Opinion
Civil Action 23-0659
05-23-2024
TINA THOMPSON, Plaintiff, v. NIAGARA BOTTLING, LLC, et al., Defendants.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
PATRICIA L. DODGE, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
I. Recommendation
It is respectfully recommended that Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Amend Plaintiff's Amended Complaint (ECF No. 54) be granted. It is further recommended that this action be remanded to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e).
II. Report
Plaintiff Tina Thompson, a citizen of Pennsylvania, commenced this action in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania against numerous parties after she was injured in an industrial accident. The case was subsequently removed to this Court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. The question of whether diversity jurisdiction existed was litigated for almost a year until the Court ultimately determined that there was diversity of citizenship.
Plaintiff has now filed a motion to amend the Amended Complaint to substitute two companies for previously unidentified “John Doe” defendants. Because one of these companies is a Pennsylvania citizen, its addition to this action would defeat diversity jurisdiction. For the reasons discussed herein, the Court concludes that the motion to amend should be granted, and because this will result in the addition of the non-diverse defendant, this action should be remanded to state court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e).
A. Relevant Procedural History
Plaintiff commenced this action in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on March 3, 2023 by filing a Complaint which was later amended on March 20, 2023. Plaintiff claims to have been injured as result of a March 2, 2021 accident while she was working at a bottling facility in Howard, Pennsylvania. Named as defendants are Niagara Bottling, LLC (“Niagara”), Milesburg Properties, LLC (“Milesburg”), VNE Corp., Rieger Flow Products, LLC and Neumo Ehrenberg Group. In addition, the Complaint names John Does 1 through 6. The Amended Complaint added The Coca Cola Company (“Coca Cola”) and Coca Cola Bottling Company (“CCBC”) as defendants and asserted eight negligence counts.
Coca Cola has filed a motion to dismiss (ECF No. 48), in which it argues that the Amended Complaint was not properly filed in accordance with Pennsylvania procedure and as such, the claims against it are untimely. Because this case should be remanded to the Court of Common Pleas, that issue remains for the state court to decide following remand.
On April 21, 2023, Niagara and Milesburg removed the case to this Court, invoking diversity of citizenship jurisdiction. However, the Court immediately noted that CCBC was alleged to be a Pennsylvania company with a principal place of business in Birmingham, Alabama, which would defeat diversity because Plaintiff is a Pennsylvania citizen.Therefore, after issues involving service were resolved, the parties were ordered to brief the issue of subject matter jurisdiction. These briefs, submitted on March 22, 2024, revealed for the first time that Plaintiff had stipulated to the dismissal of CCBC on August 14, 2023 in state court despite the fact that the case had been removed to federal court four months earlier. In addition, Coca Cola asserted that CCBC was an Alabama corporation, not a Pennsylvania corporation as alleged by Plaintiff, and as a result, its presence would not defeat diversity. Thus, on March 26, 2024, the Court issued an order finding that subject matter jurisdiction existed (ECF No. 41).
The removing defendants acknowledged this issue but contended that jurisdiction existed because CCBC was either a “nominal” defendant whose citizenship was not relevant or because it had been added to the Amended Complaint in an attempt to defeat diversity jurisdiction (ECF No. 7 at 7-8). None of the other Defendants are Pennsylvania citizens.
Plaintiff then filed a motion for leave to amend the complaint on April 15, 2024 (ECF No. 48), which she corrected two days later (ECF No. 54). The proposed Second Amended Complaint makes two substitutions: replacing “John Doe 3” with Trans-Market, LLC (“TransMarket”); and “John Doe 4” with Rowlands Sales Co. (“Rowlands”).
In an order issued on April 18, 2024 (ECF No. 55), the Court noted that Plaintiff had not properly alleged the citizenship of Trans-Market, an LLC, and that Rowlands was alleged to be a Pennsylvania corporation with a principal place of business in Pennsylvania. (ECF No. 54 Ex. D ¶ 33.) Because adding Rowlands would defeat diversity in this case, the Court ordered Plaintiff to file a brief by May 2, 2024 to explain why Rowlands should be added as a defendant. Plaintiff filed her brief on May 2, 2024 (ECF No. 56). Defendants were permitted to file briefs in opposition if they wished, but no briefs were filed.
The order also directed Plaintiff to identify the members of Trans-Market because “the citizenship of an LLC is determined by the citizenship of its members.” Zambelli Fireworks Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Wood, 592 F.3d 412, 419-20 (3d Cir. 2010). In her brief, Plaintiff indicated that, despite making efforts to determine the identity of the members of Trans-Market, she has been unable to do so. She also advised that publicly available information suggests that Trans-Market is a citizen of Wisconsin. (ECF No. 56 at 2-4 & Ex. B.) If the case were to continue in this Court, Trans-Market would be required to disclose its members and their respective citizenship when it responded to the Second Amended Complaint. However, as discussed below, because this case should be remanded to the Court of Common Pleas, this issue will be rendered moot.
