CINCINNATI (LN) — U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. granted a motion to remand a New Jersey products liability suit to state court on Monday, ruling that the 'forum defendant rule' bars a defendant from removing a case to federal court if it is a citizen of the state where the action is brought, even if it has not yet been served.
The dispute centered on whether C.R. Bard, Inc. could use 'snap removal' to pull the case filed by California plaintiff John Sayre out of New Jersey Superior Court. Bard, a New Jersey citizen, removed the case the day after Sayre filed it, arguing that the removal statute permits removal so long as the forum defendant has not yet been 'properly joined and served.'
Sayre argued that such removal violates the forum defendant rule codified in 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2), which prohibits removal if any properly joined and served defendant is a citizen of the state in which the action is pending.
Sargus rejected Bard’s plain-language argument, noting that Congress’s strong disfavor of removal requires courts to construe removal statutes narrowly. He cited the Northern District of Ohio’s decision in Ethington v. Gen. Elec. Co., which found that allowing snap removal would 'eviscerate a plaintiff’s well-established right to choice of forum.'
'The purpose underlying the ‘joined and served’ language in section 1441(b)(2) is to prevent gamesmanship by plaintiffs,' Sargus wrote, quoting Ethington. He noted that permitting sophisticated defendants to monitor state dockets and remove before service would effectively preclude plaintiffs from litigating in the defendant’s home state.
The case is part of the multidistrict litigation In re Davol, Inc./C.R. Bard, Inc., Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation, which Sargus oversees.
Sargus directed the clerk to return the case to the Superior Court of New Jersey and close it on the federal docket.