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Our recent post on “wrinkle removal” – that is, removal before service – case got us thinking.  The opinion discussed in that post, Dechow v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2019 WL 5176243 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8, 2019), was out of California, in the Ninth Circuit.  That didn’t keep Dechow from citing the Third Circuit case we blogged about last August, Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant, Inc., 902 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2018).  As we discussed last year, Encompass Insurance was the first appellate decision to address removal before service, and it was a resounding victory for the defense position that such removal is expressly allowed by statute and is a perfectly rational (and hardly absurd) response to the repeated gamesmanship that forum-shopping plaintiffs have resorted to, literally for decades.

So, how has removal before service fared since Encompass Insurance has been in the books?  Previously, we thought the defense “plain language” approach was the majority position, but the split was anything but overwhelming.  We’re pleased to report that the Third Circuit’s reasoning appears to have tipped the balance towards “overwhelming.”  First of all, we can run through new decisions by district courts (in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands) that are precedentially bound to follow Encompass Insurance.  These are: Anderson v. Merck & Co., 2019 WL 161512, at *1-2 (D.N.J. Jan. 10, 2019) (denying remand in 104 cases) (mentioned in this post), and Mendoza v. Ferro, 2019 WL 316727, at *2 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 24, 2019) (second removal, within 30 days of Encompass Insurance decision).  We can also, of course, subtract any adverse decisions (there were more than a handful) previously issued from district courts in the Third Circuit.

Outside the Third Circuit, courts have mostly found Encompass Insurance persuasive.  A second case from the Central District of California held:

[W]hen a natural reading of the statute leads to a rational, common-sense result, an alteration of meaning is not only unnecessary, but also extrajudicial.  As the Third Circuit explained, a plain meaning interpretation of the language “properly joined and served” in the Forum Defendant Rule “envisions a broader right of removal only in the narrow circumstances where a defendant is aware of an action prior to service of process with sufficient time to initiate removal.”  Stone Mansion, 902 F.3d at 153. . . .  While it is clear that courts in this district have found that permitting pre-service removal absurd, others have not, concluding that the plain language of Section 1441(b)(2) states that it only applies when the local defendants have been “properly joined and served.” Finally, and arguably most importantly − a Plaintiff in this very district, in a similar removal action unsuccessfully invoked [the absurd results argument] to support remand. [Citing Dechow]

Zirkin v. Shandy Media, Inc., 2019 WL 626138, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 14, 2019) (other citations and quotation marks omitted).  We are particularly gratified to see these two cases out of the Central District of California.  Our last research post on removal before service tallied up all the favorable decisions between 2011 and mid-2018 (it was written about a week before Encompass Insurance was decided).  It found twelve cases out of California, but only two from the Central District.  Encompass Insurance seems to have convinced the judges in that previously rather refractory district to be less refractory.

Another California decision, Monfort v. Adomani, Inc., 2019 WL 131842 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 8, 2019), expressly “agree[d] with the Third Circuit” and permitted removal before service.  Id. at *4.

[T]he more precise question is whether pre-service removal frustrates the purpose behind §1441(b)(2)’s “joined and served” language.  As the Third Circuit explained, the “joined and served” language reflects Congress’s intent to prevent a plaintiff from fraudulently joining a resident party in order to avoid removal to federal court.  Encompass, 902 F.3d at 153.  Interpreting “joined and served” to permit pre-service removal by an in-state defendant does not impair the provision’s anti-fraudulent joinder purpose, which focuses on what a plaintiff may or may not do to defeat diversity jurisdiction.  Id. (noting that a plain language interpretation of joined and served “protects the statute’s goal without rendering any of the language unnecessary”).  Moreover, . . . Congress amended the removal statute after decisions permitting pre-service removal, but did not alter the “joined and served” language.

Id. (non-Encompass Insurance citations omitted).  Encompass Insurance also proved persuasive in Texas Brine Co., LLC v. American Arbitration Ass’n, 2018 WL 4927640 (E.D. La. Oct. 11, 2018), which cited it for the propositions that “defendants may remove despite unserved resident defendants,” and that “[n]o exception for gamesmanship exists.”  Id. at *2.

Still, while there’s been a shift since Encompass Insurance, there remain courts that find gamesmanship by plaintiffs somehow less bothersome than gamesmanship by defendants, and still refuse to recognize removal before service as permitted by the express terms of the removal statute.  Such a case is Delaughder v. Colonial Pipeline Co., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2018 WL 6716047 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 21, 2018), which refused to follow Encompass Insurance on a record that revealed both sides engaging in procedural machinations – with plaintiffs determined to keep a personal injury suit in a plaintiff-friendly court, and a diverse defendant just as determined to be in federal court instead.

Here’s what happened in Delaughder.  Two out-of-state litigation tourists sued the target defendant (a Delaware corporation) in Atlanta over an Alabama accident, also joining a Georgia “forum defendant” that would have prevented removal.  Id. at *1-2 & nn 1-2.  The Delaware defendant successfully snap removed.  In response, plaintiffs moved for voluntary dismissed, fully intending to win the race to the courthouse on their second try.  Id.  The defendant was just ready.  On the same day the voluntary dismissal was effective, the defendant changed its Georgia registered agent.  Id.  Plaintiff refiled the next day and – loaded for bear – served the defendant’s former agent less than half an hour after refiling.  Id.  But service was ineffective because of the change in agents, and the defendant snap removed again.  Id.

Although non-residents suing in Georgia over an accident in Alabama seems, to us, a most blatant example of forum-shopping gamesmanship, the court in Delaughder focused solely on the defendant’s actions.  Although recognizing that “the Third Circuit has definitively come down on one side of the issue,” 2018 WL 6716047, at *3, that court nonetheless went with the “absurd result” argument and remanded.  “While [defendant] found a possible avenue to take away Plaintiffs’ power to decide the forum for this litigation, the Court cannot overlook the clear gamesmanship present in this case.”  Id. at *6.

In the words of another Georgia court, “[o]ne person’s ‘gamesmanship’ is strategy to another.”  Francis v. Great West Casualty Co., 2018 WL 999679, at *2 (M.D. Ga. Feb. 21, 2018).  As for Delaughder itself, there are other words Bexis picked up while living in the Peach State:

Forget, hell.

Here’s something we know about Georgia precedent:

Georgia’s registration statute, Ga. Code §14-2-1501, provides no indication that registration affects jurisdiction one way or another; nor are there relevant state cases. However, in Orafol Americas, Inc. v. DBi Services, LLC, 2017 WL 3473217 (N.D. Ga. July 20, 2017), the court held:

Plaintiff notes that [defendant] is registered to do business in Georgia, and has a registered agent in the State.  Additionally, [defendant] has actually engaged in business in Georgia. . . .  But these contacts are woefully insufficient to render [defendant] “at home” in Georgia.  Every company that does any business in Georgia must register with the State and maintain a registered agent.  Just because a company does some small amount of business in Georgia does not mean that due process will allow that company to be sued in Georgia for acts that occurred outside the State.

Id. at *3.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.  Nothing in the Delaughder opinion gives us any reason to believe that there is any basis for personal jurisdiction in Georgia over the non-forum defendant.  And not only that, once those plaintiffs lose on jurisdiction, they’ll get no tolling of the statute of limitations in Alabama for their frolic and detour in the Georgia courts, since Alabama is one of “[s]ix states [with] no mechanism for preserving claims following a dismissal without prejudice.”

Game on.

Earlier this month we explained that a “wrinkle removal,” was one that capitalized on a “wrinkle” in the language of 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), which provides that a case cannot be removed on the basis of diversity if any “properly joined and served” defendant is a citizen of the forum state.  But if the forum defendant has not yet been served, that “wrinkle” doesn’t apply.  Defendants, in our never-ending quest to get cases into federal court, argue that such pre-service removal is consistent with the plain language of the statute.  Plaintiffs counter that this interpretation leads to an “absurd result” that refutes the plain language rule.  Just last year, the Third Circuit held that in this battle of “plain meaning” versus “absurd result” – plain meaning wins.  Encompass Ins. Co. v. Stone Mansion Rest. Inc., 902 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2018).

That was in important decision because since remand is unappealable (28 U.S.C. §1447(d)), appellate review is rare in remand situations.  It also meant that it was a foregone conclusion that Encompass Ins. would be applied in the District of New Jersey cases we discussed a few weeks ago.  When we see it cited and relied upon in the Central District of California, we think that’s important enough to warrant another pre-service removal post this month.

