[PUBLISH] 

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-90022

____________________

GEORGE RUHLEN,

CRP/CRE PONCE DE LEON OWNER, LLC,

CRP/CRE PORTFOLIO VENTURE, LLC,

CRP/CRE MEMBER, LLC,

J. ALLEN BOBO,

LUTZ, BOBO, & TELFAIR, P.A.,

Petitioners,

versus

HOLIDAY HAVEN HOMEOWNERS, INC.,

Respondent.

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2 Order of the Court 21-90022

____________________

Petition for Permission to Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the

Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 6:21-cv-00174-CEM-EJK

____________________

Before: ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges.

BY THE COURT:

This case is before us on a petition for permission to appeal. 

The plaintiffs, a group of current and former mobile homeowners 

and their homeowners’ association, filed this action in Florida state 

court against numerous defendants, alleging violations of the Florida Antitrust Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The

plaintiffs framed their suit as a “representative action” filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.222.

The defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida based on the ADA 

claim and the Class Action Fairness Act. CAFA allows removal of 

a “class action,” which it defines to mean “any civil action filed under rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or similar State 

statute or rule of judicial procedure authorizing an action to be 

brought by 1 or more representative persons as a class action.” 28 

U.S.C. §§ 1453(b), 1332(d)(1)(B).

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21-90022 Order of the Court 3

In an amended complaint, the plaintiffs omitted their ADA 

claim and added other state-law claims, including one alleging violations of the Florida Mobile Home Act, Fla. Stat. § 723.001 et seq. 

Under that count, the homeowners’ association reiterated that it 

was authorized to file the action in its “representative capacity under Rule 1.222 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and Section[]

723.075” of the Florida Statutes. The district court then sua sponte

remanded the case to state court. In so doing, the district court 

determined that federal-question jurisdiction no longer existed because the amended complaint asserted only state-law claims and 

that CAFA didn’t provide jurisdiction because a claim brought in a 

representative capacity under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.222 

“is not a class action, as that term is understood for CAFA jurisdiction.”

The defendants then filed with this Court a petition for permission to appeal. Before deciding whether we should grant the 

defendants’ petition, we must determine whether we have jurisdiction to consider their appeal. We hold that we do not. 

As a general rule, we may not review a district court’s decision to remand a case based on its determination that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d); Hunter v. City of 

Montgomery, 859 F.3d 1329, 1333 (11th Cir. 2017) (citing 

Thermtron Prods., Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U.S. 336, 345–46 

(1976)). As relevant here, however, there is a statutory exception 

to the general rule that applies where the appeal is “from an order 

of a district court granting or denying a motion to remand a class 

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4 Order of the Court 21-90022

action to the State court from which it was removed.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1453(c)(1). 

While this case may involve a “class action” that was “removed” from a “State court”—that is the crux of the parties’ dispute—neither party here ever filed a “motion to remand” the suit 

to state court. Rather, the district court sua sponte remanded the 

case. Accordingly, we must decide whether the phrase “an order 

of a district court granting or denying a motion to remand a class 

action” covers a district court’s sua sponte remand order. 

For better or worse, § 1453(c)(1)’s text is best interpreted not 

to encompass a district court’s decision to remand sua sponte. 

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term “motion” as “[a] written 

or oral application requesting a court to make a specified ruling or 

order”—and thus, we think, clearly contemplates party initiation. 

Motion, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). Even though we 

sometimes say—and indeed, Black’s says—that a court acting sua 

sponte does so “on its own motion,” Sua Sponte, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), that shorthand colloquialism doesn’t accurately capture reality; the court in that instance does not actually

“request[]” anything of itself, nor does it grant or deny anyone 

else’s request. 

Numerous sources corroborate our conclusion that, in ordinary legal parlance, a “motion” is a request or an application made

by a party. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, for instance, explains—like 

Black’s—that a “motion is presented to a court . . . by one party.” 

Motion (Movant or Move), The Wolters Kluwer Bouvier Law 

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21-90022 Order of the Court 5

Dictionary: Desk Edition (Stephen Michael Sheppard ed., 2012). So 

too, legal encyclopedias explain that “[t]he term ‘motion’ generally 

means an application made to a court or judge to obtain a rule or 

order directing some act to be done in the applicant’s favor in a 

pending case,” 56 Am. Jur. 2d Motions, Rules, and Orders § 1 (2020) 

(footnotes omitted), that “[t]he term ‘motion’ generally means an 

application made to a court or judge for the purpose of obtaining a 

rule or order directing some act to be done in favor of the applicant

in a pending case,” 60 C.J.S. Motions and Orders § 1 (2020) (footnotes omitted), and that a “motion is a request for relief, usually 

interlocutory relief, within a case,” id.

