Update (April 7, 2011): Many will enjoy this little taste of retired U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum (D. Minn.), reported this week by LegalNewsline.
Original Post (March 15, 2011): CAFA, Timing for Removal, Eighth Circuit “Emergency Opinion”
Disclaimer: If you are not a civil litigator, don’t bother with this post. If you are a civil litigator, a Civil Procedure professor, or law student, have at it.
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued an opinion that it characterized as an “emergency opinion” reversing U.S. District Court James R. Rosenbaum’s (D. Minn., now retired) remand to Minnesota state court of the putative class plaintiffs’ class action complaint against defendants CVS, Target, Walmart, K-Mart, et al., based on “various generic drug pricing claims.” Defendants had removed the case to federal court based on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (and amendments to 28 U.S.C. 1332 (removal statute) as part of “the CAFA”).
United States law applies a timing rule fairly stringently (30 days) for motions to remand based on “defects” other than lack of subject matter jurisdiction (which is always a good reason to remand, whenever the situation exists). But, the Eighth Circuit ponders in this case, are there bases justifying remand that are neither “defects other than lack of subject matter jurisdiction” — triggering a 30-day time limit — nor lack of subject matter jurisdiction (no time limit)?
Yes, the Court of Appeals concluded.
And, if so, what time limit is to be applied? Figure it out, the Court of Appeals instructed the District Court (which will obviously need to assign the case to a new judge (if it has not already) in light of Judge Rosenbaum’s retirement).