reasonably mitigate losses by purchasing a substitute good if feasible. Here, the court inferred from the length and magnitude of claimed losses that the plaintiff had not reasonably mitigated by obtaining another refrigerator.
Plausibility and Proportionality: The stark mismatch between a $2,500 refrigerator and nearly $900,000 (or even $164,000) in claimed economic damages made the claims facially implausible as a matter of law, even without a full merits trial.

D. Step Four: Good Faith and Jurisdictional Manipulation

The court explicitly framed Berrocal’s damages as not made in good faith. It drew on:

Diefenthal’s admonition that courts must critically evaluate claimed damages when the underlying injury is trivial; and
Smithers and De Aguilar for the principle that courts can and should disregard damages pled solely to manipulate jurisdiction.

By calling the claimed damages “preposterous” and “exorbitant,” and by emphasizing their lack of credible relationship to the warranty breach, the court essentially held that:

The damage figures were artificially inflated to cross the $50,000 MMWA threshold; and
Such inflation is legally ineffective because the court may look to the law’s remedial structure and common-sense proportionality to conclude, to a legal certainty, that recoverable damages cannot exceed $50,000.

E. Step Five: Jurisdictional Consequence

Once the court concluded that the amount in controversy for legally recoverable damages was, as a matter of legal certainty, below $50,000:

The MMWA claim could not proceed in federal court as an individual action; and
Because the MMWA claim was the sole remaining basis for federal jurisdiction (the FTC Act claim having been dismissed and not appealed), the entire case had to be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

Consistent with the jurisdictional nature of the defect, the dismissal was without prejudice, leaving open the possibility that Berrocal might pursue any viable state-law claims in a state-court forum.

VII. Impact and Significance

A. Reinforcing MMWA’s Role as a Gatekeeper

Berrocal reinforces that the MMWA is not a general invitation for all consumer warranty disputes—no matter how small—to be litigated in federal court. Congress deliberately limited federal jurisdiction under MMWA:

Individual claims require at least $50,000 in controversy;
Certain class actions require at least 100 named plaintiffs and $50,000 per plaintiff in controversy; and
Separate aggregate thresholds apply for class actions (not at issue here).

This decision underscores that ordinary single-product disputes over low-cost consumer goods will frequently fall short of the jurisdictional threshold and must therefore proceed, if at all, in state courts.

B. Practical Message to Litigants (and Especially Pro Se Plaintiffs)

The opinion sends clear signals:

Inflating damages will not create federal jurisdiction. Courts may exclude legally unavailable categories (personal injury, punitive) and scrutinize incidental and consequential damages for foreseeability and mitigation.
Good-faith pleading is essential. Courts will not tolerate “preposterous” claims that bear little relation to the actual economic loss.
Pro se status does not excuse jurisdictional defects. While courts may liberally construe pro se pleadings, they still enforce jurisdictional limits strictly.

C. Harmonization with Other Circuits (e.g., the Seventh Circuit’s Ware)

By invoking Ware v. Best Buy, the Fifth Circuit implicitly signals a cross-circuit convergence: courts evaluating MMWA jurisdictional amounts will treat the base value of the product as a strong constraint on plausible consequential damages. This harmonization:

Promotes uniformity in the application of MMWA’s jurisdictional thresholds; and
Discourages forum-shopping based on perceived differences between circuits in evaluating amount-in-controversy.

D. Clarification of the Boundary Between Merits and Jurisdiction

There is often a tension between:

Resolving factual and legal doubts in favor of jurisdiction; and
Preventing tactical manipulation of damage claims.

Berrocal illustrates that when the plaintiff’s claimed damages include categories that are categorically barred (e.g., personal injury damages under MMWA) or plainly unforeseeable and unmitigated under state law, courts may treat those as legally impossible to recover and disregard them for jurisdictional purposes. This is an application, not a departure, from the legal-certainty doctrine: jurisdiction is refused not because the claim is merely unlikely, but because substantial components of it have no legal basis.

E. Influence Beyond MMWA

While the case arises under a specific federal statute with its own jurisdictional requirements, its reasoning has broader resonance:

It reinforces that statutory amount-in-controversy requirements (whether in diversity or under specific federal statutes) permit courts to look beyond the pleadings when the claimed amounts are implausible or include legally impermissible categories.
It provides a template for lower courts handling other federal statutes with special jurisdictional thresholds to pare away legally impossible damage categories when assessing jurisdiction.