The case is Dechow v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., 2019 WL 517624 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 8, 2019).  Plaintiffs from four different states sued defendant, a resident of California and Delaware, in state court.  Two weeks after the complaint was filed, but before it was served, defendant removed the case to federal court.  Id. at *1.  As the court noted, the issue is “primarily an exercise in statutory interpretation.”  Id. at *2.  And in this instance, the statutory text is “unambiguous. Its plain meaning precludes removal on the basis of in-state citizenship only when the defendant has been properly joined and served.”  Id. at *3.  With no Ninth Circuit decision on point, the court looked to Encompass Ins.

Plaintiffs did try to argue that this literal interpretation of the statute should be rejected because it would lead to absurd results.  For this, they relied on a single case – Vallejo v. Amgen, Inc., 2013 WL 12147584 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 2013).  But Vallejo involved a situation where defendants removed the case before the state court issued the summons to plaintiff.  In other words, removal occurred before it was possible for plaintiff to effectuate service.  Allowing removal in that situation, “would effectively circumvent Congress’s entire statutory scheme and render § 1441(b)(2) superfluous. Such an application could not have been intended by Congress.”  Id. That was not the situation in Dechow where service could have been made but was not.

The district court found additional support in the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(2)(A) which provides that “all defendants who have been properly joined and served must join in or consent to the removal of the action.”  Another removal provision with the same “properly served and joined” language.  To this provision the Ninth Circuit has applied the plain meaning interpretation.  Id. at *4.  What’s good for one, is good for the other.  And plain meaning interpretation is good for the defendants.

We just returned from four days of depositions in Roswell and Carlsbad, New Mexico. We were pleased to cross this state off of the “not yet visited” list on our bulletin board. But it seems that we found the least picturesque cities in the entire state. At this time of year, the 75-mile drive from Carlsbad to Roswell is entirely beige and barren.   No foliage, except for scrub brush. No buildings. No slopes. That is why the “Welcome to Roswell” mural on the side of Highway 285 was an especially delightful surprise.   You can see it and read about it here.   Not so delightful, on the other hand, was the Roswell waitress who told us that we “look good for our age.” Made us think, half-seriously, about wrinkle removal.

Which brings us to today’s pair of cases.   Allow us to explain. Four or five mass torts ago, we were in the early stages of a mass tort and were trying to remove as many state court cases as we could.   Because we represented a forum defendant, we did this by removing a case when we learned about the complaint but before we were officially served. We called these “wrinkle removals,” because they capitalized on a “wrinkle” in the language of 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), which provides that a case cannot be removed on the basis of diversity if any “properly joined and served” defendant is a citizen of the forum state. In its 2018 decision in Encompass Ins. Co. v. Stone Mansion Rest. Inc., 902 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2018), the Third Circuit resolved a split of authority in favor of permitting such pre-service removals. Some of you may have learned about this removal technique from the Blog’s posts. You can read them here, including our Breaking News Post about the Encompass decision.

The first of today’s cases, Anderson v. Merck & Co., Inc., 2019 WL 161512 (D.N.J Jan. 10, 2019), involves 104 cases filed in New Jersey state court, alleging injuries caused by the defendant’s shingles vaccine. The defendant, a citizen of New Jersey, removed the cases to the District of New Jersey before it was officially served with the complaints. The plaintiffs moved to remand, and remand was denied pursuant to Encompass.  Stay tuned – more on this in a minute.

In the second case, Breitner v. Merck & Co., Inc., 2019 WL 316026 (D.N.J. Jan 2019), eighty-nine individual plaintiffs were joined in a single complaint again alleging injuries by the same defendant’s shingles vaccine. Five of the plaintiffs were New Jersey residents and the other eighty-four were not. Before the defendant was officially served, it removed the case on the basis of diversity jurisdiction, arguing that the five non-diverse plaintiffs were fraudulently misjoined. The court explained that “fraudulent misjoinder” occurs when a plaintiff “attempts to frustrate a defendant’s right to remove by joining a non-diverse party in violation of the applicable joinder rule.” Breitner, 2019 WL 316026 at *2 (citation omitted). The analysis is twofold:   the court first determines whether the plaintiffs’ claims were misjoined under Fed. R. Civ. P. 20, and, if so, whether the joinder was “egregious.”

In Breitner, the court answered both questions in the affirmative. First, it held that the claims were misjoined because, although all of the plaintiffs alleged that they were injured by the same drug, “the injuries manifested at different times, with each Plaintiff likely suffering different complications and different unknown recurring health issues.” Id. at *4. In addition, there was no allegation that all of the plaintiffs received vaccinations “from the same lot number, at the same time, [or] by the same health care providers.” Id. Second, the court held that the misjoinder was “egregious” because the complaint was structured specifically to defeat diversity jurisdiction. The court severed the claims of the five non-diverse plaintiffs and remanded them back to state court. That left eighty-four plaintiffs and complete diversity but left the question of the forum defendant rule for the court to resolve. Citing Anderson, the court held that removal was proper because the defendant, though a citizen of New Jersey, removed the case before service was effected. Remand denied. As we continue to struggle to keep mass tort cases in federal court, we like both layers of this decision, and we will keep you posted on similar cases. Meanwhile, we hear Santa Fe and Taos are pretty, and we are angling for depositions there.

In the early days of the Blog, in 2009, when Bexis and Mark Herrmann were operating in relative obscurity, we posed the question whether it was ethical to remove to federal court a case that may well be non-removable and hope that opposing counsel is “asleep at the switch”:

“Heck, I’ll remove it anyway.  Opposing counsel may be asleep at the switch and not file a motion to remand within 30 days.  If plaintiff doesn’t timely move to remand, the objection to removal is waived, and my case can be tried to judgment in federal court.”

Is that ethical?

We received one response, which we discussed, that an:

attorneys’ first obligation should be to the integrity of the legal system, and not to their clients’ interests.  Even so, I’m not sure I’d say ‘no’ to either question, given that a yes answer means that incompetent attorneys who don’t realize they are violating the rules would have an advantage over competent attorneys.

With that the issue dropped off the radar.

That question returned to our minds when we researched our recent post on removal before service.  We came up with case after case holding that the so-called “forum defendant” rule was waivable, not jurisdictional, and thus that failure to move for remand in a case that featured complete diversity of the parties – but a defendant located in the forum state – was waiver so that the case stayed in federal court.  That means if a defendant is savvy enough to remove before service in accordance with the express terms of 28 U.S.C. §1441(b)(2), and opposing counsel is, as we said before, “asleep at the switch,” the removal succeeds regardless of a court’s substantive views on removal before service.

For example, in one of our removal before service cases, Selective Insurance Co. v. Target Corp., 2013 WL 12205696 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2013), the court held:

Plaintiff asserts §1441(b) (2) − the “forum defendant rule” − as a basis for remand, arguing that because defendant . . . is an Illinois citizen, removal was improper.  This rule is statutory, not jurisdictional, and thus may be waived or forfeited.

Id. at 1 (citing Hurley v. Motor Coach Industries, Inc., 222 F.3d 377, 379 (7th Cir. 2000)).  The cited Hurley decision held just that:

We must decide, therefore, whether the forum defendant rule is jurisdictional, in the sense we have been using the term, or if it is of a lesser status.  That question has been bouncing around the federal courts of appeals for more than 75 years, yet oddly enough it remains unresolved in this circuit.  The overwhelming weight of authority, however, is on the “nonjurisdictional” side of the debate.

Id. at 379. Hurley cited the following “overwhelming” precedent supporting the waivability of the forum defendant rule.  Snapper, Inc. v. Redan, 171 F.3d 1249, 1258 (11th Cir. 1999); Korea Exchange Bank v. Trackwise Sales Corp., 66 F.3d 46, 50 (3d Cir. 1995); In re Shell Oil Co., 932 F.2d 1518, 1522 (5th Cir. 1991); Farm Construction Services, Inc. v. Fudge, 831 F.2d 18, 21-22 (1st Cir. 1987); Woodward v. D. H. Overmyer Co., 428 F.2d 880, 882 (2d Cir. 1970); Handley-Mack Co. v. Godchaux Sugar Co., 2 F.2d 435, 437 (6th Cir. 1924), with only Hurt v. Dow Chemical Co., 963 F.2d 1142, 1145-46 (8th Cir. 1992), going the other way.

Another pre-service removal case reached the same conclusion.  The court in Almutairi v. Johns Hopkins Health System Corp., 2016 WL 97835 (D. Md. Jan. 8, 2016), stated:

I am unaware of any specific guidance from the Supreme Court or the Fourth Circuit concerning whether a motion to remand based on the “forum defendant rule” constitutes a procedural or a jurisdictional challenge to removal.  See Councell v. Homer Laughlin China Co., 823 F. Supp. 2d 370, 378 (N.D.W. Va. 2011) (recognizing that the Fourth Circuit “has yet to rule on this question…”).  However, “[o]f the ten circuits that have spoken on the issue, nine have found that removal by a forum defendant is a procedural defect, and thus waivable.”  Id.

