Plaintiffs will go to great lengths to stay out of federal court, including naming local defendants against whom the plaintiffs have no real intention of pursuing the lawsuit with even a smidgen of seriousness. Sometimes that is called “improper joinder,” but we prefer the term “fraudulent joinder” because that more accurately captures what is afoot.
We have been accused of using this Blog as our personal travelogue, posting details of our various adventures notwithstanding the tenuous-at-best connections to the case descriptions that follow. Guilty. Today, for example, we wanted to let you know that you should not miss the opportunity for a visit to the hallowed Bluebird Cafe if you
We have always wondered why judges are hesitant to sever the claims of plaintiffs who never should have joined their claims together in the first place. You know what we mean—multiple plaintiffs, sometimes dozens of them, who join their claims together in one complaint based only on the allegation that they used the same or
Diversity jurisdiction has been on our minds a lot lately. Last week, we wrote about a plaintiff who unsuccessfully tried to steer under the $75,000 amount in controversy requirement. As John Adams said, “facts are stubborn things,” and the existence of medical bills in excess of $75,000 refuted the plaintiff’s remand motion and permitted the
Sometimes we find it simply best to start with the facts. The facts of Graham v. Mentor World Wide LLC, 2019 WL 3253185 (E.D. MO Jul. 19, 2019) are:
There are more bad fraudulent joinder decisions than good ones out there, and we typically do not like publicizing the other side’s wins. But occasionally an opinion is so weird that it merits a brief comment. Cardoza v. Med. Device Bus. Servs., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77506 (W.D.Va. May 8, 2019), is a bit
In some states (we’re looking at you, California) it is frightfully hard to win on fraudulent concealment removal where the plaintiff has joined an in-state distributor of a drug or medical device. In other states, defendants have more of a shot. Today’s case, Harris v. Zimmer Holdings, Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71025 (S.D.N.Y.
It’s very hard to win a fraudulent joinder motion on the merits and thus keep a case in federal court. In fact, when we looked back at the topic on the blog, our last post on the issue was over one year ago. And the two posts before that were from the Third Circuit
Last week we posted about the need to consider the level of detail and specificity you include in any filing. We happened to stumble across another case that prompted a word to the wise – proofread, proofread, proofread. Today’s case is a defense victory in the battle between state and federal forums, but perhaps more
This post is from the Cozen side of the blog only.
The Third Circuit gets fraudulent joinder—as if the name of the doctrine isn’t enough to give it away. It refers to, quite simply, joining a defendant in a lawsuit for a purpose other than pursuing liability against that defendant. And so the Third Circuit,