Accordingly, we find ourselves constrained to conclude (colloquialisms aside) that when a court sua sponte orders a remand, it 

is not “granting” its own “motion” within the meaning of

§ 1453(c)(1)—any more than it would be “denying” its own motion

in the absence of such an order. For good or ill, the ordinary meaning of the word “motion” refers to a request or an application made 

by a party; it “does not contemplate something a court does on its 

own.” In re Wild, 994 F.3d 1244, 1257 (11th Cir. 2021) (en banc)

(“[W]e assume that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning—not the idiosyncratic meaning—of the words 

used.” (quotation marks omitted)). 

Our dissenting colleague disagrees because she believes that 

Congress’s “clear intention” in enacting § 1453(c)(1) was to include 

sua sponte remands. We readily admit the possibility that Congress “inten[ded]” § 1453(c)(1) to cover instances in which a district 

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6 Order of the Court 21-90022

court sua sponte remands a case to state court, as well as those in 

which the court issues an order “granting or denying a motion to 

remand.” But “[i]t is the text’s meaning, and not the content of 

anyone’s expectations or intentions, that binds us as law.” Antonin 

Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 398 (2012) (quoting Laurence H. Tribe, “Comment,” in

Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the 

Law 65, 66 (1997)). Accordingly, when interpreting a statute, our 

“inquiry both begins and ends with a careful examination of the 

statute’s language.” Wild, 994 F.3d at 1255. We “must presume 

that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a 

statute what it says there.” CRI-Leslie, LLC v. Comm'r of Internal 

Revenue, 882 F.3d 1026, 1033 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks 

omitted). We simply aren’t at liberty to “plumb a statute’s supposed purposes and policies in search of the [legislature’s] intent.” 

Wild, 944 F.3d at 1255.1

The dissent contends that our interpretation of § 1453(c)(1) 

produces an absurd result. And again, we can agree that omitting 

1We recognize, as our dissenting colleague notes, that at least one of our sister 

circuits has expressly disagreed with the interpretation of § 1453(c)(1) that we 

embrace here. In construing that provision to cover sua sponte remand orders, the Ninth Circuit asserted that doing otherwise “would be inconsistent 

with CAFA’s clearly expressed intention.” Watkins v. Vital Pharms., Inc., 720 

F.3d 1179, 1181 (9th Cir. 2013). But the only expression of intent to which that 

court pointed was the provision’s text. For reasons explained above the line, 

we simply don’t think that § 1453(c)(1)’s plain terms express the intent that the 

Ninth Circuit assumed.

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21-90022 Order of the Court 7

sua sponte orders from the statute’s scope may seem a little (or perhaps more than a little) odd. But the absurdity bar is a high one, 

and “‘[s]omething that ‘may seem odd . . . is not absurd.’” Scalia & 

Garner, Reading Law, at 237 (ellipses in original) (quoting Exxon 

Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 565 (2005)). As 

Justice Story famously—and graphically—explained, the absurdity 

exception to the plain-meaning rule governs only where “applying 

the provision to the case would be so monstrous, that all mankind 

would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application.” 1 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States

§ 427, at 303 (2d ed. 1858). We just don’t think that this case meets 

the “monstrous[ness]” threshold. 

Because the remand in this case was not ordered upon the 

motion of any party, § 1453(c)(1)’s exception doesn’t apply here. 

The result may be an odd one, but it’s the one that the statute’s 

plain language requires. “If Congress thinks that we’ve misapprehended its true intent—or, more accurately, that the language that 

it enacted . . . inaccurately reflects its true intent—then it can and 

should say so by amending” § 1453(c)(1). CRI-Leslie, 882 F.3d at

1033.

Because we lack jurisdiction to review the district court’s sua 

sponte remand, the Petition for Permission to Appeal pursuant to

the Class Action Fairness Act is DENIED. 

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21-90022 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 1

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, Dissenting:

I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that we lack authority to grant the petition for permission to appeal the district 

court’s sua sponte order remanding the case to state court. Not 

only can we consider the petition, but this case presents a novel 

issue in our Circuit that warrants a merits panel’s consideration. I 

therefore respectfully dissent from the denial of the petition for permission to appeal. 

The majority concludes that we lack authority to entertain 

the petition based on its interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1), 

which provides, in relevant part, that “a court of appeals may accept an appeal from an order of a district court granting or denying 

a motion to remand a class action to the State court from which it 

was removed . . . .” More specifically, the majority finds that “an 

order of a district court granting or denying a motion to remand a 

class action” cannot include an order of a district court that sua 

sponte remands a class action. This hypertechnical reading of 

CAFA is refuted by the broader view of the common understanding of the statutory language, the clear intention of the statute as 

revealed by its context, the absurd result of reading the statute as 

the majority does, and other circuits’ understanding of § 

1453(c)(1)).