Almutairi, 2016 WL 97835, at *5.  In addition to the cases previously cited by Hurley, Almutiari added:  Lively v. Wild Oats Markets, Inc., 456 F.3d 933, 939-40 (9th Cir. 2006), Handelsman v. Bedford Village Assocs. Ltd. Partnership, 213 F.3d 48, 50 n.2 (2d Cir. 2000), Blackburn v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 179 F.3d 81, 90 n.3 (3d Cir. 1999), and Pacheco de Perez v. AT & T Co., 139 F.3d 1368, 1372 n.4 (11th Cir. 1998).

So at least in the context of removal before service, we now unhesitatingly answer our question from 2009 in the affirmative.  By all means remove before service, even in the face of adverse precedent in some district courts.  At best, the plaintiff will miss the issue entirely and will waive any reliance on the forum defendant rule (which is waivable everywhere but in the Eighth Circuit).  At worst, (1) the case is randomly assigned to a federal who has already ruled adversely, and (2) the plaintiff seeks remand in a timely fashion.  In that situation, as our recent removal-before-service posts demonstrate, the defense side has both the upper hand in the argument, and significant appellate support.  See, e.g., Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant, Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2018 WL 3999885, at *4-5 (3d Cir. Aug. 22, 2018); Novak v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Trust Co., 783 F.3d 910, 912, 914 (1st Cir. 2015); La Russo v. St. George’s University School, 747 F.3d 90, 97 (2d Cir. 2014).  A combination of persuasive argument and recent arguments might get a fair-minded judge to change his/her mind.  Even the worst possible result – remand accompanied by an order to pay counsel fees – isn’t all bad, since the sanctions order would be immediately appealable.

But we want to make one thing perfectly clear.  Pre-service removal involves only statutory language relating to diverse “forum defendants.”  There is nothing in the statute, or in the case law, that allows the presence of a non-diverse defendant to be avoided by pre-service removal.  Pre-service removal does not make non-diverse cases diverse.  Any counsel who screws up this fundamental distinction deserves whatever sanctions a court hands out.

 

You haven’t heard of Blue Car syndrome?  Remember the last time you went car shopping. You found a particular make and model (a “blue car”) and then, like magic, you see that same “blue car” 10 times in the next week. It’s in the parking lot of your gym. It pulls up next to you in traffic. It’s even parked down the block from your house. The blue cars didn’t just suddenly appear. So what happened? It’s sometimes called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or frequency illusion. It occurs when something you’ve just noticed, like a new car, suddenly crops up everywhere. You really are seeing more blue cars, but not because there are more blue cars, but because you are now noticing them more.

That might not strictly speaking be true for us and pre-service removal — we’re pretty sure we’d notice whenever the issue came up – but it certainly feels like out of nowhere pre-service removal became a hot topic last month. No sooner did we update our research on the issue, then the Third Circuit makes a favorable ruling allowing pre-service removal. Just five days after that decision, the Northern District of Illinois does the same thing.

In Cheatham v. Abbott Laboratories Inc., — F. Supp. 3d –, 2018 WL 4095093 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 28, 2018), plaintiff, a citizen of Louisiana sued Abbott, a citizen of Illinois and Delaware, in state court in Illinois. Before the complaint was served on defendant, it removed the case to federal court and plaintiff promptly moved for remand arguing the forum defendant rule. Id. at *1-2. As with any pre-service removal case, the dispute turned on the interpretation of the “properly joined and served” language of 28 U.S.C. §1441(b)(2). If a “properly joined and served” defendant “is a citizen of the State in which [the] action is brought,” removal is not permitted. Id.

Defendant’s argument: Under the plain meaning of the statute, as defendant was not served at the time of removal, the forum defendant rule does not apply. Cheatham, at *3-4.

Plaintiff’s argument: Allowing pre-service removal undermines the purpose of the forum defendant rule to preserve the plaintiff’s choice of forum where there is no prejudice to an out-of-state party. Id. at *2-3.

That’s the debate: purpose v. plain meaning. And that is the split among the courts to have decided the issue. Although, as our recent update points out, plain meaning has been gaining ground in the recent circuit court decisions on the issue. The Cheatham decision does a nice job of setting out both arguments with citations to cases going both ways before ultimately concluding that “the statutory text must control. Courts must give effect to the clear meaning of statutes as written.” Id. at *5 (citations omitted).

Courts that have applied the “purpose” interpretation believe that it is necessary to look beyond the language of the statute to be “faithful to Congressional intent.” Id. at *3. Those courts seem to be particularly concerned by “snap removals” – where a defendant learns of the filing of a lawsuit from monitoring the docket and then immediately removes the case. In the age of online filing, docket monitoring is not new or uncommon. Plaintiff called it both improper and strategic gamesmanship. Id. at *2. But just because something is strategically advantageous to one side doesn’t make it improper. Nor does it make it gamesmanship in the sense that it is a dubious tactic.

When Congress completely re-wrote 28 U.S.C. §1441(b) in 2011 it left the “properly joined and served” language intact. If you want to talk about Congressional intent, the buck stops in 2011. In fact, the Cheatham court, like others applying the plain meaning of the statute, acknowledge that “Congress will rewrite the statute if it feels that removal where an in-forum defendant has not yet been served constitutes an abuse of the judicial system.” Id. at *5. Having left that provision in place, the forum defendant rule does not apply where the forum defendant has not been served at the time of removal.   Defendant learned of the action “before it became a forum defendant that was both properly joined and properly served,” id., and promptly removed it. There was no bending of the rules required. Diligence isn’t gamesmanship.

And, we actually don’t think pre-service removal is not a frequency “illusion” – it’s real and going in defendants’ favor.

On August 17, 2018, we observed in our latest comprehensive post on pre-service removal, that “[w]ith Court of Appeals decisions now breaking in our favor, we can start trying to change the minds of district courts that have previously gone the other way.”

And how.

On August 22 – less than a week after that post (and while Bexis was on vacation) – the Third Circuit came down strongly on the “plain meaning” side of the ledger in a removal-before-service case and flatly rejected the “absurd result” rationale that some district courts in that circuit had developed.  See Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant, Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2018 WL 3999885 (3d Cir. Aug. 22, 2018).  The court first examined the purpose of the “forum defendant” exception to removability of diverse cases and Congress’ amendment adding the “properly joined and served” language that supports pre-service removal:

We therefore turn to section 1441, which contains the forum defendant rule.  Section 1441 exists in part to prevent favoritism for in-state litigants, and discrimination against out-of-state litigants.  The specific purpose of the “properly joined and served” language in the forum defendant rule is less obvious.  The legislative history provides no guidance; however, courts and commentators have determined that Congress enacted the rule to prevent a plaintiff from blocking removal by joining as a defendant a resident party against whom it does not intend to proceed, and whom it does not even serve.

Id. at *4 (citations and quotation marks omitted).

Next, the court examined the competing arguments – “plain meaning” on the defense side, and “absurd result” on the plaintiff side. The facts were rather stark – after initially unconditionally agreeing to accept service, defense counsel notified plaintiff that he would not do so until after he had first removed the case to federal court.  Id. at *1-2.  Although “not condon[ing] this conduct between and among legal practitioners,” the district court denied remand given the express language of 21 U.S.C. §1441(b).  See Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant, 2017 WL 528255, at *2 & n.1 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 9, 2017).  The Third Circuit affirmed:

Citing this fraudulent-joinder rationale, [plaintiff] argues that it is “inconceivable” that Congress intended the “properly joined and served” language to permit an in-state defendant to remove an action by delaying formal service of process. This argument is unavailing.  Congress’ inclusion of the phrase “properly joined and served” addresses a specific problem − fraudulent joinder by a plaintiff − with a bright-line rule.  Permitting removal on the facts of this case does not contravene the apparent purpose to prohibit that particular tactic.  Our interpretation does not defy rationality or render the statute nonsensical or superfluous, because:  (1) it abides by the plain meaning of the text; (2) it envisions a broader right of removal only in the narrow circumstances where a defendant is aware of an action prior to service of process with sufficient time to initiate removal; and (3) it protects the statute’s goal without rendering any of the language unnecessary.  Thus, this result may be peculiar in that it allows [defendants] to use pre-service machinations to remove a case that it otherwise could not; however, the outcome is not so outlandish as to constitute an absurd or bizarre result.

