Plaintiff-appellant Helga Valentin, also known as Helga Valentín de Jesús, invites us to reverse an order of the district court dismissing her medical malpractice suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Bound by a relatively restrictive standard of review, we decline her invitation.
On December 10, 1998, Valentin sued a cadre of defendants — divers hospitals, physicians, insurers, and a health services plan — in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Claiming that she was a citizen of Florida whereas all the defendants were citizens of Puerto Rico, the plaintiff premised federal jurisdiction on diversity of citizenship and the existence of a controversy in the requisite amount. 1 See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Because it is Valentin’s citizenship that is at issue here, we make no attempt to enumerate, or to differentiate among, the various defendants.
For federal jurisdictional purposes, diversity of citizenship must be determined as of the time of suit.
Bank One v. Montle,
According to her own account, derived from her deposition testimony, the plaintiff was born in Mayagiiez, Puerto Rico, in 1968. Her family subsequently moved to Yauco. She lived there with her mother and studied nursing at a local university. When she completed her studies, she returned to Mayagiiez and began working at the Mayagiiez Medical Center (MMC) in late 1992.
At some point, the plaintiffs sister married and moved to Florida. After toiling at MMC for over five years, the plaintiff, using her accrued vacation time, spent a month visiting her sister and brother-in-law. During that visit, she experienced acute abdominal pain. Doctors in Florida informed her that she needed extensive tests and, quite likely, surgery. Cognizant of the requirements of her health insurance plan, she returned to Puerto Rico for follow-up care. Surgery proved necessary during the winter of 1997-1998. When performed, it went poorly.
The ensuing complications prompted the plaintiff to repair to Florida in April of 1998, seeking'more sophisticated medical care. Her sister and brother-in-law again provided her with a place to live. When she left for Florida, however, she did not *362 terminate her employment with MMC. To the contrary, her co-workers pooled their accumulated sick leave (totaling eighty-four days) and donated it to her so that she could pursue treatment alternatives without losing her job.
Even after the plaintiff had exhausted all available sick leave, she did not resign. Instead, she requested that MMC grant her an indefinite period of unpaid leave. MMC acquiesced. Although the plaintiff never returned to work at MMC, she did not sever that tie until March of 1999— some three months after she filed the instant action.
These facts led the parties to opposite conclusions about the plaintiffs citizenship. On January 24, 2000, the most aggressive of the defendants, United Healthcare Plans of Puerto Rico (UHP), filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), in which it asserted an absence of diversity jurisdiction. Several other defendants filed motions joining and/or adopting this motion. The plaintiff opposed these initiatives, maintaining that she had become a citizen of Florida (and, therefore, that jurisdiction was properly laid in the federal court). In an effort to streamline the proceedings, the district court gave the remaining defendants until March 17 to stake out their positions vis-á-vis jurisdiction and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for May 6. 2
One additional defendant responded to the court’s invitation and filed a motion to dismiss within the specified interval. As the date set for the evidentiary hearing approached, the plaintiff, by motion filed on May 1, 2000, asked the court to “suspend” that hearing and determine the exis-fence vel non of jurisdiction on the parties’ written submissions. The court, apparently yielding to this entreaty, proceeded to decide the jurisdictional issue on the papers.
In a carefully considered ten-page opinion, the court determined that the plaintiff went to Florida in mid-1998 with the intent of returning to Puerto Rico; that her intent remained unchanged on December 10, 1998; and that, therefore, she was still a citizen of Puerto Rico when she filed suit. Valentín v. UHP, No. 98-2382, slip op. at 10-11 (D.P.R. July 27, 2000) (unpublished). In the court’s view, the evidence showed only that the plaintiff “returned to Florida in 1998 to receive medical treatment and that she harbored the intention and desire of living in Florida at some time in the future.” Id. at 10. Because even “[a] definite and sincere intention to make a place one’s home at some time in the future is not enough to make that place an individual’s present domicile,” the court found the evidence insufficient to support the plaintiffs claim of Florida citizenship. Id.
The plaintiffs attack on the district court’s ruling is vigorous, but largely misdirected. Her principal arguments rest on serial misconceptions of the proper protocol for determining subject-matter jurisdiction and the level of appellate review that applies thereafter. We first expose these misconceptions and then use the correct standards to resolve this appeal.
