Sung-Chul Jung v. Fairfax Taxi, Inc.

USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 1 of 34 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT Nos. 25-1699 & 25-1702 BRIAN O’CONNOR, Administrator of the Estate of Hyo Jung Kim; SUNG-CHUL JUNG, Plaintiffs – Appellants, v. FAIRFAX TAXI, INC.; EVELYN KENIN, Administrator of the Estate of Amoah Gyimah, Defendants – Appellees. Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior District Judge. (1:23-cv-01756-CMH-WEF; 1:23- cv-01758-CMH-WEF) Argued: May 7, 2026 Decided: August 19, 2026 Before RICHARDSON, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judges Quattlebaum and Rushing joined. ARGUED: Steven M. Garver, GARVERLAW, PLLC, Reston, Virginia, for Appellants. John D. McGavin, MCGAVIN, BOYCE, BARDOT, THORSEN & KATZ, P.C., Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Deborah Mayer, GARVERLAW, PLLC, Reston, Virginia, for Appellants. Gifford V. Hampshire, MCGAVIN, BOYCE, BARDOT, THORSEN & KATZ, P.C., Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellees. USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 2 of 34 RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge: On an April afternoon in 2019, a northbound taxicab and a southbound Volkswagen collided head-on along the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The crash killed the taxi’s driver, Amoah Gyimah, and one of his passengers, Ms. Hyo Jung Kim. It gravely injured the other passenger, Dr. Sung-Chul Jung, and left both Jung and the Volkswagen’s driver, Eric Jewett, with no memory of the event. Although one witness saw the collision, no witness could identify which vehicle crossed the center line, when it crossed, or how much time remained before impact. The United States Park Police investigated and concluded that Jewett was at fault for crossing into oncoming traffic. Jung and the administrator of Kim’s estate nonetheless sued Gyimah’s estate for negligence. They also sued Fairfax Taxi—the company under whose county-issued certificate Gyimah operated—on theories of derivative liability. Three district-court rulings ended the litigation before trial: judgment on the pleadings for Fairfax Taxi, exclusion of Plaintiffs’ accident-reconstruction expert, and summary judgment for Gyimah’s estate. We affirm. Start with jurisdiction. Section 1332(c)(2) deems a decedent’s representative a citizen of the decedent’s “State.” Kim was a citizen of a “foreign state,” not a “State,” so the provision does not apply. That returns us to the settled law of this circuit: When a wrongful-death representative is a nominal conduit, the citizenship of the statutory beneficiaries controls. The beneficiaries here are South Korean, the Defendants Virginian, and the amount in controversy is met. So the district court had diversity jurisdiction under § 1332(a)(2). 2 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 3 of 34 On the merits, the district court acted well within its discretion in excluding the expert, both because Plaintiffs failed to comply with the court-ordered report deadline and because his testimony was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. And because Virginia law requires a negligence plaintiff to show “why and how” an accident happened—not merely that it happened—Plaintiffs’ circumstantial fragments cannot carry their claims past summary judgment. I. BACKGROUND On April 29, 2019, Dr. Sung-Chul Jung and Ms. Hyo Jung Kim, South Korean citizens visiting the United States for a conference, hailed a Red Top taxicab driven by Amoah Gyimah, a domiciliary of Virginia. Fairfax Taxi, Inc. does business as Red Top Cab. Around 4:00 p.m., as the taxi traveled northbound on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, it collided head-on with a southbound Volkswagen Beetle driven by Eric Jewett. Gyimah and Kim died. Jung survived, but a serious head injury erased his memory of the collision and of an indeterminate period before it. Jewett survived but also has no memory of the crash. No witness could describe the moment of impact. The United States Park Police investigated. Their file included photographs of the vehicles’ post-collision positions, a scaled diagram reflecting no skid or tire marks on the northbound side of the Parkway, and data from the airbag control module of Gyimah’s vehicle. That data showed that Gyimah was traveling between 50 and 53 miles per hour in a posted 45-mile-per-hour zone five seconds before impact—a speed the report characterized as “moving with traffic on the parkway and not excessive.” J.A. 314. 