Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-05031/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-05031-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 365
Nature of Suit: Personal Injury - Product Liability
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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Because the Court need not consider Defendant John McNamee's

joinder in Morbark's opposition or James Mills' declaration in

support of the opposition in deciding this motion, Plaintiffs'

objection to them is overruled as moot. (Docket No. 43).

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MACARIA CALMO PEREZ; and SANTOS M.

CALMO, a minor; BONIFACIO E. CALMO, 

a minor; ELIZABETH M. CALMO, a minor;

by and through their Guardian ad

Litem JEFFREY MILES BRYANT,

Plaintiffs,

v.

JOHN MCNAMEE; MORBARK, INC., a

Corporation; EDWIN DISSOSWAY; NANCY

PUZZIFERRI and DOES 1 through 500,

Defendants.

 /

No. C 06-5031 CW

ORDER DENYING

MOTION TO REMAND

Plaintiffs move to remand this removed action to State court

and request attorneys' fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). Defendant

Morbark filed an opposition, in which the other named Defendants

join.1

 The matter was decided on the papers. Having considered

the parties' papers, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs' motion.

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 1 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are the surviving spouse and children of Norberto

Garcia. They are residents and citizens of Guatemala. Garcia

suffered fatal injuries on January 17, 2005, while operating a wood

chipper manufactured by Defendant Morbark, Inc., a corporation

incorporated and with its principal place of business in Michigan. 

Garcia was working for Defendant John McNamee, an unlicensed

contractor, at the time of the incident. McNamee is a resident of

California. McNamee had been hired to do work at the property of

Defendants Edwin Dissosway and Nancy Puzziferri, where the incident

occurred. Defendants allege that Dissosway and Puzziferri are

residents of Texas. Plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that

Dissosway and Puzziferri are residents of California but now appear

to concede that these defendants are not California residents as

Plaintiffs originally believed. See Reply at 2. 

Plaintiffs filed a wrongful death claim in Alameda County

Superior Court on April 19, 2006, but did not serve this complaint

on any of the defendants. On July 28, 2006, they filed their first

amended complaint which named Morbark, Dissosway, Puzziferri,

McNamee and Does 1-500 as defendants. Morbark was served with the

first amended complaint on or about August 1, 2006. On August 21,

Morbark filed a notice of removal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441 and

28 U.S.C. § 1332. 

Attached to the notice of removal was a letter from counsel

for Defendants Dissosway and Puzziferri, addressed to counsel for

Morbark, indicating that they did not object to Morbark filing the

notice. Also attached was a letter, dated August 21, 2005, from 

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 2 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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McNamee's counsel, James Mills, stating that his client "consents"

to Morbark's removal of the case. Morbark Notice of Removal

Exhibit D. At the time Morbark filed the notice, none of the other

defendants had been served. On September 7, 2006, over two weeks

after the notice of removal was filed by Morbark, Plaintiffs'

counsel delivered the first amended complaint to Mills with a

waiver of service form. Plaintiffs' Exhibit A. Plaintiffs state

that they did this because Mills, who represented McNamee in a

related workers compensation case brought by Plaintiffs, instructed

that all communication and documents were to be directed to Mills.

LEGAL STANDARD

 A defendant may remove a civil action filed in State court to

federal district court so long as the district court could have

exercised original jurisdiction over the matter. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1441(a). The defendant must file a notice of removal within

thirty days of being served with the initial pleading or summons. 

28 U.S.C. § 1446(b). "The 'strong presumption' against removal

jurisdiction means that the defendant always has the burden of

establishing that removal is proper." Gaus v. Miles, Inc., 980

F.2d 564, 566 (9th Cir. 1992). 

 District courts have original jurisdiction over all civil

actions "where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value

of $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between . . . 

citizens of different States." 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). However, any

civil action of which the district courts have original

jurisdiction founded on diversity "shall be removable only if none

of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 3 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought." 28

U.S.C. § 1441(b). 

 On granting a motion to remand, the court may order the

defendant to pay the plaintiff its "just costs and any actual

expenses, including attorney fees, incurred as a result of the

removal." 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). The district court is given "wide

discretion" by § 1447(c) to determine whether to award fees. Moore

v. Permanente Med. Group, Inc., 981 F.2d 443, 447 (9th Cir. 1992);

see also Gotro v. R. & B. Realty Group, 69 F.3d 1485, 1487 (9th

Cir. 1995). 

DISCUSSION

Plaintiffs do not dispute that the Court has original

jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship. Rather, Plaintiffs

argue that Defendant McNamee was a properly joined party at the

time the notice of removal was filed, and therefore that removal

was improper under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) because he is a citizen of

the forum State. 

Defendants counter that, because McNamee had not been served

at the time the case was removed, the fact that he is a resident of

the forum State should be ignored for purposes of removability. 

Plaintiffs reply (1) that the statutory language requiring that the

resident defendant be served in order to prevent removal should not

be strictly applied in this case and (2) that McNamee's counsel's

letter indicating that he consented to removal of the case

constituted an appearance in the case and, therefore, he waived

service prior to removal.

