Court Opinion

ID: 9477482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:24:46.20108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:54.289577
License: Public Domain

*607NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment because I agree that the district court lacked jurisdiction at the time of removal. Bryant’s complaint alleged that Ford and each of the 50 Doe defendants were involved in the design, production and distribution of the Ford van which Bryant claimed had a defective passive restraint system because it did not include a shoulder harness. At the time of removal, Ford made no effort to show that no California resident could have committed acts within the charging allegations of the complaint and thus failed to carry its burden of establishing complete diversity. See Pullman Co. v. Jenkins, 305 U.S. 534, 540, 59 S.Ct. 347, 350, 83 L.Ed. 334 (1939) (named defendant bound to show unnamed defendant a nonresident to justify removal). It made no effort, for example, to show that no one who had any involvement in the design, production or distribution of the van was a resident of California. Consequently, I believe we should decide this case on the narrow ground that the district court lacked jurisdiction because of Ford’s failure to show complete diversity at the time of removal.
Although I concur in the judgment, I cannot join the court’s opinion because I agree with Judge Kozinski that the court writes too broadly. Dissent at 608. The court says that there can be no removal until all Does are either named, unequivocally abandoned, or dismissed in the state court action. Majority op. at 605-06. This necessarily means that an action may not be removed as long as a Doe defendant continues to be named in the complaint and remains unidentified. Thus, the court effectively adopts a rule that Doe defendants are conclusively presumed to be real, not phantom or sham, and are conclusively presumed to be nondiverse. I believe that such a conclusive presumption is inconsistent with Pullman which I read as requiring that a nonresident defendant must be given the opportunity at the time of removal to show that no legitimate defendant is a resident. 305 U.S. at 541, 59 S.Ct. at 350 (“It is always open to the nonresident defendant to show that the resident defendant has not been joined in good faith and for that reason should not be considered in determining the right to remove.”) (emphasis provided).1
Suppose hypothetically that Ford had filed affidavits with its removal petition showing that the van had been designed and assembled in Michigan, and that all components, including the passive restraint system, had been produced by companies outside of California, and that Bryant’s employer purchased the van from a dealer in Detroit, took delivery in Detroit, and drove the van to California. Suppose further that Bryant was unable to come up with any evidence to controvert the facts set forth in Ford’s affidavits. It seems to me that had that been the state of the record at the time the district court acted on Ford’s removal petition, removal would have been proper and subject matter jurisdiction would have vested in the district court. A defendant’s burden to show complete diversity when faced with Doe allegations may be a heavy one, but I see no justification for denying defendants the opportunity to try.

. In CTS Printex, Inc. v. American Motorists Ins. Co., 639 F.Supp. 1272, 1274 (N.D.Cal.1986), Judge Schwarzer gave the defendant the opportunity to show that the Doe allegations should not defeat diversity by proving that all potential defendants encompassed by the charging allegations were diverse or that the charging allegations were shams. Id. at 1274. Although in CTS Printex the defendant’s affidavits failed to establish that no California resident could have committed acts within the charging allegations of the complaint, the defendant in that case was at least given the opportunity to make an evi-dentiary showing that all conceivably liable Doe defendants were nonresidents. See id. at 1274 n. 1.