3 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 4 of 34 Gyimah’s toxicology was negative. The report concluded that “Jewett was at fault for crossing into oncoming traffic striking Gyimah’s vehicle causing Kim’s death.” J.A. 304. The depositions of the surviving witnesses added little about how the collision occurred. Jung—the only occupant of the cab who survived to testify—recalled that the cab was traveling at its “usual speed,” that his last memory placed it in the right northbound lane, and that he was watching the trees and the river out the right-side window. J.A. 337. He was deposed in English, which is not his native language. It is undisputed that the collision occurred in the left lane. Jung testified that the last thing he remembers Gyimah doing was “[h]olding the phone,” but when asked whether Gyimah was on a call, he answered, “Actually, I don’t know but he speak something, but at that time my English was not good . . . . I did not realize and still I don’t know.” J.A. 341–42. He said that at one point Gyimah “looks like type on the phone,” J.A. 348; elsewhere he described the phone as simply held “down” at Gyimah’s side, J.A. 341. Jung did not know how long the gap in his memory was—whether his last memory preceded the crash by seconds or by minutes—and he never saw the other vehicle. Months after his deposition, Jung submitted an errata sheet stating that Gyimah “was using his phone with his right hand and was paying attention to the phone, not the road,” and that Gyimah “could have moved to the right to avoid the collision.” J.A. 350–51. Timothy Bracken, driving northbound in what he described as “light” traffic, did not see the collision but was the first person to reach Gyimah’s vehicle—after making two trips back to his own truck for tools. J.A. 359–60, 362, 368. He saw a phone in Gyimah’s lap but did not “remember seeing any light on the screen,” could not say when he first 4 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 5 of 34 noticed it, and could not tell which vehicle had crossed the line. J.A. 367–69. Gyimah “came to” while Bracken rendered aid, but Gyimah soon died at the scene. J.A. 364–65. John McDonald, a retired police captain driving southbound with his windows down, heard “a huge explosion” but no skidding sounds beforehand—sounds he testified he would have recognized. J.A. 384–88. He did not know which vehicle crossed the line: “I don’t know who crossed over. I don’t know if they both crossed over.” J.A. 387. Roger Oswalt, traveling one car behind Jewett, saw the collision but could not say which car crossed the line or whether anyone braked, observing only that “[i]t appeared that both cars were very close to the center.” J.A. 394–98, 400–01. Ray Bombac testified that Jewett’s Volkswagen must have been speeding as he knew he “was going the speed limit and [Jewett’s] car passed [him].” J.A. 259–60. A final witness, Kyle Huelsman, remembered no details. Plaintiffs first sued in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, asserting negligence against Gyimah’s estate and three theories of derivative liability against Fairfax Taxi: respondeat superior, a non-delegable duty under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 428 (1965), and joint venture. On the parties’ cross-motions, the state court sustained Fairfax Taxi’s partial demurrer without leave to amend and dismissed the joint-venture/joint- enterprise claim with prejudice; it separately denied Plaintiffs’ motion for a pretrial declaration of vicarious liability under § 428, concluding that operating a taxicab is not an activity posing an unreasonable risk of harm and thus is not a non-delegable duty. The court made no ruling on the respondeat superior theory. Plaintiffs then took a voluntary nonsuit under Va. Code § 8.01-380. 5 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 6 of 34 In December 2023, Plaintiffs recommenced their actions in the Eastern District of Virginia. See Va. Code § 8.01-229(E)(3). After the district court ordered a more definite statement, Plaintiffs reasserted all three derivative-liability theories—including the joint- venture theory dismissed with prejudice in state court. Their More Definite Statement alleged that either or both vehicles crossed the double-yellow line; that “[a]t the said time of the collision and immediately prior thereto, Gyimah was using and looking at his electronic device(s) . . . and not at the road”; and that, had Gyimah been paying attention, he could have avoided the collision by braking or moving into the right lane. J.A. 77–78. As to Fairfax Taxi, it alleged a series of regulatory and operational facts: that Gyimah held a county-issued “hacker’s” license; that Fairfax Taxi held a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity; that Gyimah was required to use Fairfax Taxi’s color scheme and assigned vehicle number; and that drivers were required to use Fairfax Taxi’s dispatch system, including a dashboard tablet and credit-card processor. Plaintiffs attached to the More Definite Statement the Taxicab Operator Agreement between Gyimah and Fairfax Taxi, along with its Equipment Rental Agreement. The Operator Agreement provides that “[t]he parties intend to create by this Agreement the relationship of an Independent Contractor and not an employer-employee