2018 WL 3999885, *4 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).

The omitted footnotes are also significant.  First, the “general rule” that “by interpretation we should not defeat Congress’ purpose of abridging the right of removal” was “not sufficient to displace the plain meaning of the statute.”  Id. at *4 n.3 (citing and quoting Delalla v. Hanover Insurance Co., 660 F.3d 180, 189 (3d Cir. 2011)).  Second, the argument that advanced technology allowing improved docket monitoring was more properly directed to Congress than to the courts:

We are aware of the concern that technological advances since enactment of the forum defendant rule now permit litigants to monitor dockets electronically, potentially giving defendants an advantage in a race-to-the-courthouse removal scenario. . . .  If a significant number of potential defendants (1) electronically monitor dockets; (2) possess the ability to quickly determine whether to remove the matter before a would-be state court plaintiff can serve process; and (3) remove the matter contrary to Congress’ intent, the legislature is well-suited to address the issue.

Id. at *4 n.4.

The Encompass Insurance court therefore unanimously concluded that §1441(b) said what it said when it predicated the forum defendant exception on such defendants being “properly joined and served” and that courts must respect what Congress enacted:

In short, [defendant] has availed itself of the plain meaning of the statute, for which there is precedential support.  [Plaintiff] has not provided, nor have we otherwise uncovered, an extraordinary showing of contrary legislative intent.  Furthermore, we do not perceive that the result in this case rises to the level of the absurd or bizarre.  There are simply no grounds upon which we could substitute [plaintiff’s] interpretation for the literal interpretation.  Reasonable minds might conclude that the procedural result demonstrates a need for a change in the law; however, if such change is required, it is Congress − not the Judiciary − that must act.

Id. at *5.  Finally, the defendant’s previous agreement to accept service did not preclude it from delaying such acceptance until after it removed the case to federal court.  “[W]e are unconvinced that [defendant’s] conduct − even if unsavory − precludes it from arguing that incomplete service permits removal.”  Id.

Thus, the debate is over in the Third Circuit, notwithstanding the prior decisions of some district judges in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware to the contrary, and it is perfectly proper for defendants, whether “forum defendants” or otherwise, to monitor state-court dockets electronically for new lawsuits, and to remove diverse cases preemptively to federal court before the plaintiffs (often litigation tourists) can serve in-state defendants whose presence would otherwise preclude removal under §1441(b)(2).

The sound you hear is one more nail being driven in the coffin of litigation tourism.

One last thought.  Query whether, if a defendant in a case in the Third Circuit were unfortunate enough to have removed before service and suffered remand under the “absurd result” rationale rejected in Encompass Insurance, the Third Circuit’s opinion constitutes an “other paper” creating grounds for removal that would support a second removal.  While we don’t know the answer off-hand, it is a question that attorneys representing clients in that situation may want to address.

It’s been a while since we’ve discussed pre-service removal, other than to mention a recent case.  Our last major post was “What’s up with Removal Before Service,” back in May 2011.

Since then, we pointed out an important statutory development – that when Congress rewrote other parts of the removal statute (28 U.S.C. §1441(b)) in 2011, it left intact the language that, read according to its terms (often referred to as “plain meaning” in the cases), allows pre-service removal.  That’s important, because the major argument against pre-service removal is that it’s “gamesmanship” (as if joining 99 disparate plaintiffs in a single complaint isn’t) that leads to “absurd” results that Congress could not have intended.  “However, one person’s ‘gamesmanship’ is strategy to another.” Francis v. Great West Casualty Co., 2018 WL 999679, at *2 (M.D. Ga. Feb. 21, 2018).

[F]rom a policy perspective, §1441(b) protects non-forum defendants from plaintiffs’ procedural maneuvering to deprive these defendants of their statutory right to litigate in a federal forum. . . . This protection . . . is particularly important because the forum defendant rule creates an opportunity for procedural gamesmanship on the part of plaintiffs attempting to keep an action in state court, and thus blocking removal, by either improperly joining a forum defendant, or not serving the forum defendant that they have no intention of pursuing.

In Re Plavix Products Liability & Marketing Litigation, 2014 WL 4954654, at *6 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2014) (citations omitted).

That Congress, knowing full well that pre-service removal was being routinely practiced, elected to leave intact the statutory language enabling pre-service removal, makes the “absurdity” argument a much harder sell.  After all, if the statute’s language permits too much “gamesmanship,” the proper response is for Congress to amend the statute, as it did back in 1948 when the “properly joined and served” language was first added.  See Goodwin v. Reynolds, 757 F.3d 1216, 1220-21 (11th Cir. 2014) (discussing 1948 amendment).  It is not the courts’ role to usurp Congress by making ad hoc modifications of statutory language, whenever judges feel like it, particularly when Congress had the opportunity to amend the statute again in 2011, but declined to do so.

[U]nder the plain meaning of §1441(b) an out-of-state defendant, by monitoring state court dockets electronically or otherwise, can dash to the federal courthouse almost immediately with a notice of removal before the complaint is served on it and on an in-state defendant.  As a consequence of advances in technology, there may well be fewer diversity actions precluded from removal under §1441(b) than heretofore.  If this result is deemed to be bad public policy, the remedy lies with Congress which, subject to constitutional limitations, controls the scope of this court’s subject matter jurisdiction and any right of removal.

Valido-Shade v. Wyeth, LLC, 875 F. Supp.2d 474, 478 (E.D. Pa. 2012), summarily aff’d, No. 14-4608 (3d Cir. April 29, 2015).

Enough ranting (for now).  In any event, since our “What’s up” post, we’ve also written several individual posts about:

Christison v. Biogen Idec, Inc., 2011 WL 13153242 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 14, 2011)

Poznanovich v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, 2011 WL 6180026 (D.N.J. Dec. 12, 2011)

Boyer v. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 2012 WL 1449246 (E.D. Pa. April 26, 2011)

Davis v. Hoffmann-La Roche, 2014 WL 12647769 (Mag. N.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2014), adopted, 2014 WL 12647768 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2014)

Young v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 2017 WL 2774735 (D. Del. June 27, 2017)

Cheung v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 282 F. Supp.3d 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2017)

So, that’s six additional pre-service removal cases from five states since our last comprehensive post in 2011.  Let’s see how many more there are out there that we’ve missed.

The first thing we note is that some appellate authority now exists.  Since remand is unappealable (28 U.S.C. §1447(d)), appellate review is rare in remand situations.  Most recently, in Bank of New York Mellon v. Mazza, ___ F. Appx. ___, 2018 WL 3524899 (3d Cir. July 23, 2018), the court observed (albeit refraining from deciding the issue) “that every Court of Appeals to have addressed the issue has concluded that defendants in state-court actions may indeed remove them before being served with process.”  Id. at *2.  Mazza cited Novak v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Trust Co., 783 F.3d 910, 914 (1st Cir. 2015); La Russo v. St. George’s University School, 747 F.3d 90, 97 (2d Cir. 2014), and Delgado v. Shell Oil Co., 231 F.3d 165, 177 (5th Cir. 2000).

Delgado, of course, is from the antediluvian period before modern, technologically-aided pre-service removal, but the Fifth Circuit did state unequivocally that “service of process is not an absolute prerequisite to removal.”  231 F.3d at 177.  Rather, the language of §1441(b) “consciously reflect[s] a desire on the part of Congress to require than an action be commenced against a defendant before removal, but not that the defendant have been served.”  Id.  See also McCall v. Scott, 239 F.3d 808, 813 n.2 (6th Cir. 2001) (“Where there is complete diversity of citizenship . . . inclusion of an unserved resident defendant in the action does not defeat removal under 28 U.S.C. §1441(b).”).

Delgado was also cited in La Russo, where the Second Circuit held:

The argument lacks merit.  Nothing in sections 1441 or 1446 requires a removing defendant to have appeared in the state court proceeding prior to removal.  Nor is there merit in [plaintiff’s] claim that removal was improper because [a defendant] was not served.  Service of process upon a removing defendant is not a prerequisite to removal.

747 F.3d at 97 (citing not only Delgado, but also City of Ann Arbor Employees’ Retirement System v. Gecht, 2007 WL 760568, at *9 (N.D. Cal. March 9, 2007) – a modern pre-service removal case rejecting the “absurd results” argument).

Delgado was also cited in Novak, which is an even more powerful embrace of pre-service removal.  First, the First Circuit stated:

[W]e think it is clear that a defendant generally need not wait until formal receipt of service to remove.  There is no indication that . . . Congress intended to prohibit a defendant from filing a notice of removal before having been formally served

7893 F.3d at 912. A few pages later, Novak held:

[We find] no indication that a defendant was also prohibited from filing a notice of removal before service. We read the statute to contemplate otherwise.  Our interpretation thus aligns with the decisions of other federal courts that have considered this question. . . .  As far as we can tell, every one has concluded that formal service is not generally required before a defendant may file a notice of removal.  And, because Congress is presumed to be aware of an administrative or judicial interpretation of a statute and to adopt that interpretation when it re-enacts a statute without change, we find it informative that Congress made no effort to cast aside this clear consensus among federal courts when it amended §1446 in 2011 without making any substantive change to subsection (b)(1)

Id. at 914 (citations and quotation marks omitted).  In addition to Delgado and LaRusso, Novak added Whitehurst v. Wal-Mart, 306 F. Appx. 446, 448 (11th Cir. 2008) (“nothing in the removal statute, or any other legal provision, requires that a defendant be served with the complaint before filing a notice of removal”), and Sutler v. Redland Insurance Co., 2012 WL 5240124, at *2 (D. Mass. Oct. 24, 2012), another district court case recognizing pre-service removal.  With Court of Appeals decisions now breaking in our favor, we can start trying to change the minds of district courts that have previously gone the other way.