The proper vehicle for challenging a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). This rule is a large umbrella, overspreading a
*363
variety of different types of challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction. Some challenges — those grounded in considerations of ripeness, mootness, sovereign immunity, and the existence of federal question jurisdiction are good examples,
see, e.g., Ernst & Young v. Depositors Econ. Prot. Corp.,
In more prosaic situations, such as when a defendant challenges the existence vel non of diversity jurisdiction, the challenge can be launched in either of two formats. See 2 James Wm. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 12.30 (3d ed.1999) (outlining procedures for resolving challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction). We explore that dichotomy.
The first way is to mount a challenge which accepts the plaintiffs version of jurisdictionally-significant facts as true and addresses their sufficiency, thus requiring the court to assess whether the plaintiff has propounded an adequate basis for subject-matter jurisdiction.
Ohio Nat’l Life Ins. Co. v. United States,
The second way to engage the gears of Rule 12(b)(1) is by controverting the accuracy (rather than the sufficiency) of the jurisdictional facts asserted by the plaintiff and proffering materials of evidentiary quality in support of that position. Unlike, say, a motion for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), this type of challenge under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)-which we shall call a “factual challenge”-permits (indeed, demands) differential factfinding. Thus, the plaintiffs jurisdictional averments are entitled to no presumptive weight; the court must address the merits of the jurisdictional claim by resolving the factual disputes between the parties.
See Garcia v. Copenhaver, Bell & Assocs.,
The rationale for this praxis is obvious. A court’s authority to hear a particular case is a necessary precondition to the proper performance of the judicial function. Thus, when a factbound jurisdictional question looms, a court must be allowed considerable leeway in weighing the proof, drawing reasonable inferences, and satisfying itself that subject-matter jurisdiction has attached.
See Williamson v. Tucker,
The relevance of this dichotomy is readily apparent here. The motions to dismiss in this case plainly constitute factual challenges: they place in issue the accuracy, as opposed to the sufficiency, of the plaintiffs jurisdictional allegation. The plaintiff blinks this reality, arguing that the district court should have viewed the facts in the light most favorable to her position and, in a misguided effort to reinforce that point, repeatedly characterizes the court’s order as a grant of summary judgment. E.g., Appellant’s Br. at 1, 16-18, 25.
We flatly reject this revisionism. As said, the motions before the district court were factual challenges under Rule 12(b)(1). It is pellucid that a trial court’s approach to a Rule 12(b)(1) motion which asserts a factual challenge is quite different from its approach to a motion for summary judgment.
See Ohio Natl Life,
The rule of decision applicable to factual challenges under Rule 12(b)(1) is unaffected by the district court’s cancellation of the scheduled evidentiary hearing and its subsequent adjudication of the jurisdictional issue on the papers. A court sometimes may decide factual challenges under Rule 12(b)(1) without convening an evidentiary hearing.
E.g., Zappia Middle E. Constr. Co. v. Emirate of Abu Dhabi,
Where, as here, the parties were afforded ample time to take depositions, compile written submissions, and prepare briefs, they had a sufficient opportunity to be heard.
See generally
Fed. R.Civ.P. 43(e) (authorizing federal district courts to “hear” motions and determine ancillary facts on affidavits or depositions). This opportunity, coupled with the fact that the plaintiff herself exhorted the district court to abandon its plan to hold an evidentiary hearing, sounds the death knell for the plaintiffs argument. Under the circumstances, we think that the plaintiff is estopped from asserting before us that the district court blundered in failing to convene an evidentiary hearing. After all, a
*365
party who requests a court to take a specific course of action ordinarily cannot be heard to complain when the court obliges.
E.g., John Zink Co. v. Zink,
The plaintiffs second misconception relates to the applicable standard of appellate review. That standard, too, depends on whether a challenge is addressed to the sufficiency of the facts upon which the plaintiffs jurisdictional aver-ments rest or the accuracy of those facts.
See Thompson v. Franklin,
In contrast, a district court faced with a factual challenge under Rule 12(b)(1) ordinarily must resolve disputed facts (or, at least, choose among competing inferences from subsidiary facts). On appeal, such findings will be set aside only if clearly erroneous.
Herbert,
Of course, once the court has found the facts, its ultimate legal conclusion is subject to de novo review.
See generally Ornelas v. United States,
The proper standard of review in this case is straightforward. The lower court addressed a factual challenge under Rule 12(b)(1) — a challenge that required it to find the facts, choose among conflicting inferences, and make credibility judgments. Accordingly, we must accept the court’s findings and the conclusions drawn therefrom unless the whole of the record leaves us with “a strong, unyielding belief that a mistake has been made.”