relationship,” that “[a]ny doubt as to the construction of this Agreement shall be resolved in order to maintain the Operator’s status as an independent contractor,” and that “[n]othing contained in this Agreement shall be deemed to create an agency, joint venture, partnership, franchise or any other legal relationship except that of principal and independent contractor.” J.A. 84. The Equipment Rental Agreement likewise recites that Gyimah operated “as an 6 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 7 of 34 independent contractor” and reflects that Gyimah paid Fairfax Taxi a fixed weekly fee. J.A. 96. And as the More Definite Statement acknowledged, Gyimah owned the vehicle he drove and bore the obligation to insure it. On June 28, 2024, the district court granted Fairfax Taxi’s Rule 12(c) motion. It held that the joint-venture theory was barred by res judicata. As to the § 428 and respondeat superior theories, the court ruled on the merits: “Though the Fairfax court did not dismiss with prejudice these claims against Fairfax Taxi based on unreasonable risk or vicarious liability, the Fairfax court’s reasoning was sound, and the Court again rejects those claims.” J.A. 105. On the respondeat superior theory in particular, the court relied on the Operator Agreement’s terms and on the allegations that Gyimah owned and insured his own vehicle. The court denied reconsideration and declined to certify an interlocutory appeal. The district court’s Rule 16(b) scheduling order required Plaintiffs’ expert disclosures by September 16, 2024. Plaintiffs timely filed a “Designation of Expert Witnesses” naming nine experts, including Michael Miller, an accident reconstructionist “expected to testify consistent with his attached report, which is hereby attached and incorporated herein.” J.A. 134–61. But no report was attached—then or for months afterward. Discovery closed on February 13, 2025. At the final pretrial conference on February 20, 2025, the court authorized video depositions of out-of-town witnesses in lieu of trial testimony but did not authorize any further discovery depositions of testifying experts. Only on February 25, 2025—five months and nine days after the deadline—did Plaintiffs move for leave to file Miller’s affidavit out of time, with trial set for June 23, 2025. Miller’s affidavit opined that Gyimah was not paying attention; that “[i]t appears 7 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 8 of 34 that there were not any vehicles to the right of the Red Top Cab,” so Gyimah “more probably than not . . . could have swerved to the right to avoid the collision”; and that “Gyimah did not attempt to brake or slow down in the seconds prior to the collision,” such that braking would have avoided the collision or lessened its severity. J.A. 211–12. On May 19, 2025, the district court denied the motion. Applying the five factors from Southern States Rack & Fixture, Inc. v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 318 F.3d 592, 596–97 (4th Cir. 2003), it concluded that the late disclosure was neither substantially justified nor harmless. In the alternative, the court excluded Miller’s opinion under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 as unsupported by the record. Taking notice of the stopping-distances tables in Va. Code § 46.2-880, the court observed that two vehicles lawfully approaching one another at 45 miles per hour close at 90 miles per hour. At that closing speed, a standard one-and-a-half-second perception-reaction interval would mean that the distance separating them would shrink by roughly 198 feet before either driver could react. So, on this record, the district court concluded that it would be “speculative to say that Gyimah would have been able to take any action to prevent the crash.” J.A. 406–07, 412. Defendant Kenin, administrator of Gyimah’s estate, then moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. The court reasoned that Jung could not place Gyimah’s phone-holding at any particular time—“he does not know if it was ten minutes before the crash or ten seconds,” J.A. 410–11; that “a phone on Gyimah’s leg after a violent car crash is not evidence Gyimah was using the phone before the accident,” J.A. 411–12; that the absence of skidding noises and tire marks is not evidence of negligence absent proof that Gyimah had an opportunity to avoid the collision; and that Plaintiffs’ concurrent- 8 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 9 of 34 negligence theory required record evidence of each alleged tortfeasor’s negligence, which was lacking. The court entered final judgment dismissing both cases on May 21, 2025. Plaintiffs timely appealed, and we consolidated the appeals. 1 II. DISCUSSION A. The District Court Had Subject Matter Jurisdiction Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, possessing “only that power authorized by Constitution and statute.