Also, since our 2011 post − although not in a pre-service removal situation − the Seventh Circuit in Morris v. Nuzzo, 718 F.3d 660 (7th Cir. 2013), helpfully noted that the “properly joined and served” language in §1446(b) creates “a service-based exception to the forum defendant rule, meaning that a properly served out-of-state defendant will not be prevented from removing a case when the plaintiff has named but not yet served a resident defendant.”  Id. at 670 n. 3.

As far as the district courts go, here is what we now have – in addition to what we found back in our 2011 post (we did miss some back then, which we’re backfilling now).  As always, we do not do the other side’s research for them, so what follows are all cases allowing pre-service removal – except for those cases we listed back in 2011:

Alabama

Seong Ho Hwang v. Gladden, 2016 WL 9334726, at *5-7 (M.D. Ala. Dec. 21, 2016); Sasser v. Florida Pond Trucking, L.L.C., 2016 WL 3774125, at *4-5 (Mag. M.D. Ala. June 24, 2016), adopted, 2016 WL 3769754 (M.D. Ala. July 14, 2016); Pathmanathan v. Jackson National Life Insurance Co., 2015 WL 4605757, at *3-5 (M.D. Ala. July 30, 2015); Goodwin v. Reynolds, 2012 WL 4732215, at *3-6 (N.D. Ala. Sept. 28, 2012), aff’d on other grounds, 757 F.3d 1216 (11th Cir. 2014); Lemley v. Midwest Automation, Inc., 2009 WL 1211382, at *1 & n.2 (S.D. Ala. May 1, 2009).

Alaska

Seeds v. ERA Alaska, 2013 WL 11311389, at *3 (D. Alaska Nov. 4, 2013).

California

Saratoga Advantage Trust Technology & Communications Portfolio v. Marvell Technology Group, Ltd., 2015 WL 9269166, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2015); Sherman v. Haynes & Boone, 2014 WL 4211118, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2014); Wilder v. Bank of America, N.A., 2014 WL 12591934, at *4 (C.D. Cal. June 30, 2014); Davis v. Hoffmann-La Roche, 2014 WL 12647769, at *2 (Mag. N.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2014), adopted, 2014 WL 12647768 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2014); Fontalvo v. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., 2013 WL 3197071, at *9-10 (S.D. Cal. June 20, 2013); Regal Stone Ltd. v. Longs Drug Stores California, L.L.C., 881 F. Supp.2d 1123, 1127-29 (N.D. Cal. 2012); May v. Haas, 2012 WL 4961235, at *2-2 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2012); Christison v. Biogen Idec, Inc., 2011 WL 13153242, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 14, 2011); Cucci v. Edwards, 510 F. Supp.2d 479, 482-84 (C.D. Cal. 2007); Waldon v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., 2007 WL 1747128, at *2-3 (N.D. Cal. June 18, 2007); City of Ann Arbor Employee’s Retirement System v. Gecht, 2007 WL 760568, at *8-9 (N.D. Cal. March 9, 2007).

Delaware

Young v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 2017 WL 2774735, at *2 (D. Del. June 27, 2017); Munchel v. Wyeth LLC, 2012 WL 4050072, at *3-4 (D. Del. Sept. 11, 2012); Hutchins v. Bayer Corp., 2009 WL 192468, at *10-11 (Mag. D. Del. Jan. 23, 2009).

District of Columbia

Middlebrooks v. Godwin Corp., 279 F.R.D. 8, 11-12 (D.D.C. 2011).

Florida

Bergmann v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 2016 WL 9414108, at *2 (N.D. Fla. Dec. 28, 2016); ViSalus, Inc. v. Then, 2013 WL 3682239, at *3 (M.D. Fla. July 12, 2013); Visalus, Inc. v. Knox, 2013 WL 3462176, at *1-2 (M.D. Fla. July 9, 2013); North v. Precision Airmotive Corp., 600 F. Supp.2d 1263, 1268-70 (M.D. Fla. 2009); Valerio v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2008 WL 3286976, at *2 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 7, 2008); Bolin v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2008 WL 3286973, at *2 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 7, 2008); Masterson v. Apotex, Corp., 2008 WL 2047979, at *2 (S.D. Fla. May 13, 2008).

Georgia

Francis v. Great West Casualty Co., 2018 WL 999679, at *2 (M.D. Ga. Feb. 21, 2018); McClain v. Bank of America Corp., 2013 WL 1399309, at *3 (S.D. Ga. April 5, 2013).

Illinois

D.C. v. Abbott Laboratories Inc., 2018 WL 4095093, at *3-5 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 28, 2018); Graff v. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Inc., 299 F. Supp.3d 928, 934-37 (N.D. Ill. 2017); Selective Insurance Co. v. Target Corp., 2013 WL 12205696, at *1 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2013); In re Pradaxa (Dabigatran Etexilate) Products Liability Litigation, 2013 WL 656822, at *3-4 (S.D. Ill. Feb. 22, 2013); Massey v. Cassens & Sons, Inc., 2006 WL 381943, at *2-3 (S.D. Ill. Feb. 16, 2006).

Indiana

In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 184 F. Supp.2d 826, 828 (S.D. Ind. 2002).

Kentucky

United Steel Supply, LLC v. Buller, 2013 WL 3790913, at 1-2 (W.D. Ky. July 19, 2013); Darsie v. Cone, 2010 WL 2923285, at *5 (E.D. Ky. July 22, 2010); Stanley v. Insights Training Group, LLC, 2009 WL 3514590, at *1-2 (W.D. Ky. Oct. 29, 2009).

Louisiana

Lewis-Wallace v. Johnson, 2018 WL 1531921, at *2 (E.D. La. March 29, 2018); Leech v. 3M Co., 278 F. Supp.3d 933, 941-43 (E.D. La. 2017); Sexton v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 2017 WL 6803443, at *2 (Mag. M.D. La. Sept. 15, 2017), adopted, 2018 WL 283259 (M.D. La. Jan. 3, 2018); Mendoza v. JLG Industries, Inc., 2016 WL 6872107, at *2 (E.D. La. Nov. 22, 2016); Gorman v. Schiele, 2016 WL 3583645, at *2-3 (Mag. M.D. La. June 8, 2016), adopted, 2016 WL 3580669 (M.D. La. June 28, 2016); Gorman v. Schiele, 2016 WL 3583640, at *5-6 (Mag. M.D. La. May 20, 2016), adopted, 2016 WL 3580669 (M.D. La. June 28, 2016); Colletti v. Bendix, 2016 WL 770646, at *2 (E.D. La. Feb. 29, 2016); Williams v. Boyd Racing LLC, 2016 WL 236993, at *3 (W.D. La. Jan. 19, 2016); Groves v. Farthing, 2015 WL 3646724, at *4-5 (E.D. La. June 10, 2015); Harvey v. Shelter Insurance Co., 2013 WL 1768658, at *2 (E.D. La. April 24, 2013).

Maryland

Al-Ameri v. Johns Hopkins Hospital, 2015 WL 13738588, at *1-2 (D. Md. June 24, 2015); Moore v. Svehlak, 2013 WL 3683838, at *15 (D. Md. July 11, 2013); Clawson v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., 451 F. Supp.2d 731, 736 (D. Md. 2006).

Massachusetts

Sutler v. Redland Insurance Co., 2012 WL 5240124, at *2 (D. Mass. Oct. 24, 2012).

Michigan

Gordon v. Home Loan Center, LLC, 2011 WL 1261179, at *7 (E.D. Mich. March 31, 2011); Revere v. MERS, 2010 WL 1541506, at *2 (E.D. Mich. April 19, 2010).

Mississippi

Holmes v. Lafayette, , 2013 WL 654449, at *1 (N.D. Miss. Feb. 21, 2013); Ott v. Consolidated Freightways Corp., 213 F. Supp.2d 662, 665-66 (S.D. Miss. 2002).