Before I explain why, I must respond to the majority’s suggestion in taking the words “clear intention” from my preceding 

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2 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 21-90022

sentence out of context to suggest that I discern Congress’s “clear 

intention” by relying on something outside the traditional toolbox 

for construing statutes. I don’t. But unlike the majority, I consider 

the textual language and its position within the overall statutory 

scheme. And that is just as surely a part of statutory interpretation 

as evaluation of the language. Indeed, “[t]he definition of words in 

isolation . . . is not necessarily controlling in statutory construction. 

A word in a statute may or may not extend to the outer limits of its 

definitional possibilities.” Dolan v. U.S. Postal Serv., 546 U.S. 481, 

486 (2006). The Supreme Court has explained, “oftentimes the 

meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.” King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 

473, 486 (2015) (cleaned up). And “[o]ur duty, after all, is to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.” King, 576 U.S. at 486 

(cleaned up). So any interpretation of “motion” without consideration of the surrounding text and meaning of the statute is an incomplete one.

With that in mind, I return to the statutory analysis. To 

start, I note we have never held that a district court’s sua sponte

remand order in a case removed under CAFA did not fall under the 

purview of 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1). And our cases reviewing CAFA 

remand orders have never implied that our review was possible 

only because the order resulted from a party’s filing of a motion. 

See, e.g., Anderson v. Wilco Life Ins. Co., 943 F.3d 917, 924 (11th 

Cir. 2019); Dudley v. Eli Lilly & Co., 778 F.3d 909, 911 (11th Cir. 

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21-90022 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 3

2014); S. Fla. Wellness, Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 745 F.3d 1312, 1315 

(11th Cir. 2014).

Not only that, but we have defined “sua sponte” as meaning 

“[w]ithout prompting or suggestion; on its own motion.” See 

Velchez v. Carnival Corp., 331 F.3d 1207, 1210 (11th Cir. 2003) (emphasis added) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1437 (7th ed. 1999)). 

And the Supreme Court has similarly characterized sua sponte decisions by the district court as “on its own motion.” Wachovia

Bank v. Schmidt, 546 U.S. 303, 316 (2006). In other words, it is fair 

and reasonable to understand a court’s sua sponte remand as 

court’s “granting . . . [of] [its own] motion to remand a class action,” 

meaning a sua sponte remand fits within the language of § 

1453(c)(1).

Indeed, the circuits that have explicitly or implicitly addressed the issue have all concluded that an order remanding a case 

removed based on CAFA jurisdiction does not become unreviewable simply because it was remanded sua sponte. As the Ninth Circuit has explained,

We do not read § 1453(c)(1)’s authorization of an appeal as limited only to district court orders made in 

response to a party’s “motion.” Sua sponte orders 

are, literally, orders issued when the court acts “on its 

own motion.” Moreover, it is well established that 

district courts may address questions of subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte. If CAFA permitted review 

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4 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 21-90022

of remand orders issued only in response to a party’s 

motion to remand, district court orders remanding 

class actions sua sponte would be insulated from appellate review. Such a result would be inconsistent 

with CAFA’s clearly expressed intention that class actions are exempt from the general jurisdictional rule 

that district court remand orders are not reviewable 

on appeal.

Watkins v. Vital Pharms., Inc., 720 F.3d 1179, 1181 (9th Cir. 2013) 

(footnotes and citations omitted); see also Kenny v. Wal-Mart 

Stores, Inc., 881 F.3d 786, 789 (9th Cir. 2018) (“We have jurisdiction 

to review the district court’s sua sponte remand order pursuant to 

28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1).” (citing Watkins, 720 F.3d at 1180–81)).

Outside the Ninth Circuit, the Seventh and Eighth Circuits

have implicitly held that sua sponte remand orders in cases removed under CAFA are reviewable under § 1453(c)(1). See Fox v. 

Dakkota Integrated Sys., LLC, 980 F.3d 1146, 1151 (7th Cir. 2020)

(reviewing a sua sponte CAFA remand); Dalton v. Walgreen Co., 

721 F.3d 492, 494 (8th Cir. 2013) (same). And in an unpublished 

decision, the D.C. Circuit acknowledged that a sua sponte remand 

order was “properly before this court as the remand order falls 

within section 1453(c)(1).” In re U-Haul Int’l, Inc., No. 08-7122, 

2009 WL 902414, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 6, 2009) (Rogers, J., dissenting from majority’s decision to decline jurisdiction over appeal). In 

fact, I have been unable to find any court of appeals decision 

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21-90022 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 5

holding that sua sponte orders remanding CAFA cases are wholly 

insulated from appellate review; today, we become the first. 

