Supreme Court Closes CAFA Loophole in Standard Fire v. Knowles
As a part of Vinson & Elkins’ Texas Business Court Quarterly Update, the following update summarizes the Texas Business Court opinions—categorized by primary issue—that have been released since September 1, 2024 through the...more
Plaintiff’s counsel often employ a range of strategic tactics to defeat diversity jurisdiction because they view federal court as an unfavorable forum. One such tactic is to challenge the amount in controversy—a key...more
This week, we look at one decision navigating the complicated jurisprudence governing review of remand orders (which one might think would be unreviewable), and another addressing the available penalties when taxpayers fail...more
Florida’s trial court system is divided into two tiers, the county courts and the circuit courts. For most civil cases, the dividing line between county and circuit court is the amount in controversy, with a $15,000 limit for...more
Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”) with the hope of preventing abuse in class action lawsuits. CAFA assigns jurisdiction to federal courts over class actions where: (i) the aggregate amount in...more
A plaintiff will rarely be permitted to amend its class action complaint after removal to avoid federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). That is the takeaway from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’...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
The Southern District of California denied a plaintiff’s motion to remand a putative class action removed pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), where the plaintiff had alleged that the primary defendant’s product,...more
In Alilin v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., No. 6:14-cv-1183-Orl-41DAB (D. for M.D. Fla., Jan. 30, 2015), Judge Carlos Mendoza denied Alilin's challenge to the amount in controversy prong of State Farm's removal to federal...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
Most cases involving the existence of removal jurisdiction under CAFA involve the $5 million amount in controversy. In a recent Third Circuit opinion, determining whether or not the putative class had the requisite 100...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
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
In Urbino v. Orkin Servs. of California Inc., a divided Ninth Circuit held that civil penalties recoverable by individual employees under California’s Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) cannot be aggregated to...more
On June 19, 2013 Governor Pat McCrory signed legislation dramatically changing the jurisdictional amounts for the various divisions of civil court in North Carolina. For many years, the amount in controversy limit for small...more
In Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a class-action plaintiff may not avoid the effect of the federal Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) by “stipulating” he will not seek damages in excess of...more
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles, resolved the debate between the plaintiffs’ bar and defense bar regarding whether a class representative’s stipulation that damages would not exceed $5...more