The district courts across the country that have addressed the issue disagree. Compare Myers Indus., Inc. v. Young, No. CIV-13-01278, 2013 WL 4431250, at *3 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013) (declining to apply the fraudulent joinder doctrine to plaintiffs), with Taco Bell Corp. v. Dairy Farmers of Am., Inc., 727 F.Supp.2d 604, 607 (W.D. Ky. 2010) (applying the fraudulent joinder doctrine to plaintiffs).

Breland Homes, 2019 WL 1466239, at *8 ; see also Reeves v. Pfizer, Inc., 880 F. Supp. 2d 926, 929 (S.D. Ill. 2012) ("Without contrary direction from the Seventh Circuit, this Court finds that extending the doctrine of fraudulent joinder to joinder of plaintiffs would be ... a massive increase to this Court's jurisdiction."); Myers Indus., Inc. v. Young, No. 5:13-CV-01278, 2013 WL 4431250, at *4 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013) ("Because the Court cannot conclude with complete certainty that the Sixth Circuit would hold fraudulent joinder analysis applies to plaintiffs, ... the Court is bound to refuse to apply fraudulent joinder analysis to [plaintiff]."); but see Foslip Pharm., Inc. v. Metabolife Int'l, Inc., 92 F. Supp. 2d 891, 904 n.7 (N.D. Iowa 2000) (finding this reasoning "fails to give proper consideration to the fact that the fundamental principle of jurisdiction is ‘complete diversity,’ not the doctrine of ‘fraudulent joinder’ ")

Id. at 929 (emphasis supplied). The Northern District of Ohio followed suit in Myers Industries, Inc. v. Young, No. 5:13-CV-01278, 2013 WL 4431250 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013). With no definitive guidance from the Sixth Circuit and a split among other courts that had decided the issue, the district court was left with a "legal ambiguity" that could not, in light of the narrow scope of federal jurisdiction, be resolved in favor of allowing removal.

28 U.S.C. § 1332; see also 3LI Consultant Grp. v. Catholic Health Partners, No. 1:15-cv-455, 2016 WL 246202, at *1 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 21, 2016). The statute requires "complete" diversity of citizenship, meaning no plaintiff resides in the same state as any defendant. Myers Indus., Inc. v. Young, No. 5:13-CV-01278, 2013 WL 4431250, at *1 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013) (citing Lincoln Prop. Co. v. Roche, 546 U.S. 81, 84 (2005)). If complete diversity of citizenship exists, defendants may remove an action filed by a plaintiff in state court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441. Id.

Acknowledging that there is no controlling Sixth Circuit precedent on the issue of whether the fraudulent-joinder doctrine applies to fraudulently joined plaintiffs as well as defendants, the Magistrate Judge noted that district courts within the Sixth Circuit have come to different answers to this question. See, e.g., Myers Indus., Inc. v. Young, 5:13-cv-1278, 2013 WL 4431250, at *4 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013) (finding that "legal uncertainty" about whether to apply the doctrine to plaintiffs required remand because "the Court [was] bound to resolve all doubts about the propriety of removal in favor of remand"); Taco Bell Corp. v. Dairy Farmers of Am., Inc., 727 F. Supp. 2d 604, 607 (W.D. Ky. 2010) (noting that the primary purpose of the doctrine "is to ensure that plaintiffs do not avoid diversity jurisdiction by pleading illegitimate claims involving non-diverse parties," and this purpose is equally served in circumstances when the plaintiff has sued non-diverse defendants against whom it has no viable claim and when the plaintiff has joined non-diverse plaintiffs who have no viable claims).

Bloomberg asserts that the same concept can be applied to a plaintiff whose presence in the case defeats diversity jurisdiction, but who has no arguable claim for recovery. Plaintiffs acknowledge, in their motion to remand, that some courts (including some district courts within this Circuit) have applied this theory to plaintiffs as well as to defendants, but argue that the better view is that the fraudulent joinder doctrine must be confined to defendants. They make three policy arguments in support of this proposition: (1) that since ambiguities should be decided in favor of those seeking remand, and it is ambiguous whether the fraudulent joinder doctrine applies to plaintiffs, it should not be so applied; (2) that questions about the sufficiency of state law claims should be left to state courts; and (3) that considerations of the state-federal jurisdictional dynamic favor limiting the application of the doctrine to defendants. Plaintiffs rely heavily on Myers Indus., Inc. v. Young, 2013 WL 4431250 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2013). There, the Court noted the existence of conflicting authority on this issue and the absence of any controlling decision from the Court of Appeals, and concluded that because there was a legal ambiguity on the issue, that doubt should be resolved in favor of declining to apply the doctrine.