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). And “every federal appellate court has a special obligation to satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review, even though the parties are prepared to concede it.” Bender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541 (1986) (quoting Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U.S. 237, 244 (1934)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006). While our appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 is secure, whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction is another matter, and we may not assume that it did in order to reach the merits. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998). Harboring doubts on that score, we directed the parties to file supplemental 1 The complaints initially named Red Top Cab, LLC as a defendant, but before any defendant was served, each Plaintiff filed an amended complaint that named only Fairfax and Kenin as defendants. The amended complaint superseded the original and became the operative pleading. Young v. City of Mount Ranier, 238 F.3d 567, 573 (4th Cir. 2001). So Red Top is considered to have never been a party to this action, and its citizenship is immaterial to the question of diversity jurisdiction. We have amended the case caption accordingly. 9 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 10 of 34 briefs addressing whether diversity jurisdiction lies under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Those doubts concern only the appeal in Kim’s case (brought by the administrator). Jung is himself a citizen of South Korea suing Virginia defendants, so his case satisfies § 1332(a)(2) on its own terms. The question here is whether the district court had jurisdiction over the action brought by Kim’s administrator. The parties both agreed that jurisdiction exists. But agreement cannot confer it. Ins. Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée, 456 U.S. 694, 702 (1982). And the parties’ agreement rests on a reading of § 1332(c)(2) that the text will not bear. Jurisdiction exists all the same—just not for the reason the parties give. The jurisdictional facts are not in dispute. 2 Kim, a citizen of South Korea domiciled in South Korea, died of injuries she sustained while riding as a passenger in an automobile collision in Virginia. Her son, DongJoo Lee, and her mother, Kyo Jo—the only possible statutory beneficiaries of any recovery in this action, see Va. Code § 8.01-53—are likewise citizens of South Korea domiciled in South Korea. Virginia law provides that an action for wrongful death “shall be brought by and in the name of the personal representative” of the decedent. Va. Code § 8.01-50(C). Kim died with no representative in the Commonwealth. So the state court qualified Brian M. O’Connor—a Virginia lawyer and a professional colleague of Plaintiffs’ counsel—as ancillary administrator of her estate “for the sole purpose of a personal injury or wrongful death suit.” No. 25-1699, Dkt. No. 42-2 2 Plaintiffs, as the parties invoking federal jurisdiction, bear the burden of establishing these facts. See McNutt v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 189 (1936). 10 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 11 of 34 (Certificate of Qualification); see Va. Code § 64.2-454 (formerly Va. Code § 64.1-75.1). O’Connor then filed this negligence action against the Defendants, all of whom are citizens of Virginia. 3 The dispositive question is whose citizenship counts on the plaintiff’s side of the case. If the answer is O’Connor’s, then this is an action between two citizens of Virginia, and it must be dismissed. If the answer is the citizenship of Kim or of the statutory beneficiaries, this is an action “between . . . citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state,” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(2), and it may proceed. Answering it takes two steps. First, does § 1332(c)(2) reach the estate of a decedent who was a citizen of no State? Second, if not, do our prior decisions on nominal representatives still control? The parties both point to § 1332(c)(2), which provides that “the legal representative of the estate of a decedent shall be deemed to be a citizen only of the same State as the decedent.” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(2). On their shared theory, O’Connor is “deemed” a citizen of South Korea, Kim’s country of citizenship, and the action proceeds under § 1332(a)(2) as one between a deemed South Korean citizen and a Virginian. For that reading—under which the word “State” in § 1332(c)(2) embraces foreign states—the parties rely principally on Kato v. County of Westchester, 927 F. Supp. 714, 716 (S.D.N.Y. 1996), and Geler v. National Westminster Bank USA, 763 F. Supp. 722, 726 (S.D.N.Y. 3 Kenin’s citizenship poses no puzzle. Gyimah was a citizen of Virginia, so § 1332(c)(2) deems his estate’s representative a Virginian—whatever Kenin’s own citizenship may be. The provision thus operates without strain on defendants’ side of this case. It fails only on plaintiff’s side, where the decedent was a citizen of no State. That contrast confirms what the text says: the deeming rule presupposes a decedent with State citizenship. 