Cumpiano v. Banco Santander,
In order to sustain diversity jurisdiction in the circumstances of this case, the plaintiff had to demonstrate, inter alia, that she was a citizen of Florida.
See
28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1);
see also Toste Farm Corp. v. Hadbury, Inc.,
In this instance, the court below relied chiefly on the facts catalogued in the plaintiffs deposition to find that she had not become a Florida domiciliary on or before December 10, 1998. Since a party’s former domicile persists until a new one is acquired, id., the district court reasoned that the plaintiff was a citizen of Puerto Rico on the critical date (and that, therefore, complete diversity was absent). Valentin, slip op. at 10-11. In reaching this conclusion, the court weighted heavily the undisputed fact that the plaintiff did not quit her job at MMC until some time in 1999. 5 Id. at 8. The court also emphasized that the plaintiff left the bulk of her belongings at her residence in Mayagüez when she journeyed to Florida, that she kept a car registered there, and that she maintained a Puerto Rico bank account until some time in 1999. Id. at 8-9.
The plaintiff complains bitterly that she offered explanations for these facts and asserts that there was other evidence that pointed to the opposite conclusion. That is true as far as it goes — but it does not take the plaintiff very far. The lower court gave meticulous consideration to the plaintiffs explanations, but found them wanting. E.g., supra note 5. The court paid similar heed to the evidence favorable to the plaintiffs position: the plaintiff had obtained a Florida driver’s license on May 12, 1998; at about the same time, she had received a charge card from a Florida bank and had applied for a few nursing jobs in Florida (although she was not authorized to practice there); she took the examination for a Florida nursing license sometime in 1998 but failed to pass; and she took Florida’s test to become a certified nursing assistant three times— the dates are obscure — until she finally *367 passed that test in late 1999. 6 See id. at 7-8. In the end, however, the court concluded that these contacts revealed no more than a desultory desire to relocate to Florida at some indefinite future time. Id. at 9-10.
From a legal standpoint, we discern no error. An amorphous desire to relocate from one place to another at an indeterminate future date does not suffice to effect a change of domicile.
E.g., Hendry v. Masonite Corp.,
From a factual standpoint, the plaintiffs protest is equally unavailing. Under the clearly erroneous standard of review, an appellate court simply cannot supplant the district court’s perspective with its own, notwithstanding that the members of the appellate panel, if writing on a pristine page, might have derived a different set of conclusions from the same underlying facts.
E.g., Jackson v. United States,
Affirmed.
Notes
. We note that Valentin's complaint specified residency, not citizenship, in respect to the individuals named as parties. Jurisdictionally speaking, residency and citizenship are not interchangeable,
Lundquist v. Precision Valley Aviation, Inc.,
. The court apparently set the hearing date so far in the future because the main protagonists to that point — the plaintiff and UHP— had filed a joint motion for voluntary dismissal (without prejudice). In order to effectuate that agreement and drop UHP from the case, the movants needed permission from the other defendants, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(1), which they had not yet obtained. This motion eventually became moot when the district court determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.
. We note that there is an exception to this praxis for cases in which the jurisdictional facts, though genuinely disputed, are inextricably intertwined with the merits of the case. In that event, the court may defer resolution of the jurisdictional issue until the time of trial.
See Bell v. United States,
. We note that Valentin, despite her obvious unhappiness with the lower court’s decision, makes no developed argument that the facts as found do not warrant the legal conclusion reached. That point is, therefore, by the boards.
See United States v. Zannino,
. Although the plaintiff asserted that she withheld her resignation because she wanted to retain her medical insurance, the court discounted this explanation.
Valentin,
slip op. at 8. This credibility call was well within the court’s proper province.
See, e.g., In re Tully,
. The plaintiff also registered to vote in Florida, but could not say, though pressed, whether this occurred before or after December 10, 1998. In all events, she never voted there, and she was registered to vote in Puerto Rico throughout 1998. All in all, this evidence hurts, rather than helps, the plaintiff's cause.
. We have been informed that, during the pendency of this appeal, the plaintiff filed a new action in the district court, reasserting the existence of diversity jurisdiction. Although we recognize that a plaintiff may, under certain circumstances, commence a second action when subsequent developments cure a preexisting jurisdictional defect,
e.g., GAF Corp. v. United States,