Opinion ID: 4523247
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Snap Removal

Text: A defendant may remove a civil case brought in state court to the federal district court in which the case could have been brought. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). In diversity cases, there is an additional limitation on removal, known as the forum-defendant rule. The rule provides that [a] civil action otherwise removable solely on the basis of the jurisdiction under [28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)] may not be removed if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought. § 1441(b)(2). The question in this case is whether the forum-defendant rule prohibits a non-forum defendant from removing a case when a not-yet-served defendant is a citizen of the forum state. Although we have not yet had 4 Case: 18-31184 Document: 00515374081 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/07/2020 No. 18-31184 opportunity to address the “snap removal” issue, two other circuits have recently interpreted Section 1441(b)(2) as allowing snap removal. Gibbons v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 919 F.3d 699 (2d Cir. 2019); Encompass Ins. Co. v. Stone Mansion Rest. Inc., 902 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2018). The Sixth Circuit in a footnote has also interpreted Section 1441(b)(2) to allow snap removal. McCall v. Scott, 239 F.3d 808, 813 n.2 (6th Cir. 2001). We begin by recognizing that the forum-defendant rule is a procedural rule and not a jurisdictional one. In re 1994 Exxon Chem. Fire, 558 F.3d 378, 392–93 (5th Cir. 2009). Here, the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction because each defendant was diverse from the plaintiff. Id. at 393–94. The plaintiff is a Texas limited liability company. The defendants are a New York corporation (the AAA) and two individual citizens of Louisiana (DiLeo and Minyard). Thus, there is no jurisdictional defect under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). “[W]hen the plain language of a statute is unambiguous and does not lead to an absurd result, our inquiry begins and ends with the plain meaning of that language.” Dunn-McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. Nat’l Park Serv., 630 F.3d 431, 438 (5th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted). We look for both plain meaning and absurdity. By Section 1441(b)(2)’s terms, this case would not have been removable had the forum defendants been “properly joined and served” at the time of removal. Minyard and DiLeo had not been served, though. When the AAA filed its notice of removal, the case was “otherwise removable” — as required by Section 1441(b) — because the district court has original jurisdiction of a case initially filed in Louisiana state court in which the parties are diverse. § 1441(a); § 1332(a). The forum-defendant rule’s procedural barrier to removal was irrelevant because the only defendant “properly joined and served,” the AAA, was not a citizen of Louisiana, the forum state. See § 1441(b)(2). We agree with a comment made by the Second 5 Case: 18-31184 Document: 00515374081 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/07/2020 No. 18-31184 Circuit: “By its text, then, Section 1441(b)(2) is inapplicable until a home-state defendant has been served in accordance with state law; until then, a state court lawsuit is removable under Section 1441(a) so long as a federal district court can assume jurisdiction over the action.” Gibbons, 919 F.3d at 705. Texas Brine accepts that the statute’s plain language allows snap removal. It argues, though, that such a result is absurd and defeats Congress’s intent. See Schaeffler v. United States, 889 F.3d 238, 242 (5th Cir. 2018). Texas Brine asserts that Congress added the “properly joined and served” language to Section 1441(b)(2) to prevent plaintiffs from naming forum defendants merely for the purpose of destroying diversity. That purpose is not served here because Texas Brine intended to pursue its claims against the forum defendants. The AAA counters that there is no meaningful legislative history of the “properly joined and served” language, even if we were inclined to consider such history. Further, Congress did not revise that language when it amended Section 1441(b)(2) in 2011 even after some snap removals had occurred. In statutory interpretation, an absurdity is not mere oddity. The absurdity bar is high, as it should be. The result must be preposterous, one that “no reasonable person could intend.” ANTONIN SCALIA & BRYAN A. GARNER, READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS 237 (2012); see also United States v. Dison, 573 F.3d 204, 210 n.28 (5th Cir. 2009). In our view of reasonableness, snap removal is at least rational. Even if we believed that there was a “drafter’s failure to appreciate the effect of certain provisions,” such a flaw by itself does not constitute an absurdity. SCALIA & GARNER, supra, at 238. We are not the final editors of statutes, modifying language when we perceive some oversight. The Second and Third Circuits rejected the same absurdity argument in upholding snap removal. The Second Circuit believed 6 Case: 18-31184 Document: 00515374081 Page: 7 Date Filed: 04/07/2020 No. 18-31184 there was more than one sensible reason for the language “properly joined and served”: Congress may well have adopted the “properly joined and served” requirement in an attempt to both limit gamesmanship and provide a bright-line rule keyed on service, which is clearly more easily administered than a fact-specific inquiry into a plaintiff’s intent or opportunity to actually serve a home-state defendant. Gibbons, 919 F.3d at 706. In other words, a reasonable person could intend the results of the plain language. The Third Circuit also found that the result was not absurd because the interpretation gives meaning to each word and abides by the plain language. Encompass, 902 F.3d at 153. Of some importance, the removing party is not a forum defendant. Diversity jurisdiction and removal exist to protect out-of-state defendants from in-state prejudices. See J.A. Olson Co. v. City of Winona, 818 F.2d 401, 404 (5th Cir. 1987). The plain-language reading of the forum-defendant rule as applied in this case does not justify a court’s attempt to revise the statute. Texas Brine also argues that the removal here is an example of an abuse of the statute. We have stated in dicta that “exceptional circumstances” might, in some cases where a plaintiff acts in bad faith, warrant departing from a strict application of the rule that removal may not happen more than 30 days after the first defendant is served. E.g., Brown v. Demco, Inc., 792 F.2d 478, 482 (5th Cir. 1986). In such cases, we considered whether a district court’s equitable powers extended to permit late filing for removal. E.g., Doe v. Kerwood, 969 F.2d 165, 169 (5th Cir. 1992); Ortiz v. Young, 431 F. App’x 306, 307 (5th Cir. 2011). Those cases may support tolling removal-filing deadlines in exceptional cases, but they do not support rewriting the statute here. We will not insert a new exception into Section 1441(b)(2), such as requiring a reasonable opportunity to serve a forum defendant. 7 Case: 18-31184 Document: 00515374081 Page: 8 Date Filed: 04/07/2020 No. 18-31184 It is true, as Texas Brine points out, that we strictly construe the removal statute and favor remand. See Gasch v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 491 F.3d 278, 281–82 (5th Cir. 2007). Here, though, we do not have “any doubt about the propriety of removal” because, as discussed, the text is unambiguous. Id. So the rule in Gasch does not apply. Id. A non-forum defendant may remove an otherwise removable case even when a named defendant who has yet to be “properly joined and served” is a citizen of the forum state.