Missouri

Gray v. Monsanto Co., 2018 WL 488935, at *2 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 19, 2018); Travers v. Five Below, Inc., 2017 WL 2813320, at *2-3 (E.D. Mo. June 29, 2017); Johnson v. Emerson Electric Co., 2013 WL 5442752, at *4 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 30, 2013); Taylor v. Cottrell, Inc., 2009 WL 1657427, at *2 (E.D. Mo. June 10, 2009); Brake v. Reser’s Fine Foods, Inc., 2009 WL 213013, at *2-3 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 28, 2009); Johnson v. Precision Airmotive, LLC, 2007 WL 4289656 at *6 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 4, 2007).

Montana

Mahana v. Enerplus Resources U.S.A. Corp., 2012 WL 1947101, at *2-3 (Mag. D. Mont. May 30, 2012), adopted, 2012 WL 4748178, at *1 (D. Mont. Oct. 4, 2012).

New Jersey

In Re Plavix Products Liability & Marketing Litigation, 2014 WL 4954654, at *4-6 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2014); Westfield Insurance Co. v. Interline Brands, Inc., 2013 WL 1288194, at *2-4 (D.N.J. March 25, 2013) Poznanovich v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, 2011 WL 6180026, at *3-5 (D.N.J. Dec. 12, 2011); Jaeger v. Schering Corp., 2007 WL 3170125, at *2 (D.N.J. Oct. 25, 2007); Yocham v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., 2007 WL 2318493 at *3 (D.N.J. Aug. 13, 2007); Frick v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., 2006 WL 454360, at *3 (D.N.J. Feb. 23, 2006).

New York

Cheung v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 282 F. Supp.3d 638, 643-44 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Petit v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 2012 WL 11893525, at *1-2 (S.D.N.Y. March 23, 2012); Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC v. Goldsmith, 2011 WL 1236121, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. March 31, 2011); Deveer v. Gov’t Employees Insurance Co., 2008 WL 4443260, at *4 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 26, 2008); In re Fosamax Products Liability Litigation, 2008 WL 2940560, at *2, 5 (S.D.N.Y. July 29, 2008).

Oklahoma

Howard v. Crossland Construction Co., 2018 WL 2463099, at *2 (N.D. Okla. June 1, 2018); Magallan v. Zurich American Insurance Co., 228 F. Supp.3d 1257, 1260-62 (N.D. Okla. 2017).

Pennsylvania

Rehmeyer v. Peake Plastics Corp., 2016 WL 7375027, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 20, 2016); Figured v. Davies, 2016 WL 3148392, at *3 (M.D. Pa. June 2, 2016); Parker Hannifin Corp. v. Federal Insurance Co., 23 F. Supp. 3d 588, 594 (W.D. Pa. 2014); Hutton v. KDM Transport, Inc., 2014 WL 3353237, at *4 (E.D. Pa. July 9, 2014); Valido-Shade v. Wyeth, LLC,, 875 F. Supp.2d 474, 477-78 (E.D. Pa. 2012), summarily aff’d, No. 14-4608 (3d Cir. April 29, 2015); Zokaites Properties, LP v. La Mesa Racing, LLC, 2012 WL 3144127, at *17 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 1, 2012); Banks v. Kmart Corp., 2012 WL 707025, at *2 (E.D. Pa. March 6, 2012); Boyer v. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 2012 WL 1449246, at *2 (E.D. Pa. April 26, 2011); Copley v. Wyeth, Inc., 2009 WL 1089663, at *3 (E.D. Pa. April 22, 2009); Vanderwerf v. Glaxosmithkline, PLC, 2005 WL 6151369, at *1 (E.D. Pa. May 5, 2005).

South Carolina

Fisher v. Pelstring, 2009 WL 10664813, at *2-4 (D.S.C. Sept. 29, 2009).

Tennessee

Linder v. Medtronic, Inc., 2013 WL 5486770, at *1-2 (W.D. Tenn. Sept. 30, 2013).

Texas

Cadena v. ASI Lloyds, 2018 WL 1904839, at *3 (Mag. W.D. Tex. Jan. 5, 2018), adopted, 2018 WL 1899750 (W.D. Tex. Feb. 13, 2018); Doe v. Geo Group, Inc., 2016 WL 3004675, at *3 (W.D. Tex. May 24, 2016); Reynolds v. Personal Representative of the Estate of Johnson, 139 F. Supp.3d 838, 841-43 (W.D. Tex. 2015); Breitweiser v. Chesapeake Energy Corp., 2015 WL 6322625, at *4-7 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 20, 2015); Rios v. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., 2014 WL 12613385, at *3 (E.D. Tex. March 26, 2014); Carrs v. AVCO Corp., 2012 WL 1945629, at *1-3 (N.D. Tex. May 30, 2012).

West Virginia

Bloom v. Library Corp., 112 F. Supp.3d 498, 506 (N.D.W. Va. 2015); Konikowski v. Wheeling Island Gaming, Inc., 2012 WL 5378252, at *4 (N.D.W. Va. Oct. 31, 2012); Vitatoe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 2008 WL 3540462, at *2-5 (N.D.W. Va. Aug. 13, 2008).

*          *          *          *

Finally, while not doing the plaintiffs’ research for them, we can safely state, after reading the “absurd result” cases, that the most dangerous form of pre-service removal is by a forum defendant alone, or equivalently, in a case where only forum defendants are sued.  That’s widely seen as a direct slap at the forum defendant rule.  The next most dangerous removals are those taken by forum defendants in cases where there are also non-resident defendants.  The most sympathetic pre-service removal scenario is when the removal is initiated by a non-resident defendant – the type of party that diversity jurisdiction was originally intended to protect.  When defendants have a choice, therefore, it would be best to let the non-resident defendant carry the flag in pre-service removal cases.

One can also hope that current trends in personal jurisdiction might result in dismissal in cases where defendants previously sought to rely upon pre-service removal, since jurisdiction over one affiliated, but separate, “forum defendant” corporation no longer translates into jurisdiction over other corporate defendants.  If, as occurs often in mass tort cases, the plaintiff is also a non-resident of the jurisdiction where suit is brought, then the plaintiff may well not be able to obtain jurisdiction over the non-resident corporate defendant.

Recently, in downsizing our elderly father to a smaller residence and cleaning out his house, we came upon a cassette recording of our too-many-decades-ago Bat Mitzvah. We dug an old boom box out of the basement, listened to our sweet 13-year-old voice, and allowed the waves of nostalgia to wash over us.  We remembered the dress we wore (pink and white) and the upturned faces of our proud relatives (including all four grandparents, the first of whom would depart the very next year).  We recalled the home-cooked food at the “open house” at our home that evening (this was a different era – and tax bracket – than those occupied by cousins who have recently thrown six-figure extravaganzas for their children’s events) and the elusive (for us) sense of religious affiliation. For the thirty minutes of that cassette tape, we were transported.

Our love of nostalgia is neither new nor news. Readers of this blog know how much we love revivals of old Broadway musicals (recent:  South Pacific, Pippin, Finian’s Rainbow, Hello, Dolly; upcoming:  Carousel, My Fair Lady), and we will wax nostalgic in Connecticut this weekend at our 30th law school reunion (Guido’s torts class anecdotes, anyone?).   And we had a wistful flash when we read today’s case.  A decade ago, we were enmeshed in the earliest stages of a mass tort MDL.  Plaintiffs routinely filed in state court and, seeking to evade federal jurisdiction, sued a distributor domiciled in the state of filing (a “forum defendant”) along with our client, the manufacturer.  Trajectory permitting, we would sweep in and remove those cases before the forum defendant was served.  We called these “wrinkle removals,” because a “wrinkle” in the removal statute opened this window for us.

As one of our co-bloggers recently explained, this blog has been posting about “removal before service” since Bexis brought it to the attention of the legal community in 2007.  It’s a procedural tactic that enables defendants to remove cases to federal court despite the “forum defendant rule,” which ordinarily prohibits a defendant from removing to a case that, while it meets the requirements of diversity jurisdiction under 21 U.S.C. § 1332(a), is also pending in the home state of the defendant. Here’s the rule as codified in 21 U.S.C. § 1441(b) (2):  “A civil action otherwise removable solely on the basis of the jurisdiction under section 1332(a) of this title may not be removed if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.” (Emphasis added).

A review of our long chain of posts on this subject reveals dramatic splits among, and even within, district courts (notably, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania) on this issue. Some courts acknowledge the plain language of the statute and deny remand, while others remand in the supposed “spirit” of diversity jurisdiction.  Last week’s Southern District of New York decision in Cheung v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., et al., 2017 WL 4570792 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 12. 2017), one of the best opinions we have read on this issue, falls resoundingly in the former category.  In Cheung, the court explained that, in response to the Eliquis MDL court’s dismissal, on preemption grounds, of the first case subject to a 12(b)(6) motion, plaintiffs’ counsel voluntarily dismissed thirty-three cases and re-filed them in Delaware state court.   The defendants removed them to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, and the judge there denied motions to remand all thirty-three cases, holding that removal was proper despite the presence of a defendant domiciled in Delaware.  The same plaintiffs’ firm filed four more actions in Delaware state court, and the defendants removed those, too, and tagged them for transfer to the MDL in the Southern District of New York.  The plaintiffs waited to move for remand until the cases were transferred to the MDL, then moved to remand all four.

