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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

COUNTY OF MORRIS, 

 Plaintiff,

 

v.

STATE NATIONAL INSURANCE, et al., 

 Defendants.

Civil Action Number: 

2:10-cv-6616

OPINION

HON. WILLIAM J. MARTINI

OPINION

Before the Court is the report and recommendation of the Magistrate Judge below 

recommending denying Plaintiff’s motion to remand, and granting Defendants’ crossmotion to amend their notice of removal. Plaintiff sought remand based on the purported 

lack of unanimity among Defendants, i.e., Defendant Inservco Insurance Services has not 

joined the remand motion. Balazik v. County of Dauphin, 44 F.3d 209 (3d Cir. 1995). 

Defendants (and, apparently, Inservco) contend that Inservco has not been effectively served 

and, therefore, the motion to remand is effective, notwithstanding Inservco’s failure to join 

the motion. Lewis v. Rego, 757 F.2d 66 (3d Cir. 1985). 

Motions to remand to state court are dispositive motions. In re United States 

Healthcare, 159 F.3d 142, 146 (3d Cir. 1998). Where, as here, no timely objections are 

made in regard to a report or parts thereof, the district court will adopt the report and accept 

the recommendation if it is “satisf[ied] . . . that there is no clear error on the face of the 

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record.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72 Advisory Committee’s Notes (citation omitted).

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Having examined the report and recommendation and the filings of the parties

(before the Magistrate Judge), the Court is satisfied that the Magistrate Judge below applied 

the correct legal standard based on the factual record developed by the parties. On the record 

before the Court, Plaintiff’s service on Defendant Inservco was defective as a matter of New 

Jersey state law relating to service of process. Thus remand based on lack of unanimity 

among Defendants is not appropriate. 

Defendants have cross-moved to cure a technical defect in their notice of removal, 

i.e., to specify each entity’s citizenship both at the time of removal and at the time the statecourt complaint was filed. In their notice of removal, removing Defendants stated their 

citizenship, but without clarifying if it applied to the time the complaint was filed, or to the 

time of removal, or both. As the Magistrate Judge indicated in his report, amendments to 

cure jurisdictional allegations are freely granted. 

This Court is satisfied that there is no clear error on the face of the record to warrant 

denial of the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation. The Report and Recommendation is 

adopted. Plaintiff’s motion to remand is DENIED. Defendants’ cross motion to amend is 

GRANTED. An appropriate order accompanies this opinion.

s/ William J. Martini 

DATE: May 16, 2011 William J. Martini, U.S.D.J.

 

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Peerless Ins. Co. v. Ambi-Rad, Ltd., 2009 WL 790898, at *4 (D.N.J. March 23, 

2009); cf. United Steelworkers of Am. v. N.J. Zinc Co., 828 F.2d 1001, 1006 (3d Cir. 1987) 

(explaining that absent objections, “the district court [should] provide some level of review 

to dispositive legal issues raised by the report” (emphasis added)).

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