Source: http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2005/08/05-0501.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 23:06:47
Document Index: 232268143

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1453', '§ 5', '§ 1453', '§ 1453', '§ 7', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 1453', '§ 1453', '§ 1453', '§ 1443', '§ 1453', '§ 1332']

05-0501 -- Pritchett v. Office Depot, Inc. -- 08/18/2005
| Keyword | Case | Docket | Date: Filed / Added | (47030 bytes) (41833 bytes)
Filed August 18, 2005
Before EBEL, O'BRIEN and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.
This matter is before the court on its own motion to amend the opinion which issued originally on April 11, 2005. See Pritchett v. Office Depot, Inc., 404 F.3d 1232 (10th Cir. 2005). That opinion, which denied a Petition For Leave To Appeal, followed the court's original order of denial, which issued on March 18, 2005. The opinion provided additional reasoning for the court's denial. The amended opinion is attached to this order, and shall issue forthwith. The Clerk is directed to serve a copy of the amended
decision on all parties to the proceeding.
Counsel to the Court
Darren E. Nadel, Joshua B. Kirkpatrick, John A. Ybarra, and Allan G. King, Littler Mendelson, P.C., Denver, CO, for Petitioner.
On April 2, 2003, Plaintiff Romia Pritchett, acting on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, filed a class action complaint against Defendant Office Depot, Inc. in the Colorado District Court for the County of Denver. Plaintiff, an assistant store manager at an Office Depot retail store, alleged that Defendant violated Colorado law by regularly requiring its employees to work extra hours without paying overtime. On June 21, 2004, the state court certified a class pursuant to Rule 23 of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure consisting of "[a]ll Assistant Store Managers employed by Office Depot, Inc. in the State of Colorado from April 2, 2000." Trial was set for March 14, 2005 and discovery commenced.
On March 14, 2005, Defendant filed a petition for leave to appeal the district court's remand order with this court and also filed a motion for an emergency stay of the state court proceedings pending appeal. On March 18, 2005, we denied the petition for leave to appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction in a brief order and indicated that further elaboration would follow.(*) That order also dismissed the motion for an emergency stay as moot. We now issue this opinion to explain the court's reasoning in the aforementioned order.
Defendant filed its petition for leave to appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c), which was recently enacted as part of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. § 5, 119 Stat. at 12. Section 1453(c) is a provision that expressly gives the United States courts of appeals discretionary jurisdiction to consider appeals of remand orders in certain class action cases specified in the Act, provided that the appeal is taken within seven days of the remand order. 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1).(2) If a court of appeals accepts an appeal under subsection (c)(1), the appellate court is given sixty additional days during which to render its judgment. 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(2).
We then look to presumptions that might aid our analysis. It is well-established that statutes conferring jurisdiction upon the federal courts, and particularly removal statutes, are to be narrowly construed in light of our constitutional role as limited tribunals. Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U.S. 100, 108-109 (1941); United States ex rel. King v. Hillcrest Health Ctr., 264 F.3d 1271, 1280 (10th Cir. 2001). Thus, if there is ambiguity as to whether the instant statute confers federal jurisdiction over this case, we are compelled to adopt a reasonable, narrow construction. Here, we find Plaintiff's interpretation of the word "commenced" in the Act to be such a construction.(3)
Finally, we turn to legislative history. Although legislative history is sometimes suspect as a persuasive interpretative tool, here the progression of language in the Act as it moved through Congress is instructive. When the Act was originally introduced in the House, the removal provision applied both to cases "commenced" on or after the enactment date and to cases in which a class certification order is entered on or after the enactment date. See H.R. 516, 109th Cong. § 7 (2005). In contrast, neither the Senate version of the bill nor the final statute passed by both houses of Congress provided for removal of actions certified on or after the enactment date. See S. 5, 109th Cong. § 9 (2005); § 9, 119 Stat. at 14. The Senate version and the final statute provided only for application of the Class Action Fairness Act to civil actions "commenced" on or after the date of the Act. S. 5; § 9, 110 Stat. at 14. It is thus clear that Congress initially started out with broader language that could have included a number of then-pending lawsuits in state courts. By excising the House provision, Congress signaled an intent to narrow the removal provisions of the Act to exclude currently pending suits.(4)
Further, we note that the Congressional Record contains two statements from sponsoring legislators indicating that the bill was not designed to apply to currently pending lawsuits. See 151 Cong. Rec. S1080 (daily ed. Feb. 8, 2005) (statement of Sen. Dodd) ("[The Act] does not apply retroactively, despite those who wanted it to. A case filed before the date of enactment will be unaffected by any provision of this legislation."); 151 Cong. Rec. H753 (daily ed. Feb. 17, 2005) (statement of Rep. Goodlatte) ("Since the legislation is not retroactive, it would have absolutely no effect on the 75 class actions already filed against Merck in the wake of the Vioxx withdrawal.").(5) Ordinarily, individual floor statements are entitled to little weight, but here, where they are consistent with and cast light upon the meaning of a specific change in the language between an earlier version of the bill and the final Act, the statements confirm our construction of the Act.