Denying the motions to remand, the court emphasized that “the [removal] statute prohibits removal when there are in-state defendants only when those defendants have been ‘properly joined and served.’ The specific purpose of the ‘joined and served’ requirement has been read to prevent a plaintiff from blocking removal by joining as a defendant against whom it does not intend to proceed and who it does not even serve,” Cheung, 2017 WL 4570792 at * 3 (internal punctuation and citations omitted), precisely the description of the distributor defendant in our long-ago MDL.  Noting that it was “undisputed that the defendants removed the cases before they were properly served,” id., the Court held that “a plain reading of the forum defendant rule” permitted removal. Id.

The plaintiffs “urge[d] the Court to ignore the plain reading of the statute to discourage what they term[ed] ‘gamesmanship’ by the defendants,” id., suggesting that the statute “should only be enforced when a removal occurs after a plaintiff has had a ‘meaningful chance’ to serve the [forum] defendant.” Id. They argued that upholding the removals, “which they contend[ed were] strategically done in order to evade the forum defendant rule, would be to frustrate the purpose of both diversity jurisdiction and the forum defendant rule.” Id.

But the court refused to bite. As the court emphasized, “It is well and long established that courts apply the plain meaning of unambiguous statutory language. . . . The plain language of Section 1441(b) makes clear that its ‘prohibition’ on removal applies only where a defendant who has been ‘properly joined and served’ is a resident of the forum state.” Id. at *4 (citations omitted, emphasis in original).   The court continued, “Ignoring the plain terms of the statute to determine in an individual case when a plaintiff has had meaningful opportunity to serve each defendant and to investigate the parties’ motives . . . would add expense, delay, and uncertainty to the litigation.  In cases like the ones at issue here, the investigation is complicated and points in several directions.  While the defendants no doubt removed the actions swiftly [before the forum defendant rule would prohibit removal], a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs on the issue of removal would reward a different type of gamesmanship altogether.  Instead of promptly moving before [the District of Delaware] for remand of [these] four cases, . . . [the plaintiffs] waited until the JPML had ordered the transfer to move for their remand, . . . hop[ing] for a different result.”  Id.  The court concluded, “If the plaintiffs, then, urge an interpretation of the removal statute that takes the litigants’ strategies into account, theirs may not be ignored.” Id. Remand denied, and all four cases dismissed under the same preemption arguments that had previously prevailed.

We just love this stuff. It combines all the elements that, on a good day, make this a fun job – hornbook statutory construction, chutzpah, a confident judge, and questionable opponents.  We will continue to follow the trail of this doctrine and will hope that more judges veer down this fork in the jurisprudential road.

What follows is a guest post from long-time friend of the blog Thomas J. Hurney, Jr. of Jackson Kelly PLLC in Charleston, West Virginia.  Tom comes to us today with news of an interesting – and favorable – federal court remand denial in one of the recently filed opioid litigation in his state.  It raises interesting legal issues in the context of litigation where the possibility of local prejudice makes the right of removal to federal court extremely important.  As always with our guest posts, Tom is 100% responsible for what follows.  He thus deserves all the credit and any blame.

**********

With respect (a lot) to the Drug & Device folks, removal and remand cases are pretty hard to spice up.  While these cases may cry out for humor and whimsy, this guest post with an old-school case summary will have to do the trick.

A number of governmental entities – states, counties and cities – have sued drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacists and doctors, alleging that because of their distribution, sales and prescription practices, communities have been “flooded” with opioids, resulting in “an acute epidemic of drug use and related social problems.”  Relying on tort and nuisance theories, these governmental plaintiffs seek damages to “compensate … for sums [they] expended and will be forced to expend responding to social problems caused by the opioid epidemic.”

In County Commission of McDowell County v. McKesson Corp., ___ F. Supp.3d ___, 2017 WL 2843614 (S.D.W. Va. July 3, 2017), the County Commission sued several pharmaceutical distributors, including named-defendant McKesson, and added a local physician.  The defendant distributors were all citizens and residents of states other than West Virginia.  The defendant physician was a West Virginia resident, transparently added to destroy diversity jurisdiction, so that plaintiff McDowell County could sue in (you guessed it) McDowell County Circuit Court.

The defendants removed the action, alleging the physician was fraudulent joined, and also fraudulently mis-joined, to defeat diversity.  The defendants argued that the physician was fraudulently joined because there was no possible cause of action against him, as the plaintiffs failed to serve him with a Notice of Claim and Certificate of Merit at least thirty days before filing suit, as required by the West Virginia Medical Professional Liability Act, W.Va. Code §55-7B-6.  Because this failure required dismissal of the complaint against the doctor, there was no possible existing claim, so he was therefore fraudulently joined.

Defendants also argued fraudulently mis-joinder, because “the claims against [the physician] arise out of different transactions, involve different evidence, and rest on different legal theories than the claims against the diverse defendants.”

The Plaintiff moved for remand.

Remand was denied with a scholarly opinion that literally started at the beginning. Citing Chief Justice Marshall’s decision in Strawbridge v. Custiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806), this to-be-published opinion reviewed the history of diversity jurisdiction, noting that “[t]he rule of complete diversity appears nowhere in the statute.” Although diversity jurisdiction has existed since the First Judiciary Act of 1789, it has “always been the subject of some controversy,” with the stated reasons for diversity jurisdiction including local prejudice and perhaps a desire to protect creditors from state legislation favorable to debtors.  “In the early days of the republic, at least in Virginia [of which West Virginia was a part before 1863], prejudice was palpable.  The state courts there were notoriously hostile to foreign merchants.”  As an example, state juries were permitted to deny interest on a debt judgment for a creditor, effectively removing the profit from the transaction.  Id. at *1.

The reference to “local prejudice” as a basis for diversity jurisdiction is telling, since McDowell Co. v. McKesson is precisely the type of litigation that, these days, highly likely to raise this concern, that being a local municipality suing in its home court seeking recovery of damages that would (among other things) be likely to reduce local jurors’ taxes.

Concerning the trend in federal courts against diversity jurisdiction, the opinion pointed out that “[i]n recent times, crowded federal dockets, a dearth of evidence showing the existence of state court prejudice, and continuing doubts about the utility of diversity jurisdiction have pushed federal courts in the direction of limiting it.”  Consciously bucking that trend, the decision defended the importance of diversity jurisdiction, stating

Nevertheless, Congress has created diversity jurisdiction and a litigant whose case comes within it has a right to be in federal court. As the Supreme Court has said:  “[T]he Federal courts may and should take such action as will defeat attempts to wrongfully deprive parties entitled to sue in the Federal courts of the protection of their rights in those tribunals.”  In re Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Mktg., Sales Practices and Prods. Liab. Litig., 2016 WL 7339811 at *3 fn.4 (D.S.C. Oct. 24, 2016) (quoting Alabama Great S. Ry. Co. v. Thompson, 200 U.S. 206, 218 (1906)).  Therefore, if diversity jurisdiction is to be assigned to oblivion, it is Congress, not the courts who should send it there.  Here, where the opioid epidemic is pervasive and egregious, there is at least a possibility of prejudice to the defendants at the hands of a jury drawn exclusively from the very county that is the plaintiff in this suit.  A federal jury casts a wider net and is drawn from a division composing several counties.  All may have an opioid problem, but not one that is specific to the plaintiff county.

Id. at *2.

Turning to the analysis of the defendants’ removal, the court provided a concise review of the fraudulent joinder and mis-joinder doctrines.  “Fraudulent joinder is applicable where a defendant seeking removal argues that other defendants were joined when there is no possible cause of action against those defendants or where the complaint pled fraudulent facts,” whereas “[f]raudulent misjoinder . . . is an assertion that claims against certain defendants, while provable, have no real connection to the claims against other defendants in the same action and were only included in order to defeat diversity jurisdiction and removal.”  Id. (citing Wyatt v. Charleston Area Med. Ctr., 651 F. Supp.2d 492, 496 (S.D.W. Va. 2009)).

Thus, “[i]n order to establish fraudulent joinder in a particular case, a removing defendant must show either (1) there is no possibility that the plaintiff can establish a cause of action against the removing defendant, or (2) that there has been outright fraud in plaintiff’s pleading of jurisdiction. Id. The claim against the doctor, therefore, requires remand “[i]f the plaintiff demonstrates a mere ‘glimmer of hope’ that its claim will succeed.  Id. at *3 (quoting Hartley v. CSX Transp., Inc., 187 F.3d 422, 424-26 (4th Cir. 1999)). However, “[t]his is the rare case that fits the ‘no possibility of recovery’ rubric.” Id.