VIII. Complex Concepts Simplified

A. Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

“Subject-matter jurisdiction” refers to a court’s power to hear a certain type of case. Federal courts can only hear cases authorized by the Constitution and federal statutes (e.g., federal questions, diversity, particular statutory schemes like MMWA). If a case does not meet those requirements, the court is required to dismiss it, no matter how strong or weak the underlying merits are.

B. Amount in Controversy

The “amount in controversy” is the total value of what the plaintiff is asking the court to award, measured at the time the complaint is filed. In some contexts (like diversity jurisdiction or the MMWA), there is a minimum amount that must be at stake for the federal court to have jurisdiction.

C. The “Legal Certainty” Test

Under the legal-certainty test:

The plaintiff’s claimed amount is accepted if made in good faith; but
If it is clear from the law that the plaintiff cannot possibly recover that much—even if everything goes their way on the facts—then the court can say “to a legal certainty” that the amount in controversy is lower than claimed and dismiss the case.

D. Economic Loss vs. Personal Injury

In the MMWA context:

Economic loss means financial loss related to the product and the contract—e.g., the cost or lost value of the product, reasonable repair costs, lost profits, or other monetary losses resulting from the product’s failure.
Personal injury means bodily injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress, etc. For breach-of-warranty claims under the MMWA, these are not recoverable as damages.

E. Incidental vs. Consequential Damages

Incidental damages are minor expenses directly associated with dealing with the defective goods and the breach (shipping costs, inspection, reasonable storage, etc.).
Consequential damages are secondary economic harms that flow from the breach, such as lost profits or costs related to the buyer’s special needs that the seller knew about. They must be:
- Foreseeable at the time of contracting; and
- Not reasonably avoidable by the buyer taking reasonable steps (like cover).

F. “Cover”

“Cover” refers to the buyer’s purchase of substitute goods after the seller’s breach. Under the UCC:

The buyer is expected to act reasonably and not allow damages to balloon indefinitely if it is practical to obtain a substitute product.
Consequential damages that could have been avoided by reasonable cover are generally not recoverable.

G. Punitive Damages

Punitive damages are designed to punish particularly egregious conduct and deter future misconduct, rather than to compensate the plaintiff. Under MMWA, they are only available if state law permits them for breach-of-warranty claims. Texas does not; therefore, they are not available in Texas MMWA warranty suits.

H. Pro Se Litigant

A “pro se” litigant is someone who represents themselves in court without an attorney. Courts may interpret their pleadings liberally, but pro se litigants are still bound by substantive law and jurisdictional rules.

IX. Conclusion

Berrocal v. Samsung stands as a clear, if unpublished, statement by the Fifth Circuit that:

The MMWA’s $50,000 amount-in-controversy requirement is a real jurisdictional barrier, not a mere formality;
Courts may—and must—exclude legally unavailable categories of damages (such as personal injury and punitive damages under MMWA/Texas warranty law) when assessing whether that threshold is met;
Even economic damages that are theoretically recoverable must satisfy state-law requirements of foreseeability, reasonableness, and mitigation, and courts can use those doctrines to conclude to a legal certainty that a low-value consumer product cannot plausibly generate massive recoverable damages; and
Plaintiffs, including those proceeding pro se, cannot manufacture federal jurisdiction by asserting “preposterous” or “exorbitant” damage amounts that have no grounding in applicable law.

Although not precedential under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5, Berrocal is a pointed illustration of how federal courts will apply the legal-certainty standard in the specific context of MMWA claims over ordinary consumer goods. It both aligns with and reinforces the approach taken by other circuits such as the Seventh Circuit in Ware, and it sends a strong signal that the federal forum is reserved, in this statutory scheme, for warranty disputes with genuinely substantial stakes.

In the broader landscape of consumer protection and warranty law, the decision reminds practitioners and litigants alike that the MMWA is not an all-purpose ticket to federal court, but a carefully calibrated regime in which federal jurisdiction is available only when the economic realities of the dispute justify it.