Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-21-14494/USCOURTS-ca11-21-14494-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Matt Holman
Appellee
Knollwood Nursing Home, LLC
Appellant
Leslie McDuffie
Appellant
Stacie Mroczko
Appellant

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-14494

____________________

MATT HOLMAN, 

Administrator of the Estate of 

Edna Diane Holman, deceased, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

KNOLLWOOD NURSING HOME, LLC, 

STACIE MROCZKO, 

Therapy Director, 

LESLIE MCDUFFIE, 

Business Office Manager, 

Defendants-Appellants,

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2 Opinion of the Court 21-14494

KNOLLWOOD HEALTHCARE, LLC,

Defendant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Alabama

D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-00130-KD-N

____________________

Before NEWSOM, LUCK, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This appeal presents the question whether the federal courts 

have subject matter jurisdiction over a state-law tort suit arising 

out of the death of a nursing-home patient during the COVID-19 

pandemic. The defendants point to three possible bases for subject 

matter jurisdiction: complete preemption, the embedded-federalquestion doctrine, and federal-officer removal. But our recent decision in Schleider v. GVDB Operations, LLC, 121 F.4th 149 (11th Cir. 

2024), forecloses all three. Accordingly, the district court’s order 

remanding the case to state court is AFFIRMED.

I

In mid-2020, at the height of the pandemic, Edna Holman 

contracted COVID-19 and died. She had been a resident of a rehabilitation facility in Mobile, Alabama called Knollwood Nursing 

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21-14494 Opinion of the Court 3

Home. According to the administrator of her estate, Holman contracted the disease after the nursing home put another patient, who 

was already suffering from COVID-19, into Holman’s room.

This lawsuit started in the Circuit Court of Mobile County, 

Alabama. Matt Holman—the estate administrator—sued Knollwood Nursing Home, LLC,1 two nursing-home staff members, 

and several other entities. The complaint included various statelaw tort claims alleging negligence and wrongful death; it expressly 

disclaimed the presence of any federal question. It alleged that 

Edna Holman had been a resident of Alabama at the time of her 

death and that the two staff members were residents of Alabama.

Knollwood removed the case to the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Alabama. It asserted that the 

district court possessed jurisdiction based on “(i) express jurisdictional preemption; (ii) Grable doctrine jurisdictional preemption; 

and (iii) Federal officer jurisdiction.” Holman moved to remand to 

state court, insisting that the suit’s “causes of action are brought 

under the Wrongful Death Statute of the State of Alabama and the 

Common Law.” A magistrate judge recommended that Holman’s 

motion for remand be granted, and the district court agreed.

1 Although the lawsuit named “Knollwood Nursing Home, LLC” as a defendant, the company appearing in response to the lawsuit has asserted that it is 

properly known as “Knollwood NH, LLC,” or by its trade name, “Knollwood 

Healthcare.” We refer to the company simply as “Knollwood.”

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Knollwood and the two staff members appealed.2

II

A defendant may remove a state-court action only if the lawsuit could originally have been filed in federal court. Caterpillar Inc. 

v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392 (1987). If there is no diversity of citizenship among the parties, “federal-question jurisdiction is required.” Id. As the removing defendants, Knollwood and the staff 

members “bear[] the burden of proving proper federal jurisdiction.” Adventure Outdoors, Inc. v. Bloomberg, 552 F.3d 1290, 1294 

(11th Cir. 2008).

Knollwood and the staff members rely heavily on the Public 

Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 247d-6d, 

247d-6e, known as the PREP Act. The PREP Act authorizes the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services to “make a declaration” 

that recommends “the manufacture, testing, development, administration, or use of one or more covered countermeasures.” Id.

§ 247d-6d(b)(1). Early in the pandemic, the Secretary issued one of 

these declarations, identifying certain “covered countermeasures” 

2 We review de novo a district court’s order remanding a case to state court. 

Scimone v. Carnival Corp., 720 F.3d 876, 880 (11th Cir. 2013). Ordinarily, we 

cannot review on appeal an order remanding a case to state court for lack of 

subject matter jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d); see Vachon v. Travelers Home & 

Marine Ins. Co., 20 F.4th 1343, 1346–47 (11th Cir. 2021). But here, one of the 

defendants’ asserted grounds for removal is the federal-officer removal statute, 

28 U.S.C. § 1442. So, “the whole of” the district court’s order is now “reviewable on appeal.” BP P.L.C. v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 593 U.S. 230, 

238 (2021).

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that could be used to respond to COVID-19. See Declaration Under 

the PREP Act for Medical Countermeasures Against COVID-19, 85 

Fed. Reg. 15198 (Mar. 17, 2020). Several amendments followed in 

subsequent months. E.g., Fourth Amendment to the Declaration, 

85 Fed. Reg. 79190 (Dec. 3, 2020).

On appeal, Knollwood and the staff members offer several

theories for why federal subject matter jurisdiction exists. They do 

not argue that the requirements of ordinary diversity jurisdiction 

are satisfied. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332.3 Instead, they connect three special jurisdictional doctrines with the PREP Act. First, they argue 

that Holman’s state-law claims are completely preempted by the 

PREP Act because Holman’s allegations are related to the administration or use of countermeasures identified in the Secretary’s 

declarations. Second, they argue that the embedded-federal-question doctrine described in Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue 

Engineering & Manufacturing, 545 U.S. 308 (2005), applies because 

the suit involves substantial federal issues that are related to the 

PREP Act. And third, they argue that the suit is covered by the 

federal-officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), because, 

during the pandemic, Knollwood was a PREP Act program planner 

acting under a federal agency or officer.