The court agreed that the physician was fraudulently joined because McDowell County did not serve him with a notice of claim and screening certificate of merit at least 30 days before suing him as required by the Medical Professional Liability Act, W.Va. Code §55-7B-6 (MPLA).

West Virginia Code § 55-7B-6, imposes a series of procedural prerequisites for filing a medical malpractice claim.  The plaintiff, in such a case, is required, at least thirty days prior to filing suit, to service notice on the defendant of his intention to bring suit.  The notice must contain a ‘screening certificate of merit’ executed under oath by a qualified expert.’  If this requirement is not met, the case must be dismissed.

Id.  The MPLA plainly applied to the allegations of improper prescription by the doctor – “[i]t can hardly be questioned that writing prescriptions for controlled medication are acts done within the context of rendering health care services,” as defined in the MPLA.  Id.

Finding that state law requiring pre-suit requirements are jurisdictional (citing Flagg v. Stryker Corp., 819 F.3d 132, 137-38 (5th Cir. 2016) (en banc) [ed. note, we blogged about Flagg here], and Robinson v. Mon, 2014 WL 4161965, at *8 (S.D.W. Va. Aug. 19, 2014)), the court concluded “there is no possibility of recovery by the plaintiff against [the doctor] in this civil action as it presently stands” and the dismissed the county’s claim against him without prejudice.  Id.

That was not all.  Aiming to prevent a recurrence of this kind of jurisdictional subterfuge (remember the “local prejudice” point), the court further found that the local prescribing physician was fraudulently mis-joined because the claims against him for improperly prescribing some opioids were attenuated from the claim that the distributors “flooded” the market.

Fraudulent joinder assumes that the claim against the nondiverse defendant is sufficiently related to the claims against the diverse defendant to have been properly joined in the same lawsuit.  Such is not the case with the related, but distinct, doctrine of fraudulent misjoinder.  Here, the inquiry is whether claims against the diverse and non-diverse defendants are sufficiently related to be properly joined in a single case.

Id.

Upon review of cases adopting misjoinder, the court found the Fourth Circuit has “not accepted nor rejected the doctrine” but noted several District Courts had done so (commending the reader to the list of cases in In re Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Mktg., Sales Practices and Prods. Liab. Litig., 2016 WL 7339811 at *3 fn.4 (D.S.C. Oct. 24, 2016)).  Id. at *4.  Since the propriety of joinder is a state law question, the court looked to Rule 20 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure, governing joinder, and cases on its federal counterpart.  “Under Federal Rule 20 and the corresponding West Virginia rule, the claims, to be properly joined, must (1) arise out of the same transaction or occurrence, and (2) present a question of law or fact common to all defendants.”  The court declined to apply a “heightened standard” similar to fraudulent joinder adopted in In re Lipitor (“[T]o establish fraudulent misjoinder, the removing party was required to show either outright fraud, or that there was no possibility that the plaintiff would be able to join the diverse and non-diverse claims”), instead finding “[t]he prevailing standard is whether there is a ‘reasonable possibility that a state court would find that [the plaintiffs’] claims against [one set of defendants] were properly joined with [the] claims against the other defendants.’” Id.

The court contrasted Wyatt v. Charleston Area Med. Ctr., a medical device case where the court found that product liability and malpractice claims arose “out of the same occurrence – the plaintiff’s surgery ‘and the after effects of that surgery,’” with Hughes v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 2009 WL 2877424 (N.D.W. Va. Sept. 3, 2009), where the court found that the plaintiff, who fell off a treadmill, couldn’t combine product claims against the treadmill manufacturer with malpractice claims against the emergency room physician who misdiagnosed her injuries.  “[The emergency room doctor] had no control over the allegedly defective product.”  Id. at *5.

In the case before the court, there was no basis for a persuasive argument that the medical malpractice and products liability claims arose out of the same transaction or occurrence.  Moreover, “the evidence supporting these claims will be markedly different.”  Id.  McDowell County’s claims were more like Hughes than Wyatt, since:

 In this case, the connection, if any, between the actions of the corporate defendants, who allegedly flooded the market with opioids, and the doctor, who prescribed some of them, is far more attenuated than any connection between the manufacturers and seller of the treadmill in Hughes and the subsequent misdiagnosis by the treating physician.

Id.

Thus, the McDowell opinion concluded,

Since there is no possibility of recovery against [the doctor] in this case, he has been fraudulently joined. Additionally, the court finds no common questions of law or fact in plaintiff’s claims against the corporate defendants and the claims against [the doctor].  The cases against each are separate and distinct. Accordingly, [the doctor] has also been fraudulently misjoined. The Motion to Remand is therefore DENIED.  Since the court lacks jurisdiction over plaintiff’s claims against [the doctor] this action, insofar as it relates to [him], is dismissed without prejudice.

Id.

This remand ruling eliminates one possible jurisdictional ploy to defeat diversity. There are, however, others, and we will have to see what happens next.

This post comes from the Cozen O’Connor side of the blog.

We’ve been blogging about “removal before service” since we announced it to the world in 2007.  It’s a procedural tactic that enables defendants to remove cases to federal court despite the “forum defendant rule,” which ordinarily prohibits a defendant from removing to federal court a case that, while it meets the requirements of diversity jurisdiction under 21 U.S.C. § 1332(a), is also pending in the home state of the defendant. Here’s the rule as codified in 21 U.S.C. § 1441(b) (2):

A civil action otherwise removable solely on the basis of the jurisdiction under section 1332(a) of this title may not be removed if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.

(Emphasis added).

We emphasized the phrase “properly joined and served” because that’s the basis for “removal before service.” Defendants have had success, in certain courts before certain judges, arguing that this phrase should be interpreted according to its plain terms and that, therefore, a defendant who has not yet been served can remove a case on diversity jurisdiction grounds even if the case is in its home state court.

The court in Young v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98736 (D. Del. June 27, 2017), is one of the courts that accepts this argument. Young was one of 33 cases in the Eliquis drug litigation that plaintiffs’ lawyers had filed in the Superior Court of Delaware. Each plaintiff and the two defendants, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer, were citizens of different states, suggesting that the cases were ripe for removal to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. But BMS and Pfizer are citizens of Delaware (as are so many corporations), implicating the forum defendant rule’s bar to removal of diversity cases.

But, as the Young court put it, all of this occurred “before Plaintiffs served (or, due to Superior Court procedures, could have served) their complaints on Defendants.” Id. at *2. The defendants had an opportunity. And they took it. They immediately removed the cases to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware where they had the good fortune of drawing a judge who had previously blessed “removal before service”—and did so again:

The undersigned judge has had several occasions to consider this issue. Having done so again, the Court sees no reason here to depart from its previously-adopted reasoning. See Munchel, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128971, 2012 WL 4050072; Hutchins, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4719, 2009 WL 192468. As in Munchel and Hutchins, the Court views the plain and unambiguous language of § 1441(b) as controlling. Section 1441(b)(2) provides that a case in which there is diversity jurisdiction “may not be removed if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.” Here, there is diversity jurisdiction, but because there was no service on any defendant before removal, none “of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen” of “the State in which [this] action” was brought, i.e., Delaware. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2) (emphasis added).

Id. at *5 (emphasis in original). And so we have yet another decision approving “removal of service” under the plain terms of the statute.

In this instance, the Court suggested that it had an additional reason to rule the way it did. The plaintiffs had already engaged in forum-selection tactics of their own. The cases were originally filed in California state court, not Delaware. The defendants, who were not California citizens, promptly removed the cases to a federal court in California and started the process to transfer the cases to the Eliquis MDL, a place that plaintiffs most certainly did not want to be. So—and here it comes—the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed all 33 cases. They then re-filed the cases, the very same day, in Delaware state court, a court from which they hoped the forum defendant rule would hamstring defendants from once again removing the cases to federal court. Id. at *1-2.

This history of forum shopping clearly influenced the Court’s decision on plaintiffs’ motion to remand:

Additionally, given the history of these cases — including that Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed cases originally filed in California state court, seemingly (at least in part) to avoid transfer to the MDL — removal is not a nonsensical result. To the contrary, the totality of circumstances strongly supports exercising discretion to deny Plaintiffs’ motions to remand.

Id. at *4-5.

So the “removal before service” option lives on, at least in some courts. And Young offers precedent for an argument that “removal before service” may be even more appropriate when the history of the case suggests that the plaintiff had already engaged in some sort of procedural maneuvering before the case was even removed.