Court Opinion

ID: 9472454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:00:33.069728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:56.663016
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
While I agree with the disposition of this appeal reached by the majority, I must *490dissent from one aspect of the majority opinion: the strong inference if not the direct holding that third-party defendants can never remove under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) (1976).
Beneath the placid discourse of the majority on this issue lies what one court described as a “field luxuriat[ing] in a riotous uncertainty.” Harper v. Sonnabend, 182 F.Supp. 594, 595 (S.D.N.Y.1960). Another district court noted that there is an “irreconcilable split of authority on the question of whether a third-party may remove.” Soper v. Kahn, 568 F.Supp. 398, 400 (D.Md.1983). See Ford Motor Credit Co., Inc. v. Aaron-Lincoln Mercury, Inc., 563 F.Supp. 1108, 1110 nn. 6 & 8 (N.D.Ill. 1983) (compiling cases- that have held a third-party defendant can or cannot remove).
Only one federal circuit has addressed this issue; the Fifth Circuit has twice held that a third-party defendant may remove provided the requirements of section 1441(c) are met. Marsh Investment Corp. v. Langford, 652 F.2d 583, 584 (5th Cir. 1981), cert. denied sub nom. Pontchartrain State Bank v. Marsh Investment Corp., 454 U.S. 1163, 102 S.Ct. 1037, 71 L.Ed.2d 319 (1982); Carl Heck Engineers, Inc. v. Lafourche Parish Police Jury, 622 F.2d 133 (5th Cir.1980). In Carl Heck Engineers the court held that, if the third-party complaint stated a separate and independent claim which, if sued upon alone could have been brought properly in federal court, the third-party defendant could remove. Id. at 135-36.
This issue was recently discussed in an exhaustive opinion by Judge Prentice H. Marshall of the Northern District of Illinois. Ford Motor Credit, supra, 563 F.Supp. at 1110-17. Judge Marshall concluded that where the third-party complaint stated a separate and distinct claim which would be removable if it were sued on alone and which was joined with an otherwise non-removable claim, a third-party defendant could remove. To construe section 1441(c) to include only claims joined by the plaintiff would, Judge Marshall reasoned, insert qualifying language into the statute not placed there by Congress. Ford Motor Credit, supra, 563 F.Supp. at 1112, citing Gamble v. Central of Georgia Railway, 356 F.Supp. 324, 330 (M.D.Ala.), rev’d on other grounds, 486 F.2d 781 (5th Cir.1973). Judge Marshall also concluded that depriving a third-party defendant of its right of removal would subvert the fundamental constitutional and congressional policy allowing certain defendants a choice of forum; and there is no real question that a third-party defendant who has been involuntarily dragged into court is not a defendant within the meaning of section 1441. Ford Motor Credit, supra, 563 F.Supp. at 1113. The original plaintiffs choice of forum can still be protected by remanding the original action. Id. at 1114-15. The majority replies that remanding the original action would frustrate the Sheltons’ interest in trying the entire case in one court. My response is twofold: first, Congress has adopted a policy aimed at protecting parties’ choices of forum, and to the extent that this policy interferes with the defendant’s interest in joinder, then the balancing of these interests is a task properly performed by Congress, not the courts; second, in those circumstances where the defendant would suffer some extraordinary harm, the district court could exercise its discretion and refuse to remand the original action. Such instances are likely to be rare. Similarly, no interest in judicial economy is prejudiced by allowing removal, since by definition the two claims must be separate and independent and therefore duplication of effort should be minimal.
In its opinion, the majority relies on the two most distinguished commentators on the federal courts, who both conclude that third-party defendants may never remove. 14 Wright, Miller, and Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 3724 (1976 & 1983 Supp.); 1A Moore & Ringle, Moore’s Federal Practice 11110.163[4.-6] and 0.167[10]. With all due respect, I believe their concerns are misplaced.
*491Both commentators give three reasons justifying their conclusion that third-party defendants cannot remove: first, third-party defendants are not defendants within the meaning of section 1441; second, section 1441(e) is limited to claims joined by the plaintiff; and third, the third-party claim is not sufficiently unrelated to the main claim to be a separate and independent claim. As discussed above, the argument that a third-party defendant is not a defendant is conceptually specious, Ford Motor Credit, supra, 563 F.Supp. at 1113, and ignores the interest in protecting the third-party defendants’ choice of forum. As also noted above, limiting section 1441(c) to claims raised by plaintiffs inserts into the statute qualifying language not placed there by Congress. The third reason for prohibiting removal by a third-party defendant is no justification for barring all third-party defendants from removing because section 1441(c) itself provides that removal will not be allowed if the removable claim is not separate and independent; removal should not be denied in those situations where a separate and independent claim does exist simply because in many other eases it does not.
This case in fact presents a situation where a properly construed section 1441(c) would operate to bar removal. For the reasons stated by the majority, I do not believe that the Sheltons’ claim against the United States is separate and independent from Thomas’ claim against the Sheltons. For that reason, although I disagree strongly with the proposition that a third-party defendant can never remove under section 1441(c), I concur in the judgment in this case.