[author: Joshua Threadcraft]

FDS Restaurants, Inc. v. All Plumbing, Inc., Civ. No. 12-394 (RMC), 2012 WL 4052847 (D.D.C. Sept. 14, 2012).

 In FDS Restaurants, Inc. v. All Plumbing, Inc., Defendants sought to remove a TCPA case to federal court, arguing that the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Mims v. Arrow Fin. Servs. LLC, 132 S.Ct. 740 (2012) recognizing that the TCPA creates federal question jurisdiction was a triggering event allowing removal. While cases not originally removable can be removed within 30 days after receipt through service or otherwise of an amended pleading motion, order, or other paper from which it may be first ascertained that the case is one which is or has become removable, the court stated that the decision in Mims was not an “order or other paper.” The Court reached this conclusion stating that the opinion is not a document generated in the state court litigation and it is not an order in another case in which Defendants were parties. The court added that while Mims clarified that concurrent federal jurisdiction applied to TCPA claims, the decision recognized, but did not create, federal jurisdiction. The Court then went on to state that even if it were to find that Mims was a triggering event for the purpose removal, Defendants still missed the 30–day deadline to remove the case, which was March 9, 2012.

For more information on TCPA regulation and effects, contact Burr & Forman attorney, Joshua Threadcraft, here.