11 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 12 of 34 1991), which reasoned that it would be irrational for Congress to have made representatives jurisdictionally transparent for domestic decedents but not for foreign ones. The question is one we have not previously decided, and no other court of appeals appears to have resolved it. We reject the parties’ construction. Within § 1332, “State” and “foreign state” are expressly distinguished terms. Subsection (a) grants jurisdiction over controversies between “citizens of different States,” § 1332(a)(1); between “citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state,” § 1332(a)(2); and between “citizens of different States and in which citizens or subjects of a foreign state are additional parties,” § 1332(a)(3). The section’s definitional provision confirms the point: “The word ‘States’, as used in this section, includes the Territories, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico”—an enumeration that extends the term beyond the fifty States but stops short of foreign nations. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(e). And when Congress wished to reach foreign states within § 1332(c) itself, it specifically said so. In 2011, it amended § 1332(c)(1) to provide that a corporation is a citizen of “every State and foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the State or foreign state where it has its principal place of business,” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1) (emphases added), 4 while leaving the adjacent paragraph—§ 1332(c)(2)—untouched. To read “State” in paragraph (c)(2) to include South Korea, we would have to give a defined term two different meanings in adjoining paragraphs of the same subsection, where one of those meanings is what the rest of the 4 See Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011, Pub. L. No. 112-63, § 102, 125 Stat. 758, 758–59. 12 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 13 of 34 section consistently—and explicitly—assigns to a different term: “foreign state.” That is a step we cannot take. See Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 143 (1994) (“A term appearing in several places in a statutory text is generally read the same way each time it appears.”). Nor does Kato’s appeal to rationality persuade. The consequence of giving effect to the plain reading is not absurd. Section 1332(c)(2), enacted in 1988 to curb the manufacture and destruction of diversity through the selection of representatives, see Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act, Pub. L. No. 100-702, § 202(a), 102 Stat. 4642, 4646, operates by deeming the representative a citizen of “the same State as the decedent.” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(2). Where the decedent was a citizen of no State, the deeming rule’s antecedent fails and the provision simply has no application, leaving the law as it stood before 1988. Cf. Tank v. Chronister, 160 F.3d 597, 599–600 (10th Cir. 1998) (declining to extend § 1332(c)(2) beyond its “plain terms” to persons outside its coverage). That Congress, legislating against the familiar problem of manufactured interstate diversity, did not advert to the estates of foreign nationals is unremarkable. And such an unremarkable casus omissus is a reason to apply the background law, not to rewrite the enacted text. 5 United States v. Texas, 507 U.S. 529, 534 (1993); Astoria Fed. Sav. & 5 Because we conclude that § 1332(c)(2) does not reach the estate of a decedent who was not a citizen of any State, we need not decide the analytically distinct question of whether a Virginia wrongful-death personal representative—who sues as the statutorily designated plaintiff but for the exclusive benefit of the statutory beneficiaries—is a “legal representative of the estate of a decedent” under § 1332(c)(2) at all. Cf. Tank, 160 F.3d at 599–601; Steinlage ex rel. Smith v. Mayo Clinic Rochester, 435 F.3d 913, 917–920 (8th Cir. 2006). 13 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 14 of 34 Loan Ass’n v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104, 108 (1991); Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 625 (1978); Isbrandtsen Co. v. Johnson, 343 U.S. 779, 783 (1952); see also Pond v. United States, 69 F.4th 155, 164 (4th Cir. 2023). Section 1332(c)(2) therefore does no work here. It displaced background representative-citizenship rules only for decedents who were citizens of a State, a Territory, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico. Because Kim belonged to none of those categories, the existing circuit precedent governing the uncovered situation remains controlling. Before § 1332(c)(2), the general rule—articulated in Mecom v. Fitzsimmons Drilling Co.