3 In the district court, Knollwood and the staff members sought leave to amend 

the Notice of Removal to allege diversity jurisdiction. They argued that there 

“was no legitimate claim” against either of the staff member defendants, 

Stacey Mroczko and Leslie McDuffie. And without Mroczko or McDuffie in 

the lawsuit, complete diversity would exist. The district court denied the motion, and no party challenges that ruling on appeal.

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We recently considered and rejected precisely these three 

arguments in Schleider v. GVDB Operations, LLC, 121 F.4th 149 (11th 

Cir. 2024), an appeal with strikingly similar facts and legal issues. 

Indeed, so close does this case hew to Schleider that, in supplemental briefing, Knollwood and the staff members were unable to 

identify a single thing that might distinguish their arguments from 

those repudiated in Schleider. Instead, they relied entirely on the 

unrealized hope that the en banc court might vacate Schleider and 

decide the issues differently. We now briefly explain why Schleider

rules out all three jurisdictional proposals.

First, complete preemption. Preemption ordinarily does not 

authorize removal, but complete preemption “is a narrowly drawn 

jurisdictional rule for assessing federal removal jurisdiction when a 

complaint purports to raise only state law claims.” Schleider, 121 

F.4th at 160 (citation and quotation marks omitted). “Complete 

preemption occurs when a federal statute both preempts state substantive law and provides the exclusive cause of action for the claim 

asserted.” Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). Knollwood 

and the staff members argue that the PREP Act meets this standard 

with respect to state-law claims related to COVID-19 countermeasures. In Schleider, though, we held that the PREP Act “does not 

create a general cause of action that would completely preempt all 

state law claims related to COVID-19 and countermeasures taken, 

or not taken, to prevent the virus’s spread.” Id. at 161. The PREP 

Act does provide for exclusive federal jurisdiction over certain willful misconduct tort suits related to the use of countermeasures. See 

id. at 161–63; 42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d(c), (d)(1). Here, though, 

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Holman’s state law claims are for negligence and wrongful death. 

The complaint does not appear to allege willful misconduct, and 

Knollwood and the staff members do not suggest otherwise. Cf. 

Schleider, 121 F.4th at 165 (concluding that the PREP Act’s willful 

misconduct cause of action did not completely preempt a Floridalaw wrongful death claim). Thus, as in Schleider, there’s no complete preemption.4

Second, the Grable embedded-federal-question doctrine. 

Under that doctrine, “federal jurisdiction over a state law claim will 

lie if a federal issue is: (1) necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, 

(3) substantial, and (4) capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress.” 

Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251, 258 (2013) (citing Grable, 545 U.S. at 

313–14). Knollwood and the staff members say that Grable applies 

because the PREP Act, the Department of Health and Human Services’ declarations, and Congress’s “belie[f] [that] pandemics raise 

matters of national public health, national critical infrastructure, 

and national security,” all show that this lawsuit involves “substantial federal questions.” This understanding of Grable is at odds with 

4 Knollwood and the staff members suggest, as if it were completely independent from their complete-preemption argument, that under the PREP Act the 

United States District Court for the District of Columbia has exclusive federal 

jurisdiction over this lawsuit. True, the PREP Act does provide for exclusive 

jurisdiction in that court for the Act’s willful-misconduct cause of action. 42 

U.S.C. § 247d‐6d(e)(1). But, as just explained, Holman’s lawsuit doesn’t make 

willful misconduct claims—something Knollwood and the staff members 

don’t dispute. So, the lawsuit couldn’t possibly fall under the PREP Act’s grant 

of exclusive jurisdiction to the District Court for the District of Columbia.

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the doctrine’s “slim” scope. Empire Healthchoice Assur., Inc. v. 

McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 701 (2006). For Grable to apply, “the alleged 

federal issue” must still appear “on the face of the complaint”; it is 

not enough that a defendant seeks to raise a federal defense. Schleider, 121 F.4th at 166–67. Here, at most, Knollwood and the staff 

members are trying to invoke a defense based on the PREP Act. So, 

just like in Schleider, the Grable doctrine doesn’t apply.

Third, federal-officer removal. A private entity may “remove a case under § 1442(a)(1)” if it can show that it: “(1) is a person within the meaning of the statute who acted under a federal 

officer; (2) performed the actions for which it is being sued under 

color of federal office; and (3) raised a colorable federal defense.” 

Schleider, 121 F.4th at 158 (alteration accepted) (citation and quotation marks omitted). As in Schleider, here “the ‘acted under a federal officer’ prong is dispositive.” Id. Knollwood and the staff 

members maintain that they were acting under a federal officer because, throughout the pandemic, various federal agencies gave 

them “specific direction and controlling enforcement.” But “[a] 

private firm’s compliance (or noncompliance) with federal laws, 

rules, and regulations . . . does not by itself fall within the scope of 

the statutory phrase ‘acting under’ a federal ‘official.’” Id. at 159 

(citation and quotation marks omitted). Just like in Schleider, Knollwood was simply operating an “assisted living facility that may, or 

may not, have complied with federal recommendations and regulations concerning COVID-19.” Id. at 160. Therefore, the federal 

officer removal statute does not supply us with jurisdiction.

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Because neither complete preemption, nor Grable, nor federal-officer removal applies, this remains a state-law tort suit between non-diverse parties over which the federal courts have no 

jurisdiction. See Caterpillar Inc., 482 U.S. at 392.5

III

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s 

order remanding this suit to state court.

5 Knollwood also argued that the district court erred by issuing its mandate 

simultaneously with its remand order, thereby preventing Knollwood from 

seeking a stay of the remand. We don’t see how the district court went wrong; 

the court did, in fact, consider (and deny) Knollwood’s motion to stay.

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