Court Opinion

ID: 9916328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-09 19:01:23.510608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:24:59.687277
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                   FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                        _____________

                            No. 23-1435
                           _____________

                 ESTATE OF CLARA T. TROILO,
  Deceased, by Frank Troilo, Executor of the Estate of Clara T. Troilo

                                   v.

ROSE TREE PLACE; NSL ROSE TREE PLACE, LLC, doing business as
Rose Tree Place; WATERMARK RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES INC;
WATERMARK RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES LLC; WATERMARK
    OPERATOR LLC; CYNTHIA EVANS; KAREN MILAWSKY,
                                 Appellants
                       ______________

           On Appeal from the United States District Court
              For the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
                      (D.C. No. 2-22-cv-00097)
           District Judge: Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg
                           ______________

           Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on
                        December 6, 2023

      Before: SHWARTZ, CHUNG, and McKEE, Circuit Judges

                   (Opinion filed: January 9, 2024)
                                ______________________

                                       OPINION
                                ______________________

McKEE, Circuit Judge

       This case concerns Plaintiff’s claims that Defendants made misleading statements

about the prevalence of COVID-19 infections within their senior living community.

Defendants removed this case from state court, but the District Court remanded the case

for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Defendants appeal the District Court’s remand

order, arguing that this case comes within federal jurisdiction either because Plaintiff’s

state law claims should be construed as federal claims or because Defendants were acting

under the direction of federal officers by virtue of their role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

       We agree with the District Court that we lack subject matter jurisdiction over this

case, so we will affirm.1

                                              I.
       Defendants argue that this case should remain in federal court for essentially two

reasons. First, Defendants argue that at least one of Plaintiff’s claims is equivalent to a


  This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
1
  Because Defendants asserted the federal officer removal statute as a basis for removal,
we have jurisdiction to review any basis for removal addressed in the District Court’s
order. See Maglioli v. Alliance HC Holdings LLC, 16 F.4th 393, 403 (3d Cir. 2021) (first
citing 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d); then citing BP P.L.C. v. Mayor of Balt., 593 U.S. 230
(2021)). We review orders remanding for lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Id.

                                              2
willful misconduct claim2 under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act3

(the “PREP Act”). Defendants argue that such a claim falls within federal jurisdiction

either because the PREP Act explicitly provides for exclusive federal jurisdiction over

willful misconduct claims or because the PREP Act implicitly provides for federal

jurisdiction over such claims via complete preemption. Second, Defendants argue that

federal jurisdiction is appropriate under the federal officer removal statute because

Defendants participated in the federal government’s response to the COVID-19

pandemic. Neither argument is persuasive.

       Regardless of whether we characterize Defendant’s first argument as an artful

pleading argument or a complete preemption argument, the argument succeeds only if

Plaintiff’s state law claim falls within the PREP Act’s cause of action for willful

misconduct.4 Plaintiff’s claim is that Defendants misrepresented the prevalence of

COVID-19 at their senior living community to residents’ family members and thereby

caused Clara Troilo’s death. But a complaint does not state a claim under the PREP Act

merely because its allegations involve willful misconduct related to COVID-19. Instead,

the complaint must allege willful misconduct related to “the” COVID-19 countermeasure

2
  42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d(d)(1).
3
  42 U.S.C. §§ 247d-6d, 247d-6e.
4
  See 42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d(e)(1) (providing exclusive federal jurisdiction over only
claims of willful misconduct); Maglioli, 16 F.4th at 407 (concluding that state law claims
are completely preempted by the PREP Act only if they fall within the PREP Act’s cause
of action for willful misconduct); see also 14C Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller,
Federal Practice and Procedure § 3722.1 (Rev. 4th ed., April 2023 Update) (describing
complete preemption as a theory of artful pleading).

                                             3
that was “administered to or used by the person on whose behalf the complaint was

filed.”5

       Here, Plaintiff does not allege that Defendants ever administered a countermeasure

to Troilo, the decedent for whom Plaintiff sues. At most, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants

administered countermeasures in the form of COVID-19 tests to others and then

misrepresented the results of those tests to Troilo’s family. Because Troilo did not herself

receive a countermeasure, it is clear under the PREP Act’s plain text that her estate

cannot state a claim for willful misconduct.

