Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-04575/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-04575-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 367
Nature of Suit: TORTS - Personal Injury - Health Care/Pharmaceutical Personal Injury/Product Liability
Cause of Action: 28:1446 Petition for Removal

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IN RE: ROUNDUP PRODUCTS 

LIABILITY LITIGATION

MDL No. 2741

Case No. 16-md-02741-VC

This document relates to: 

Cichy v. Monsanto Co., 19-cv-4575

PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 191:

GRANTING MOTION TO REMAND

Re: Dkt. No. 5228

Keith Cichy, a citizen of Illinois, moves to remand this case to state court. In 2008, Cichy 

was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, allegedly from exposure to Roundup. See

Complaint ¶ 74, Dkt. No. 5228-2. He filed this action in the Circuit Court of Cook County, 

Illinois, where he brought claims of design defect, failure to warn, and negligence against 

Monsanto Co. and Bayer Corp. Id. ¶¶ 75–185.

Cichy also raised medical malpractice claims against three Illinois defendants:

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, and Dr. Olga 

Frankfurt. Id. ¶¶ 186–278. These healthcare defendants treated Cichy’s acute myeloid leukemia

with a stem-cell transplant. Id. ¶ 192. To guard against the risk of infection, the healthcare 

defendants prescribed Voriconazole, an antifungal medication, in January 2009. Id. ¶ 200. After 

more than nine years of on-and-off use of Voriconazole, Cichy was informed in July 2018 that 

overexposure to the drug could be causing his painful skin injuries. Id. ¶ 209.

The existence of Cichy on one side of the litigation, and the healthcare defendants on the 

other, would typically defeat the complete diversity necessary for subject-matter jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). See Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U.S. 61, 68 (1996). Monsanto 

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nonetheless removed this case under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) on the ground that Cichy both

fraudulently joined and fraudulently misjoined the healthcare defendants. Monsanto has not 

carried its heavy burden of establishing either exception to the traditional requirement of 

complete diversity. Accordingly, the motion to remand is granted.

Cichy and Monsanto dispute whether the precedent of the Ninth Circuit or the Seventh 

Circuit governs the federal-law aspects of this motion. As explained in a prior order, the 

precedent of the Ninth Circuit is binding on issues of federal law. See Pretrial Order No. 158, 

Dkt. No. 4549. Subject-matter jurisdiction implicates a body of “unitary federal law” and thus 

presents neither a choice-of-law issue nor an opportunity for deference to the transferor circuit’s 

precedents. In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of September 1, 1983, 829 F.2d 1171, 1174–76 

(D.C. Cir. 1987) (R.B. Ginsburg, J.); accord Newton v. Thomason, 22 F.3d 1455, 1460 (9th Cir. 

1994).

A non-diverse defendant is fraudulently joined if there is no possibility that the state court 

would hold that defendant liable. See Grancare, LLC v. Thrower by and through Mills, 889 F.3d 

543, 548 (9th Cir. 2018). As the Ninth Circuit recently clarified, the party asserting fraudulent 

joinder must satisfy “the ‘wholly insubstantial and frivolous’ standard for dismissing claims 

under” Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). Id. at 549 (quoting Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 

682–83 (1946)). That rigorous burden has been met in this circuit “where a defendant 

demonstrates that a plaintiff is barred by the statute of limitations from bringing claims against 

that defendant.” Id. Monsanto contends that this case fits into that line of cases because the 

statute of limitations plainly bars Cichy’s medical-malpractice claims against the healthcare 

defendants.

Cichy’s argument why the statute of limitations does not bar his claims against the 

healthcare defendants is not wholly insubstantial or frivolous. As all parties agree, Illinois law 

governs these medical-malpractice claims. Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612, 639 (1964).

Illinois imposes a two-year statute of limitations and a four-year statute of repose on medicalmalpractice claims. 735 ILCS 5/13-212(a). Monsanto argues that the clock began to run once 

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Cichy was diagnosed with Bowen’s disease (an early form of skin cancer) in April 2015, well 

before the filing of the complaint in March 2019. But Illinois law provides that the statute of 

limitations does not begin to run until the end of a continuous course of negligent treatment.

Cunningham v. Huffman, 154 Ill. 2d 398, 405-07 (1993). Cichy contends that the defendants’ 

prescription of Voriconazole from January 2009 to July 2018 represents a series of related 

negligent acts. Assessing the viability of Cichy’s theory under Cunningham would require what a 

federal court may not perform: “a searching inquiry into the merits of the plaintiff’s case.” 

