1 UNITED STATES DISTRI CT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

LAKISHA M. HURT , Plaintiff ,

v. Civil Action No. 11
- 2144 (JDB)
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA , et al. , Defendants
.

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER
Plaintiff Lakisha Hurt alleges she suffer ed severe and permanent injuries in February
2011 after employees of a Washington, D

. C

. , night club escorted her out side and , joined by officers of the Metropolitan Police Department , threw her down the steps at the club’s front

entrance

. Hurt has sued the District of Columbia, MPAC (d/b/a The Scene nightclub ), Officer Marques McRae , and other unidentified Metropolitan Police Department officers for assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violation of her Constitutional and statutory rights

. Now pending before th e C ourt are Hurt ’s motion to remand the case to the Superior
Co urt of the District of Columbia , defendant District o f Columbia’s motion to dismiss, and
Hurt ’s motion to strike or reply to defendant MPAC’s o ppo sition to remand

. For the reasons explained below , the Court will remand the case and deny the other motions as moot

.

I. Motion for Remand
The District removed this case to this Court from Superior Co urt pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441 and 1446 . U nder those statutory provisions, causes of action “founded on a claim or2 right arising under the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States” may be removed regardless of parties’ residence or citizenship . Def.’s No tice of Removal (Dec. 1, 2011) [Docket Entry 1] (“Def.’s Notice”)

. P laintiff has n ow moved to remand the case back to the Superior
C ourt, on the ground that not all defendants served a t the time of removal c onsented to the
District’s removal of the case. Pl.’s Mot. Remand (Jan. 3, 2012) [Docket Entry 6] (“Pl.’s Mot. ” )

. The Distric t and MPAC have oppos e d remand. Def. D

. C .’s Opp’n to Pl.’s Mot. Remand (filed Jan. 3, 2012) [Docket Entry 8] (“D.C.’s Opp’n”) ; De f. MPAC’s Opp ’n to Pl.’s Mot. Remand (March 16, 2012) [Docket Entry 14] (“MPAC’s Opp’n”)

.

A. Timeliness of Filing
The District of Columbia contends that plaintiff’s motion for remand , dated January 3, 2012, was untimely because the period allotted for making it, which began with the filing of the
notice of removal on December 1, 2011, expired on January 2, 2012

. D.C.’s Opp’n 2. To the

c ontrary , plaintiff’s motion f o r remand was timely filed. A motion for remand must be made
“with in thirty days after the f iling of the notice of removal.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). T he dea d line for such a filing ex tends to the earliest day that is neither a weekend nor a federal holiday. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a). The thirty

- day period for plaintiff’s respon se to the notice of removal thus ended on January 3, 2012, as December 31 , 2011 , and January 1 , 2012 , were weekend days and January
2 was a federal holiday

.

B. Rule of Unanimity
A notice of removal must be filed “within thirty days” after the defendant rece ives “a copy of the initial pleading setting forth the claim for relief.” 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b) . The District satisfied this requirement by filing for removal on December 1, 2011 , after being served with the3 complaint on November 14 , 2011. Def.’s Notice ; Pl.’s Mot. Remand ¶ 2 & Ex. A

. Nonetheless , removal to federal court additionally requires a timely demonstration of consent from all served
defendants within thirty days of service of the complaint , und er the widely recognized “ rule of unanimity .” Balazik v. C nty

. of Dauphin, 44 F.3d 209, 213 (3d Cir. 1995) (citing Chicago R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Martin, 178 U.S. 245, 247 (1900) ) ; Russell Corp. v. Am. Home Assur. Co. , 264 F.3d 1040, 1044 (11 th Cir. 2001); Thorn v. Amalgamated Transit Union , 305 F.3d 826, 833 (8th Cir. 2002); Ok Yeon Cho v. D ist

. of C olumbia , 547 F. Supp . 2d 28, 29

- 30 (D.D.C. 2008); Williams v.
Howard Univ. , 984 F. Supp. 27, 29 (D.D.C. 1997). 1 If that condition is not met , a plaintiff’s timely motion for remand will generally be granted. See 28 U.S.C. 1447(c) ; Williams , 984 F. Supp. at 29

- 30 (“This case must be remanded . . . because defendants did not unanimously seek removal to this Court.”)