       Defendants’ second argument is equally unavailing because it is foreclosed by our

precedent. In Maglioli v. Alliance HC Holdings LLC, we determined that nursing homes

did not become federal agents during the COVID-19 pandemic.6 Defendants do not

attempt to distinguish their senior living community from the nursing homes considered

in Maglioli.7 Instead, Defendants argue that we should reconsider our holding in Maglioli

because there are additional reasons to believe nursing homes and senior living

communities operated as federal agents during the pandemic that were not addressed in

Maglioli. Defendants’ additional arguments are wholly unpersuasive.8 But even if they

5
  42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d(e)(3)(A) (emphasis added).
6
  Maglioli, 16 F.4th at 404–06.
7
  Indeed, Defendants seem to concede that their senior living community is covered by
Maglioli’s holding. Appellant Br. 42 (“The law of this Circuit is that senior living
communities like Rose Tree were not being controlled by the federal government . . . .”)
(emphasis added).
8
  Defendants argue that Maglioli failed to consider that the Department of Health and
Human Services (“DHHS”) declared senior living communities “covered persons” and
“program planners” under the PREP Act, Appellant Br. 33; that Defendants were part of

                                               4
an “essential national network of . . . program planners providing COVID-19
countermeasure[s],” id. at 34; and that DHHS referred to “healthcare companies” as “part
of a government response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” id. at 35 (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). But a wide variety of private actors performed important
public health functions during the pandemic, and most of those private actors would not
be considered federal agents. See, e.g., Maglioli, 16 F.4th at 406 (“[N]ursing homes [were
designated] essential critical infrastructure. But that is also true of doctors, weather
forecasters, clergy, farmers, bus drivers, plumbers, dry cleaners, and many other workers.
Congress did not deputize all of these private-sector workers as federal officers.”)
(footnotes omitted).
        Defendants also argue that the Pennsylvania Department of Health (“PDH”) is a
federal contractor for purposes of implementing Medicare and Medicaid programs, that
Defendants were licensed by PDH to provide congregate senior living services, and that
Defendants cooperated with PDH and DHHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is
difficult to follow Defendants’ logic, but they seem to argue that the combination of these
facts necessarily transforms Rose Tree into a federal agent. But if Defendants’ regulatory
relationship with the federal government itself does not transform Defendants into federal
agents, id. at 405, then surely Defendants’ regulatory relationship with a state agency that
is a federal contractor for purposes unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic does not
transform Defendants into federal agents.
        Finally, Defendants argue that Congress must have intended for nursing homes to
be able to avail themselves of the federal officer removal statute because the PREP Act
does not “abrogate or limit any defense or protection available to the United States or its
agencies, instrumentalities, officers, or employees under any other law.” 42 U.S.C. §
247d-6d(f). But that Congress preserved defenses and protections for the federal
government’s “instrumentalities” says nothing about whether Defendants were the
federal government’s instrumentalities.
        More generally, as we observed in Maglioli, the fundamental flaw in Defendants’
argument is that Defendants neither fulfilled a duty of the federal government nor had a
sufficiently close relationship with the federal government. Maglioli, 16 F.4th. at 405–06.
None of Defendants’ additional arguments cure these flaws. While one may hope that the
federal government would act to address a public health crisis, the federal government is
not legally compelled to do so. And while nursing homes may have played an important
role in the federal government’s response to the pandemic, Defendants have not
identified any evidence that nursing homes were subject to greater “monitoring” or
“supervision,” Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., Inc., 551 U.S. 142, 153 (2007), than we
observed in Maglioli, see 16 F.4th at 405.

                                             5
were persuasive, we, as a panel of this Court, would remain bound by our decision in

Maglioli.9

                                              II.

       For these reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s remand order.

9
 Third Circuit Court of Appeals I.O.P. 9.1 (“It is the tradition of this court that the
holding of a panel in a precedential opinion is binding on subsequent panels.”).

                                              6