As readers of this blog know, we’ve been strangely fascinated by the spat over whether in-state defendants (whose presence in a lawsuit would ordinarily prevent removal) can remove actions to federal court before those defendants are served with the complaint.
For examples of our fascination, see here, here, here, and here.
Removal Before Service
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Story Before (More On Pre-Service Removals)

On the one hand, there’s the plain language of the statute.
On the other hand, some courts think that a literal reading of the statute would yield “a bizarre result” that “cannot possibly have been the intent of the legislature.”
So some courts follow the language, and others ignore it. The law becomes a muddle.…
Of Pre-Service Removals, Yet Again

When we get ourselves worked up in a lather, we just won’t stop.
We saw the case of Thomson v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 06-6280 (JBS), 2007 WL 1521138 (D.N.J. May 22, 2007), last year, and couldn’t believe that the world had overlooked the issue: Plaintiff files a complaint naming multiple defendants in, say,…
More On Removing NJ Cases Before the NJ Defendant is Served
Thomson v. Novartis Fallout: Judge Higbee Reacts

We posted (and again here) earlier this week about the New Jersey federal trial court decision in Thomson v. Novartis, which permitted defendants to remove seemingly non-removable diversity cases, so long as the cases were removed before plaintiff effected service on the in-state defendants.
We saw room for mischief there. (Indeed, folks on…
Thomson v. Novartis: More News to Come

We posted about Thomson v. Novartis on Sunday, noting that it was an odd case analyzing an unusual removal issue.
The Civil Procedure Prof Blog saw our post and agreed that the issue was unusual.
Apparently, however, the issue won’t be unusual for long. We received this note from a reader:
I read your post…
How’d The World Miss This? Thomson v. Novartis

This post does not announce late-breaking news. Given the speed at which information travels on the web, an opinion decided in May is ancient history. But the world seems to have overlooked the implications of Thomson v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 06-6280 (JBS), 2007 WL 1521138 (D.N.J. May 22, 2007), so we’re here to…