Back in 2020, we published a post, “Is It Time To Reconsider Federal Officer Removal?”  It discussed a Fifth Circuit asbestos case, Latiolais v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc., 951 F.3d 286 (5th Cir. 2020), overruled prior precedent in light of a congressional amendment to the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. §1442(a), that…

Today’s guest post from Justin Kadoura, a Holland & Knight product liability and toxic tort litigator, concerns a Supreme Court decision on an issue that might seem unrelated to the sort of case we cover at the DDL Blog.  However, federal officer removal does come up in our cases and we have covered it…

This is a defense blog.  Are we biased? Yes, we are. We come by that bias honestly, via temperament, principle, and client loyalty. We are happy to report on defense wins. If we report at all on plaintiff wins, it will be grudgingly and typically accompanied by heaping helpings of regrets and criticisms. 

Have we…

As we head into the longest night of the year, we wade into an MDL decision addressing fraudulent misjoinder.  We previously posted about some unfavorable happenings in the Philips CPAP MDL, and today’s decision continues that unfortunate trend. In re Philips Recalled CPAP, Bi-Level PAP, & Mechanical Ventilator Products Litigation, 2025 WL 3534807 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 10, 2025). But as we reach the winter solstice this weekend, we know that the days will get longer, the sun will shine brighter, and we’re sure to see some positive developments more to our liking.

The decision involves the unusual combination of medical device and environmental exposure claims against different defendants. The complaint alleged that exposure to ethylene oxide through a CPAP device caused plaintiff’s acute myeloid leukemia and, ultimately, death.  But the complaint also claimed that the plaintiff lived near a manufacturing facility that emitted ethylene oxide, and that exposure to those emissions contributed to the development of the disease and death.  The CPAP defendant was diverse; the environmental emissions defendants were not.  Philips (the diverse, CPAP defendant) removed and claimed the defendants in the environmental claims were fraudulently misjoined.

Today’s guest post is from Reed Smith‘s Matt Jacobson. His post is not (primarily) about British comedy, but rather about fraudulent joinder. The specific topic is most interesting if you practice in Wisconsin, but as to removal generally, it introduces a provision of the statute that many of our readers will be unfamiliar…

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…

Defendants know that the quickest way to level an uneven playing field is to… well… sprint. And few procedural tools reward nimble defense work quite like snap removal—the perfectly valid act of removing a case to federal court before the forum defendant is served. Plaintiffs call it gamesmanship. We call it reading the statute. Yet…

Snap removal is one of the few ways that defendants can counter plaintiffs’ efforts at forum shopping. When a case analyzes snap removal and expressly adopts fraudulent misjoinder in the Third Circuit, you know it gets our attention.

Today’s decision, Paddock v. Novartis Pharms. Corp., 2025 WL 1908806 (D. Del. July 11, 2025), is a report and recommendation denying remand following the defendant’s snap removal.  The case involves claims by multiple plaintiffs that the defendant wrongfully promoted the off-label use of terbutaline (an asthma drug) to treat pre-term labor in pregnant women, and that the plaintiffs’ children developed autism as a result of their ingestion of the drug during pregnancy.