Plaintiffs claim that the language in § 1441(b) should not

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 4 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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Under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b), a defendant must file its notice

of removal within thirty days of service.

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always be strictly applied, citing Holstrom v. Harad, 2005 U.S.

Dist. LEXIS 16694 (N.D. Ill. 2005). In Holstrom, a Northern

District of Illinois court adopted a Texas district court's limited

rule ignoring the lack of service of the resident defendant "where

no defendant had been served prior to removal." 2005 U.S. Dist.

LEXIS at *5. In adopting that rule, the Illinois court noted that

"[t]he purpose of the 'joined and served' requirement is 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 *6. The plaintiff could then

dismiss its claims against the resident defendant after the nonresident's thirty-day period for removal had elapsed.2

Accordingly, the court found that "the protection afforded by the

'joined and served' requirement is wholly unneccessary for an

unserved non-forum defendant" because the thirty-day period for

removal had not yet begun to run nor had any defendant been

required to appear in court. Id. at *6-*7.

Plaintiffs equate what they term the unserved defendant's

"preemptive strike" in Holstrom to the situation in the present

case "where efforts to effect service upon all defendants were

underway and one defendant simply responds more quickly that the

others." Plaintiffs' Memorandum of Points and Authorities at 8. 

Plaintiffs also note that they were in compliance with California

Rule of Court 201.7(b), which requires plaintiffs to file a proof

of service on each defendant within sixty days from the filing of a

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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complaint. 

However, Plaintiffs fail to acknowledge that Defendant Morbark

was bound by the thirty-day period to file a notice of removal. 

Morbark did not file its notice of removal until August 21, three

weeks after it was served with the amended complaint and well into

its thirty-day period to file for removal. Further, Plaintiffs did

not deliver the first amended complaint and the request for waiver

of service to McNamee's counsel until September 7, over two weeks

after the notice of removal was filed. The Court finds that, as in

Republic Western Insurance Co. v. International Insurance Co., 765

F. Supp. 628, 629 (N.D. Cal. 1991), "the language of § 1441(b)

mandates the finding that this case was properly removed." 

In support of their second argument, that even if McNamee was

not served at the time the removal was noticed, he waived service

when his counsel wrote to Morbark's counsel consenting to the

removal on his behalf, Plaintiffs cite RCA Corp. v. Superior Court,

47 Cal. App. 3d 1007 (1975). In that case, the defendant filed a

motion to dismiss the action after the plaintiff failed to file the

return of service within three years as required by California law. 

Id. at 1009-1010. The court found that the parties' unfiled

stipulation extending the time for defendant to appear in the case

constituted an appearance by the defendant in the case. Id. at

1010. In reaching that conclusion, the court noted that an

appearance can "be express or arise by implication from the

defendant's seeking, taking, or agreeing to some step or proceeding

in the cause beneficial to himself or detrimental to the plaintiff,

other than one contesting the jurisdiction only." Id. at 1009

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 6 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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(internal quotation omitted).

However, in RCA, the defendant clearly took a step beneficial

to itself and potentially detrimental to the plaintiff when it

allowed itself more time to respond to the plaintiff's complaint. 

Here, McNamee's action is ambiguous. The document in question is a

letter from his attorney to Morbark's attorney, not a stipulation

between McNamee and Plaintiffs, and it is not clear that the

consent to Morbark's notice of removal was intended to benefit

McNamee or to be detrimental to Plaintiffs. Rather, the action was

taken to benefit Morbark, the only Defendant served at the time. 

Further, as Defendants point out, McNamee's letter is more

analogous to the affidavit filed in support of a co-defendant's

motion for change of venue that was not considered an appearance in

Slaybaugh v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, 70 Cal. App. 3d

216 (1977). There, the court noted, "It is not every affidavit or

appearance as a witness which will render one an appearing party to

an action" and pointed out that Slaybaugh had "filed no pleading"

in the case. Id. at 223-24. Although McNamee arguably acted more

as a potential party than as a witness in the present case by

noting his assent to another party's action than did the defendant

in Slaybaugh by simply stating his residence, it is clear that

McNamee had not filed any pleadings in the case at the time of the

notice of removal. 

The Court finds that the letter from McNamee's counsel to

Morbark's counsel was not a general appearance. Therefore, McNamee

was not a properly joined and served party at the time of the

notice of removal. Because the Court finds that the notice of

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 7 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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removal was proper and that McNamee had not been served at the time

of the notice, it need not reach Defendants' alternative argument

that McNamee was fraudulently joined. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court denies Plaintiffs' motion

to remand the action to State court (Docket No. 26). Plaintiffs'

motion for attorneys' fees pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) is

consequently denied. A case management conference will be held on

December 15, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. The parties shall file a joint case

management statement one week prior to this date. 

 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 11/30/06 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

Case 3:06-cv-05031-BZ Document 48 Filed 11/30/06 Page 8 of 8