Opinion ID: 6341894
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Weighing the Evidence

Text: Ms. Rolls’ second argument—that the district court improperly weighed the evidence in considering her motion to remand—is also unavailing. Quite the opposite, the district court neatly complied with Fifth 4 This is because—as detailed below—applicable Louisiana caselaw requires a plaintiff in Ms. Rolls’ position to show personal fault on the part of a defendant in Wohlers’ position. See Canter v. Koehring Co., 283 So. 2d 716, 721 (La. 1973). As the magistrate judge observed here, Wohlers “was unaware of and did not authorize the work scheduled on February 8, 2017, when he was not even at the facility,” and was not otherwise aware “that the tank should have been drained and cleaned prior to the explosion when, as he states in his own declaration, it was not due for cleaning.” 6 Case: 21-30435 Document: 00516323505 Page: 7 Date Filed: 05/18/2022 No. 21-30435 Circuit precedent requiring pleadings-piercing district courts to confine their review to a “summary inquiry” that considers only “summary judgmenttype evidence” and resolve factual and legal uncertainties in favor of the plaintiff seeking remand. Smallwood, 385 F.3d at 573–74; Travis v. Irby, 326 F.3d 644, 648–49 (5th Cir. 2003). Indeed, as PCA correctly notes in its brief, “the facts that [the district court] found to be critical in determining whether Wohlers was improperly joined” were not contradicted by anything in the record at the time of the district court’s ruling on the motion to remand. As a result, the district court did not weigh the evidence at all, but merely considered the textbook “summary judgment-type evidence” before it at the time of its decision—to wit, statements in one declaration that were not contravened by statements in an opposing declaration. We reject Ms. Rolls’ attempt to shoehorn into this appeal “[e]vidence taken later in the case” that supposedly undercuts Wohlers’ declaration. For one, Ms. Rolls never presented such evidence to the district court in connection with either her motion to remand or her ongoing objection to federal subject matter jurisdiction, so her arguments in this regard are forfeited and unreviewable. See, e.g., AG Acceptance Corp. v. Veigel, 564 F.3d 695, 700 (5th Cir. 2009) (“Under this Circuit’s general rule, arguments not raised before the district court are waived and will not be considered on appeal unless the party can demonstrate ‘extraordinary circumstances,’” which exist only “when the issue involved is a pure question of law and a miscarriage of justice would result from [a] failure to consider it.” (citation omitted)). As PCA observes, Ms. Rolls had several options for preserving these arguments below. She could have, for example, (1) renewed her motion to remand upon the discovery of the “later-developed” evidence she now points to on appeal, (2) requested reconsideration of her initial motion to remand in light of such evidence, or even (3) sought leave to amend her complaint to add new and improved claims against Wohlers, whose dismissal 7 Case: 21-30435 Document: 00516323505 Page: 8 Date Filed: 05/18/2022 No. 21-30435 from the case was merely without prejudice. Instead, she chose to press on in a district court given no reason to doubt its subject matter jurisdiction. Because our post hoc consideration of evidence not presented to the district court “until after an adverse ruling on the merits [would] condone a circuitous trip back to state court for a double dip at success in this action,” we reject this alternative procedural objection as well and proceed to the merits of Ms. Rolls’ motion to remand. See Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. Costa Lines Cargo Servs., Inc., 903 F.2d 352, 360 (5th Cir. 1990).