Supreme Court Closes CAFA Loophole in Standard Fire v. Knowles
In a lawsuit between parties located in different states, a plaintiff sometimes try to keep the case in the state court by being cagey about defining their damages to prevent the defendant from removing the case to federal...more
Generally, a case is not removable to federal court “more than one year after commencement of [an] action.” However, a defendant may remove a case to federal court after the one-year deadline if it can demonstrate the...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini analyzed a case involving a plaintiff’s claim of negligence, defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and a federal age discrimination...more
Can an insured’s post-suit Civil Remedy Notice demanding over $75,000 satisfy the amount-in-controversy diversity jurisdiction requirement and trigger the thirty-day removal period for an insurer? It depends....more
In Parrott v. Northwestern Mut. Life Ins. Co., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128827 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 1, 2017), a U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida held that parties cannot include future disability benefits in the...more
This month’s key California employment law cases are two decisions from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Chavez v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 888 F.3d 413 (9th Cir. 2018) - Summary: Amount in controversy for federal...more
The Holding - In Hoarau v. Safeco Ins. Co. of America, 2017 WL 3328078 (D.Ariz. August 4, 2017), the Arizona District Court denied an insured's Motion to Remand in an insurance bad faith, punitive damages, and declaratory...more
In Roppo v. Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, the Seventh Circuit held that even after a motion to remand CAFA removal jurisdiction can be sufficiently established by a defendant’s “good faith estimates” of the amount...more
Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) in 2005 to address a series of well-documented abuses of the class action process. Among the protections of the act were provisions enabling class action defendants to...more
It’s that time again – the 85th Texas Legislature is underway in Austin, and a number of bills could affect civil litigation in state courts. Below are a few bills that trial lawyers may want to follow....more
In a case of first impression for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the court held that in a proceeding to confirm an arbitral award under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the amount of the demand in...more
Late last month, a federal district court in New York tackled procedural challenges to an arbitration confirmation proceeding. The arbitration arose from a dispute between an insurer and its reinsurer over the amount due to...more
The Fifth Circuit Bar Association’s summary reports: “Appellants were investors who suffered financial losses as a result of R. Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. In their arbitration complaint, they sought $80 million in...more
In a decision that may make it somewhat easier for defendants to remove putative class actions from state to federal court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that defendants in such cases do not need to offer evidence in their...more
The US Supreme Court recently held that under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), a defendant need not provide proof of the amount in controversy in its notice of removal to federal court. Only a plausible allegation is...more
Just two weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLC v. Owens, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a CAFA-based remand order where the defendant failed to establish by a preponderance of the...more
Days before the Supreme Court’s decision addressing the requirements for CAFA notices of removal in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLC v. Owens, the Third Circuit addressed the evidentiary requirements for surviving a...more
Last week, the United States Supreme Court held that a notice of removal from state court to federal court requires only pleading good faith allegations that the amount in controversy exceeds a jurisdictional threshold. The...more
In a previous blog, we explained that the Supreme Court was considering whether a defendant merely has to allege jurisdictional facts or provide evidence regarding the amount in controversy when removing a case....more
The US Supreme Court ruled last Monday that class action defendants need not provide evidentiary submissions in support of their attempts to remove a case from state to federal court. Rather, they need only include in their...more
On December 15, 2014, the United States Supreme Court held in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLC v. Owens that a class action defendant need only allege the requisite amount of controversy “plausibly” in the notice of...more
On December 15, 2014, the United States Supreme Court resolved a circuit split in holding that a defendant need not supply evidence of the amount in controversy in its notice of removal under the Class Action Fairness Act...more
The Supreme Court has held that a notice of removal requires only a “plausible allegation that the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional threshold,” and confirmed that a notice of removal need not include evidence...more
The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”) has found its way to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court several times in the last two years, as plaintiffs and defendants seek to define the parameters of the federal law...more
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. v. Owens, No. 13-719, a case involving the procedural requirements for removing a class action from state to federal court under the Class...more