If it’s Wednesday, it’s plainly time to talk about removal. Today’s case, In re Depo Provera Prods Liab. Litigation, 2025 WL 3252445 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 13, 2025), upholds one of the defense bar’s favorite procedural maneuvers,snap removal. The case was snapped in California, in the Ninth Circuit, and transferred to the Multidistrict Litigation in the Eleventh Circuit.  There was complete diversity (no party on one side of the v shared citizenship with anyone on the other side), and the case was removed before a forum defendant was served.  That should be, and was, a plain case of proper snap removal. 

Just as plain was the fact that the plaintiff did not help her case by never serving the forum defendant, even after removal to federal court.  The plaintiff moved to remand the case to state court, relying on the old chestnut that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. But even with the principle that federal jurisdiction is narrowly construed, the relevant statute plainly allows snap removals, as three circuits (Second, Third, and Fifth) have held, and another (Sixth) had so indicated in a footnote.  Here, the court noted that other courts within the Eleventh Circuit had “come out both ways regarding the propriety of snap removal.”  At the same time, there was some language in an Eleventh Circuit case that “strongly suggests” that “absent gamesmanship on a removing defendant’s part, the Eleventh Circuit believes the statute means what it says.”  

We’re not sure what amount of “gamesmanship” could overcome the plain — there’s that word again — language of 28 U.S.C. section 1441(b)(2)). Snap removal is “at least rational,” and its result does not bump against the “absurdity bar.” In any event, no such gamesmanship was hinted at in this case. 

Accordingly, the court denied the remand motion. That is plainly the right result.