. 2 A failure by defendants to obtain timely unanimous consent for removal is not a curable defect if the plaintiff objects to that removal within the thirty days granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c )

. Henderson v. Raemisch , 10

- CV

- 335

- BBC , 2010 WL 3282803 , at *2 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 19, 2010) (citing Loftis v. United Parcel Serv

. , Inc., 342 F.3d 509, 516 (6th Cir. 2003) ) ; Daniel v.
Anderson C nty . Emergency & Rescue Squad, 469 F. Supp. 2d 494, 496 (E.D. Tenn. 2007). All
doubts about removal should be resolved in favor of remand. See Martin , 178 U.S. at 247

. MPAC was served on November 17, 2011

. Pl.’s Mot. Ex. B

. Yet it file d no thing with the
court until filing i t s answer to the complaint o n February 16 , 2012 . MPAC did not f ile its consent

1 Although different federal jurisdictions have varying interpretations of what specifically qualifies as consent to removal, t here is a general consensus that every defendant must somehow show agreement within thirty days of being served. See , e.g. , Christiansen v. W. Branch Cmty. Sch. Dist. , 674 F.3d 927, 932 (8th Cir. 2012) (“I n this circuit, it is not necessary for all defendants to actually si gn the notice of removal so long as there is some timely filed written indicatio n from each served defendant . . . that the defendant has actual ly consented. ” (internal ci tation and quotation marks omitted) )

. 2 In interpreting the deadline for consent to removal in a multi

- defendant case, j udge s in this district have applied the rule that each defendant has thirty days from being individually served to demonstrate consent. See Ballard v. D.C. , 813 F. Supp. 2d 34, 38 (D.D.C. 2011)

.4 to the case’s removal until March 16, 2012 ( after plaintiff’s motion for remand was filed and

m o re than thirty days after MPAC was served )

. See MPAC’s Opp’n ¶ 3(b)

. 3 Hence, MPAC
failed to consent to the removal in a timely manner. There is no i n d i c ation that MPAC requested
leave to extend the time to file , nor has MPAC alleged " excusable neglect ," in so many words,
for its delays in filing

. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1 )(B). MPAC does state that it did not retain counsel in time to file promptly , which resembles a claim of excusable neglect ; b ut this fact is insufficient to prevent remand . T he removal statutes are strictly interpreted in favor of state court jurisdiction

. See Shamro ck Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U.S. 100, 100

- 07 (1941) ; Russell , 264 F.3d at 1050 ( “There are several

. . . bright line limitations on federal removal jurisdiction .

. . that some might regard as arbitrary and unfair. Such limitations, however, are an inevitable feature of a court system of limited jurisdiction that strictly construes the right to remove.”). The failure of a party to obtain counsel is an insufficient ground to overcome this
strict rule. The District of Columbia errs in arguing tha t th is case falls within two of the three recognized exceptions to the rule of unanimity

. The exceptions are: (1) where one or more of the defendants has not yet been served with the initial pleading when the removal petition was filed; (2) where a defendant is only a nominal or formal party

- defendant; and (3) where the removed claim is separate and independent under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c)

. Ok Yeon Cho , 547 F. Supp. 2d at
30. While one defendan t, McRae, had not yet been served at the time of rem oval, the rule requires unanimity from those defendants who have been served. See LaPoint v. Mid

- Atlantic
Settlement Servs. , 256 F. Supp. 2d 1, 2 (D.D.C. 2003) (“In a multi

- defendant case, removal requires unanimous consent of all defendant s served with the complaint.”)

. Moreover, the claim providing the basis for removal is not “separate and independent” from the common law claims

3 The Court here refers to the second of the two ¶ 3s listed in defendant’s filing.5 made in the complaint’s other two counts, as all three counts arose out of the same event. See
Neibuhr v. Nat’ l R.R. Passenge r Corp. , 955 F. Supp. 1 35, 138

- 39 (D.D.C. 1997); s ee also DiGirolamo v. Jillian’s Entm’t Corp. , No. 02

- 656, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4557, at *5 (E.D. Pa. March 19, 2002) (u nanimous consent f o r removal required where the various claims arose from a
“common nu cl eus of operative fact” ).

III. Conclusion Regardless of whether the District was implicated in the federal claim and thus had authority to initiate removal as a served defendant, the removal was defective; hence , this Court lacks jurisdiction to evaluate the merits of the case. Therefore, [3] d efendant District of
Columbia’s motion to dismiss and [15] plaintiff’s motion to strike or reply to defendant MPAC’s opposition to remand are moot , as the case cannot be ad judicated in this Court

. Accordingly,

u pon consideration of [6] plaintiff’s m otion for remand , the memoranda filed by the parties, and the entire record herein, and for the reasons stated above, it is hereby
ORDERED that [6 ] plaintiff’s motion for remand is GRANTED ; it is further
ORDERED that [3] defendant D istrict of Columbia ’s motion t o dismiss is DENIED AS
MOOT ; it is further
ORDERED that [ 15 ] plaintiff’s motion to strike or reply to defendant MPAC’s opposition to remand is DENIED AS MOOT

. T his case is hereby remanded to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for further proceedings.

/s/ JOHN D. BATES United States District Judge Dated: June 22 , 2012