In so doing, we articulate an interpretation of § 1453(c)(1) 

that undermines what the statutory context of § 1453(c)(1) reflects 

Congress intended to do. Congressincluded the “granting or denying a motion to remand” language to ensure that orders dealing 

with remand in CAFA cases are not subject to the § 1447(d) jurisdictional bar or to the final-judgment rule. An order denying a motion to remand would obviously not qualify as a “final decision” 

and would therefore ordinarily be unappealable. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

But in CAFA cases, such orders are subject to immediate appellate 

review. Congress added the language not to exempt sua sponte 

orders from review, but to subject all orders about remand to immediate appellate jurisdiction.

Had Congress intended to expose only those orders about 

remand issued in response to a party’s filed motion, it easily could 

have drafted the statute to say that the court of appeals may review 

orders “granting or denying a party’s motion to remand.” The majority’s conclusion that we lack jurisdiction “produce[s] a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of [the statute’s] drafters.” 

United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 242 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Even if we assume that the majority’s hypertechnical interpretation of the statute is correct, textualism has its limits. And it 

hits them here. We do not apply a literal reading of the statute 

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6 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 21-90022

when “the disposition required by the text is . . . absurd.” Hartford 

Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Union Planters Bank, N.A., 530 U.S. 1, 6 

(2000). But that’s what the majority’s construction requires: an 

absurd result. If the majority’s interpretation of “motion” is correct, then Congress thought it important enough to make a special 

exception to the final-judgment rule and § 1447(d) appellate bar so 

orders granting (or denying) a party’s motion to remand in a CAFA 

case may be immediately appealed, but it completely shielded from 

review of any type exactly the same result when the court remands 

the CAFA case on its own motion. I can conceive of no logical 

reason why the same action should be exposed to two opposite results, depending on whether a party made a motion before the 

court issued its order. Nor does the majority offer any convincing 

reason that Congress would have viewed sua sponte orders as an 

exception to the rule of immediate appellate review it imposed on 

remand orders in response to a party’s motion.

That the result is absurd is emphasized even more by Congress’s intent as shown in CAFA’s legislative history. To be sure, 

we consult legislative history, at most, only when a statute is ambiguous. United States ex rel. Hunt v. Cochise Consultancy, Inc., 

887 F.3d 1081, 1089 (11th Cir. 2018), aff’d, 139 S. Ct. 1507(2019). 

And as I’ve explained, here, the plain meaning of the statute endows us with authority to immediately review a sua sponte order 

remanding in a CAFA case, so I reference the history only to put a 

bigger exclamation point on the absurdity of the majority’s proposed “plain meaning” of the statute. 

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21-90022 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 7

The Senate Report on the bill that eventually became CAFA 

included the following explanation of § 1453(c): “The purpose of 

this provision is to develop a body of appellate law interpreting the 

legislation without unduly delaying the litigation of class actions.” 

S. Rep. No. 109-14, at 49 (2005), as reprinted in 2005 U.S.C.C.A.N. 

3, 46. Nowhere in this history is any indication of an intent to differentiate orders that are prompted by a party’s motion from orders that are sua sponte. To the contrary, the objective of facilitating speedy review of remands in class actions applies just as 

strongly to both. 

So, in my view, we have the authority to grant the petition

here. And I think we should. The petition raises an issue of first 

impression in our circuit: whether an action brought under Florida 

Rule of Civil Procedure 1.222 is a “civil action filed under rule 23 of 

the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or similar State statute or rule 

of judicial procedure authorizing an action to be brought by 1 or 

more representative persons as a class action,” such that it should 

be considered a “class action” under CAFA and thus removable to 

federal court. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1453(b); 1332(d)(1)(B). The Florida Supreme Court adopted Rule 1.222 because “the unique features of 

mobile home residency call for an effective procedural format for 

resolving disputes between park owners and residents concerning 

matters of shared interest.” See Lanca Homeowners, Inc. v. Lantana Cascade of Palm Beach, Ltd., 541 So. 2d 1121, 1123 (Fla. 1988). 

This issue involves an intersection between state and federal law. 

The development of the law would benefit from this Court’s 

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8 Rosenbaum, J., Dissenting 21-90022

determination of whether Congress’s intent in enacting CAFA was 

to make cases filed under rules like Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 

1.222 subject to removal to federal court. 

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. 

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