—was that a duly appointed representative’s own citizenship controls: “[T]he federal courts have jurisdiction of suits by and against executors and administrators if their citizenship be diverse from that of the opposing party, although their testators or intestates might not have been entitled to sue or been liable to suit in those courts for want of diversity of citizenship.” 284 U.S. 183, 186 (1931). But in this circuit, that rule was subsequently qualified in a long line of published decisions. See, e.g., Lester v. McFaddon, 415 F.2d 1101, 1104–06 (4th Cir. 1969); Miller v. Perry, 456 F.2d 63, 64–67 (4th Cir. 1972); Bishop v. Hendricks, 495 F.2d 289, 293–95 (4th Cir. 1974); Vaughan v. S. Ry. Co., 542 F.2d 641, 643–44 (4th Cir. 1976); Mullins v. Seals, 562 F.2d 326, 327–28 (4th Cir. 1977); Sadler v. New Hanover Mem’l Hosp., Inc., 588 F.2d 914, 915–17 (4th Cir. 1978); Messer v. American Gems, Inc., 612 F.2d 1367, 1374–75 (4th Cir. 1980); Krier-Hawthorne v. Beam, 728 F.2d 658, 660–62 (4th Cir. 1984). 14 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 15 of 34 Beam summarized the framework that the Fourth Circuit developed in the wake of Mecom. In wrongful-death cases, this Court’s determination of diversity jurisdiction . . . [was] based on two factors. First, although not formally named as plaintiffs, the real parties in interest are the statutory beneficiaries who are entitled to recover damages if the defendant is liable for the death of their decedent. Second, although formally named as plaintiff, the administrator of the decedent’s estate has no assets to administer in connection with the litigation and no stake in the outcome of the controversy. 728 F.2d at 660. From those premises followed the rule that resolves the question of jurisdiction in this case: “[W]hen the statutory beneficiaries and the defendant are citizens of different states, the district court has jurisdiction regardless of the common citizenship of the plaintiff administrator and the defendant.” Id. (citing Messer, 612 F.2d 1367; Miller, 456 F.2d 63). “Conversely, the court lacks jurisdiction when the statutory beneficiaries and the defendant have identical citizenship even though the plaintiff administrator and the defendant are citizens of different states.” Id. (citing Mullins, 562 F.2d 326; Vaughan, 542 F.2d 641; Bishop, 495 F.2d 289; Lester, 415 F.2d 1101). These decisions did not repudiate Mecom; they construed it. Mecom held that the representative’s citizenship controlled because that representative—a general domiciliary administrator—was the real party in interest. His citizenship counted, we later explained, because he was “clothed with such responsibilities and authority” that—“under federal standards”—the controversy was his. Miller, 456 F.2d at 65. That premise was “greatly undermined” by Kramer v. Caribbean Mills, Inc., 394 U.S. 823 (1969), which “free[d] [this Court] from a blind invocation of Mecom’s result.” Miller, 456 F.2d at 65–66. Where the representative bears real duties and holds a genuine stake, such as an administrator who 15 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 16 of 34 manages the decedent’s entire estate, Mecom still governs and the representative’s own citizenship controls. See, e.g., Sadler, 588 F.2d at 915–17. But where he is an ancillary representative—named after death, by operation of law, only to satisfy a pleading rule— we look through his to the citizenship of the real parties to the controversy. We have thus “not departed altogether from the jurisdictional precept of Mecom.” Beam, 728 F.2d at 661. Rather, we have simply marked its edge. Whether the Lester–Beam line represents the best reading of Mecom is not for us to decide today. They are published decisions of this Court, and one panel cannot overrule another; that prerogative belongs to the en banc court or the Supreme Court alone. McMellon v. United States, 387 F.3d 329, 333 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc). One might think that Mecom itself is the Supreme Court decision that displaces them—that Mecom “has direct application in [this] case,” and that we must “follow the case which directly controls, leaving to [the Supreme] Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989). But Rodriguez de Quijas’s command directs only that we must follow Supreme Court precedent that has direct application to the case at hand. Whether Mecom directly applies to a stakeless administrator appointed solely to prosecute a wrongful-death action is the very question that this Court has answered—repeatedly, and in the negative. And it has done so by construing Mecom—particularly in light of what Beam took to be Kramer’s “reservation of the jurisdictional issue pertaining to the citizenship of a personal representative”—as controlling only where the