Defendant argues that there are several district court opinions that adopt its broader view of commencement. See Lorraine Motors, Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 166 F. Supp. 319, 323-24 (E.D.N.Y. 1958) (holding that an action is "commenced" on the removal date for purposes of applying a higher amount-in-controversy requirement); Hunt v. Transport Indem. Ins. Co., No. 90-00041, 1990 WL 192483, *5-6 (D. Haw. July 30, 1990) (unpublished) (same).(6)
Moreover, the courts' reasoning in Lorraine Motors and Hunt actually supports Plaintiff's interpretation of the term "commenced." Although the courts were interpreting statutory language that is identical to the disputed provision in the instant case, there is a major difference between a statute that defines additional circumstances in which diversity of citizenship exists (such as the Class Action Fairness Act) and a statute that increases the amount-in-controversy requirement. The latter attempts to restrict federal court jurisdiction, while the former attempts to expand it. Both Hunt and Lorraine Motors rely heavily upon the principle that removal statutes are to be strictly construed, with all doubts resolved against removal. Lorraine Motors, 166 F. Supp. at 324; Hunt, 1990 WL 192483, at *6. Thus, in those cases, interpreting the term "commenced" as referring to the filing of the removal petition would serve that aim by restricting the number of preexisting state claims that could be removed. In contrast, such an interpretation here would actually permit broader federal court jurisdiction by increasing the number of removable actions.(7) Given this, we remain convinced that term "commenced" in the Act refers to the initial filing, not the removal date.
Because we conclude that removal to federal court does not "commence" an action for the purposes of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, Defendant's Petition for Leave to Appeal is DENIED.(8)
*.In the order, we stated that Defendant's petition for leave to appeal arose under "28 U.S.C. 31453(c)." The statutory citation should have read "28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)."
2.In actuality, 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c) reads as follows:
[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 if application is made to the court of appeals not less than 7 days after entry of the order.
Id. (emphasis added). Read literally, this provision seems to say that the appeal from an order granting or denying remand cannot be taken within seven days of the order. Once that period passes, however, the statute would permit an appeal to our court at any time thereafter.
We believe this to be a typographical error. The statute should read that an appeal is permissible if filed "not more than" seven days after entry of the remand order. As noted in the Senate Report accompanying the Act, "New subsection 1453(c) provides discretionary appellate review of remand orders under this legislation but also imposes time limits. Specifically, parties must file a notice of appeal within seven days after entry of a remand order." S. Rep. No. 109-14, at 49 (Feb. 28, 2005) (emphasis added). Prior to the enactment of 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c), appeals from remand orders were only permitted in very limited circumstances. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1443, 1447. Given Congress' stated intent to impose time limits on appeals of class action remand orders and the limited availability of appeals prior to the statute's enactment, we can think of no plausible reason why the text of Act would instead impose a seven-day waiting period followed by a limitless window for appeal. This, therefore, is one of the rare cases in which a "literal application of the statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters." United States v. Ron Pair Enters., 489 U.S. 235, 242 (1989).
We also note that a prior published version of this opinion overlooked the statutory drafting error in § 1453(c), and we are grateful to Professor Georgene M. Vairo for bringing it to our attention. See Georgene M. Vairo, Class Action Fairness, National Law Journal, June 27, 2005, at 12.
3.We also note that courts apply a presumption against the retroactivity of a statute absent a clear congressional intent to the contrary. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., Inc., 511 U.S. 244, 280 (1994). However, here, Defendant is not arguing for retroactivity in the true sense of the word, where the events giving rise to liability occurred prior to the enactment of a statute. See id. Rather, Defendant argues that the operative act, removal, occurred after the effective date of the statute and therefore that the statute applies prospectively. Since Defendant is not raising a traditional retroactivity argument, we will not engage in a Landgraf analysis.
4.Both sides have tried to draw support for their positions by comparing the language in the Act to comparable language in earlier amendments to the federal diversity statutes where Congress pegged the effective date provision to commencement or removal of an action. However, we do not find those statutes particularly helpful here because the language in those earlier statutes cuts both ways. For example, when Congress increased the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction from $500 to $2,000, it provided that the new law would not "affect the jurisdiction over or disposition of any suit removed from the court of any State, or suit commenced in any court of the United States, before the passage hereof . . . ." Act of Aug. 13, 1888, ch. 866, 25 Stat. 433, 437 (emphasis added). Similarly, Sections 202(b) and 203(b) of the Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act, Pub. L. No. 100-702, 102 Stat. 4642 (1988), which deal with citizenship for diversity purposes of multinational corporations, representative parties, and resident aliens, each contain effective date provisions applying that act to any "civil action commenced in or removed to" to federal court.
5.Plaintiff also points to similar statements made by Senator Kennedy and Representative Udall. See 151 Cong. Rec. S1087 (daily ed. Feb. 8, 2005) (statement of Sen. Kennedy); 151 Cong. Rec. H741 (daily ed. Feb. 17, 2005) (statement of Rep. Udall). However, since neither of these congressmen sponsored the legislation and both voted against it, we see little persuasive value in their comments.
6.In both Hunt and Lorraine Motors, the plaintiffs filed their state court suits prior to Congress' decision to raise the amount-in-controversy requirement of § 1332. Lorraine Motors, 166 F. Supp. at 320; Hunt, 1990 WL 192483, at *1. At the time of the initial state filing, each suit would have satisfied the lower federal amount-in-controversy requirement. Id. However, the defendants in these cases attempted to remove the actions only after Congress had amended the diversity statute, and neither suit satisfied the new amount in controversy requirement, which was applicable only to cases "commenced" after the effective date of the statute. Id.
7.We are mindful of the fact that Congress' goal in passing this legislation was to increase access to federal courts, and we also recognize that the Senate report instructs us to construe the bill's terms broadly. S. Rep. No. 109-14, at 43 (Feb. 28, 2005). But these general sentiments do not provide carte blanche for federal jurisdiction over a state class action any time the statute is ambiguous. While it is clear the Congress wished to expand federal jurisdiction, when that expansion is made effective is what is at issue in this case, and that is an issue we approach cautiously. See Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp., 313 U.S. at 108-109.
8.Accordingly, Defendant's motion for emergency stay pending appeal is DENIED as moot.
URL: http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2005/08/05-0501.htm.