Grancare, 889 F.3d at 549. The healthcare defendants therefore were not fraudulently joined.

The concept of fraudulent misjoinder comes from Tapscott v. MS Dealer Service Corp.,

77 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 1996). In that decision, the Eleventh Circuit held that a non-diverse 

defendant has been fraudulently joined if that defendant has “no real connection with the 

controversy” between the plaintiff and the diverse defendant. Id. at 1360 (quoting Wilson v. 

Republic Iron & Steel Co., 257 U.S. 92, 97 (1921)). Tapscott thus authorizes federal courts to

disregard a potentially meritorious claim against a non-diverse defendant on the ground that the 

actions should be proceeding separately—one in state court, and one in federal court. Notably, 

the Ninth Circuit has not yet adopted the rule from Tapscott. This Court has also expressed its 

misgivings on the propriety of adjudicating claims of fraudulent misjoinder. See Pretrial Order 

No. 157 at 6 n.2, Dkt. No. 4533. But even assuming fraudulent misjoinder can be a basis for 

disregarding these non-diverse defendants, Monsanto has not carried its burden in this case.

Contrary to Monsanto’s argument, fraudulent misjoinder is judged by reference to state 

procedural law. A defendant has been wrongfully deprived of its right to removal only if the nondiverse co-defendant shouldn’t have been joined in the state proceeding. See Osborn v. 

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 341 F. Supp. 2d 1123, 1128–29 (E.D. Cal. 2014). It would turn 

the presumption against removal on its head to declare that a defendant properly joined under 

state law was “misjoined” in state court because Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 would 

dictate a different result upon removal to federal court.

Under Illinois law, a plaintiff may join defendants “against whom a liability is asserted 

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either jointly, severally or in the alternative arising out of the same transaction or series of 

transactions, regardless of the number of causes of action joined.” 735 ILCS 5/2-405(a). In this 

respect, Illinois law is “similar to federal law.” Alegre v. Aguayo, 2007 WL 141891, at *6 (N.D. 

Ill. Jan. 17, 2007). But Illinois law also provides that when “the plaintiff is in doubt as to the 

person from whom he or she is entitled to redress, he or she may join two or more defendants.” 

735 ILCS 5/2-405(c). In the spirit of liberal joinder, the Illinois Supreme Court has encouraged 

plaintiffs to join defendants from “closely related” yet distinct transactions. Boyd v. Travelers 

Insurance Co., 166 Ill. 2d 188, 198–99 (1995).

Cichy’s joinder of claims that he suffered injuries from his cancer and from the negligent 

treatment of his cancer is not “so egregious” an application of state joinder rules to be 

tantamount to fraud. Tapscott, 77 F.3d at 1360. Consider that if the injuries from the exposure to 

Voriconazole were a foreseeable result of the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, those harms

might be attributable to Monsanto’s allegedly tortious conduct. No doubt, upon its return to state 

court, Monsanto may prevail on its argument that these claims are too attenuated to be joined 

together under Illinois law. But that possibility only underscores the wisdom of moving for 

severance in state court prior to removal of the action to federal court.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21 does not permit an end-run around the narrowly 

cabined doctrine of fraudulent joinder and the already-questionable doctrine of fraudulent 

misjoinder. Some courts have reached a different conclusion. See, e.g., Kelly v. Amylin 

Pharmaceuticals, LLC, 2014 WL 1249549, at *5 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 8, 2014). But federal 

jurisdiction is measured from the time of removal, and “[t]he Court can’t exercise jurisdiction it 

doesn’t have for the purpose of creating federal jurisdiction.” Pretrial Order No. 157 at 6. Nor 

should Rule 21 be given an interpretation that “sanction[s] improper removals.” Allen v. FDIC, 

710 F.3d 978, 984–85 (9th Cir. 2013).

Having secured an order remanding this case, Cichy requests costs and attorney’s fees 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). This award would be appropriate only if Monsanto lacked an 

objectively reasonable basis for removing this case. Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp., 546 U.S. 

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132, 141 (2005). Some courts presented with arguably similar facts—a products liability claim 

against a manufacturer and a medical malpractice claim against a healthcare provider—have 

deemed the defendants fraudulently misjoined. See, e.g., Sutton v. Davol, Inc., 251 F.R.D. 500, 

504–05 (E.D. Cal. 2008). Although the Court does not agree those decisions, Monsanto had a leg 

to stand on when it filed its notice of removal. Cichy’s request for costs and attorney’s fees is 

denied.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 19, 2019

______________________________________

VINCE CHHABRIA

United States District Judge

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