representative is a real party to the controversy, but as inapplicable where he is merely a formal conduit for the statutory beneficiaries. See 728 16 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 17 of 34 F.2d at 660–61; see also Messer, 612 F.2d at 1374–75. That determination of Mecom’s scope is the law of this circuit, entitled to the same inter-panel respect as any other holding. To “return” to a non-obvious construction of Mecom now would constitute the impermissible overruling—by a single panel—of a long line of decisions of this Court. If those decisions misread Mecom—a position we need not accept—the correction lies with the en banc court or the Supreme Court, not with us. But even where a Supreme Court decision lacks direct applicability, it can still displace circuit precedent. And that is true whether the Supreme Court decision came before or after that circuit decision. Rose v. PSA Airlines, Inc., 80 F.4th 488, 503–05 (4th Cir. 2023) (declining to follow two circuit precedents, one predating and one postdating the relevant Supreme Court decision). When a panel decision predates Supreme Court precedent, it is enough to show that the Supreme Court precedent renders the panel decision untenable. In such a case, the irreconcilable Supreme Court decision straightforwardly takes precedence. Id. But when circuit precedent postdates the Supreme Court decision, an extra step is required: Not only must the Supreme Court decision make it untenable, but the circuit precedent must also give no indication that it recognized or considered the relevant Supreme Court decision. Id. Here, the only Supreme Court precedent that could render our decisions untenable is Mecom (1931). And our decisions postdate Mecom. Thus, we may consider setting aside our decisions only if they gave no sign of having reckoned with Mecom. But they gave every sign of doing so, construing Mecom at length. Indeed, they relied, in part, on a later Supreme Court decision: Kramer (1969). Later Supreme Court decisions—most 17 USCA4 Appeal: 25-1702 Doc: 45 Filed: 08/19/2026 Pg: 18 of 34 notably Navarro Sav. Ass’n v. Lee, 446 U.S. 458 (1980)—seem consistent with our line of cases. 6 Navarro applied the same real-party-to-the-controversy framework, counting the citizenship of trustees who possessed “customary powers to hold, manage, and dispose of assets,” id. at 464, while reaffirming that purely nominal parties are disregarded. So the Lester–Beam line remains intact. Nor did the 1988 enactment of § 1332(c)(2) sweep this line away root and branch. A statute displaces judge-made law only to the extent it speaks. For instance, in Pond, we 6 Two decisions from the intervening years require a word. Carden v. Arkoma Associates held that a limited partnership’s citizenship depends on all of its members, refusing to make that determination turn on which members exercise control. 494 U.S. 185, 195–96 (1990). Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc. applied the same rule to a real-estate-investment trust. 577 U.S. 378, 381–82 (2016). Read broadly, those cases might be thought to forbid any functional inquiry into who really has a stake in a controversy—and our Lester–Beam line is functional. If that were their teaching, our reasoning could not stand beside it. See Rose, 80 F.4th at 503–05. But that is not their teaching. Carden and Americold answer a question about artificial entities: whether an association suing in its own name may claim the citizenship of some members rather than all. Carden set that question apart from the one Navarro had decided—“whether parties that were undoubted ‘citizens’ (viz., natural persons) were the real parties to the controversy.” 494 U.S. at 191. Navarro, the Court explained, “had nothing to do with the citizenship of the ‘trust,’ since it was a suit by the trustees in their own names.” Id. at 192–93. Put differently, Navarro had nothing to do with the citizenship of any artificial entity. Americold confirmed the point, describing Navarro as a “separate rule” that “coexists” with the all-members rule governing artificial entities. 577 U.S. at 382–83. And in articulating that separate rule, Navarro embraced the very sort of functional inquiry that the Lester–Beam line performs: “[A] trustee is a real party to the controversy for purposes of diversity jurisdiction when he possesses certain customary powers to hold, manage, and dispose of assets for the benefit of others.” 446 U.S. at 464 (emphasis added). In other words, the basic question in non-artificial-entity cases is the same one that this circuit’s cases ask: Which natural persons have an actual stake in the controversy? In answering that question, the Supreme Court has disregarded merely nominal parties since Browne v. Strode, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 303 (1809), and McNutt v. Bland, 43 U.S. (2 How.) 9 (1844). See Navarro, 446 U.S. at 465. Neither Carden nor Americold disturbs that