B. Discussion
In her motion to amend, Plaintiff cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) and 15(c)(1) as the basis for amending the complaint with respect to both Trans-Market and Rowlands. However, “[i]f after removal the plaintiff seeks to join additional defendants whose joinder would destroy subject matter jurisdiction, the court may deny joinder, or permit joinder and remand the action to the State court.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e). The Court of Appeals has approvingly cited the Fifth Circuit's decision in Hensgens v. Deere & Co., 833 F.2d 1179, 1182 (5th Cir. 1987), which lists four factors a court should consider when faced with a motion to add a non-diverse party: “the extent to which the purpose of the amendment is to defeat federal jurisdiction, whether plaintiff has been dilatory in asking for amendment, whether plaintiff will be significantly injured if amendment is not allowed, and any other factors bearing on the equities.” See Avenatti v. Fox News Network LLC, 41 F.4th 125, 129, 135 (3d Cir. 2022).
The Court turns to an analysis of these factors.
1. Motive for Joinder
Plaintiff notes that an unknown defendant designated as John Doe 4, as well as the alleged wrongful conduct in which this entity engaged, are pleaded in the original Complaint. Plaintiff states that she was not able to identify this defendant at that time but has since discovered its identity. Thus, Plaintiff asserts, she is not seeking to join Rowlands in an attempt to defeat diversity; rather, she now seeks to replace John Doe 4 with Rowlands.
Given this history, there is no basis to conclude that Plaintiff's motive for seeking to join Rowlands as a Defendant is to destroy diversity, nor has any named defendant made such an argument. Therefore, this factor weighs in favor of permitting amendment.
2. Dilatoriness
At the time the Complaint was filed, the identity of several defendants was unknown. An inspection of the facility where the accident is alleged to have occurred was delayed and did not take place until January 5, 2024. According to Plaintiff, Defendant Niagara did not produce documents relevant to this matter until March 25, 2024 but these documents could not be reviewed until April 11, 2024 due to a formatting issue. At that time, a document was discovered that showed that Trans-Market had contracted with Rowlands to install certain equipment said to be related to the accident.
Plaintiff provided these documents to Matthew Wagenhofer, a mechanical/material engineer at MW Forensic Engineering. According to Plaintiff, Dr. Wagenhofer has concluded that Trans-Market and Rowlands fit the descriptions of John Does 3 and 4, respectively, in the original Complaint, and further opines that they may be responsible for the failure of the manufacturing and design of the system and/or the installation of the system which led to Plaintiff's accident. (ECF No. 56 Ex. A.)
Thus, Plaintiff contends that she acted diligently by filing a motion to substitute Rowlands for John Doe 4 on April 15, 2024, twenty days after receiving Niagara's documents and four days after resolving issues concerning the documents' readability. As noted above, Defendants have not contended otherwise.
The Court concludes that Plaintiff acted with reasonable diligence under the circumstances. Compare Arnold v. Chesapeake Energy Corp., 2015 WL 13574300, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 4, 2015) (plaintiffs should have known about a potential defendant, but waited more than two months to investigate); Gallegos v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Indiana, 2009 WL 4730570, at *4 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2009) (motion to amend filed two months after state court action was filed and thirty days after removal when plaintiff had ample information about adjustor's identity and involvement in handling the insurance claim was dilatory). See also Chodos v. W. Publ'g Co., 292 F.3d 992, 1003 (9th Cir. 2002) (district court appropriately denied motion to amend when allegedly “new” facts had been available to plaintiff even before the first amendment to his complaint). Thus, this factor supports permitting amendment.
3. Significant Injury
Plaintiff states that, if amendment is not allowed, she will sustain significant injury because she cannot commence a separate legal action against Rowlands as her claim would be time-barred by the statute of limitations. Plaintiff further argues that adding Rowlands as a defendant is necessary in order to obtain complete relief.
The Court concludes that this factor also weighs in favor of allowing amendment.
4. Other Equitable Factors
“In balancing the equities, the parties do not start out on an equal footing. This is because of the diverse defendant's right to choose between a state or federal forum. Giving diverse defendants the option of choosing the federal forum is the very purpose of the removal statutes.” Sexton v. G & K Servs., Inc., 51 F.Supp.2d 1311, 1313 (M.D. Ala. 1999). “Hence, the district court should scrutinize a motion to amend to join a non-diverse party more closely than a motion to amend under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and should deny leave to amend unless strong equities support the amendment.” Small v. Ford Motor Co., 923 F.Supp.2d 1354, 1356-57 (S.D. Fla. 2013) (citations omitted). See also Avenatti, 41 F.4th at 133 (“Once jurisdiction has vested in a federal court-which it did here upon removal from state court- careful scrutiny should be applied to any post-removal events threatening to wrench that jurisdiction away.”)
In this case, questions began to arise about the existence of diversity jurisdiction as soon as the notice of removal was filed. However, it was not until March 26, 2024, after these issues were resolved, that the Court was able to conclude that subject matter jurisdiction existed.
Notably, there are still several “John Doe” entities named as defendants in the proposed Amended Complaint, at least some of which may be Pennsylvania citizens given the occurrence of the accident in Pennsylvania.
Moreover, as Plaintiff notes, no defendant would be prejudiced by allowing amendment because this case is still in the pleading stage despite having been removed to federal court over a year ago. Thus, these equitable factors also weigh in favor of allowing amendment.
Thus, the Court concludes that consideration of the appropriate factors weighs in favor of allowing amendment to include Rowlands, a non-diverse defendant.
Given the resulting lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court must remand this action to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e) (“[i]f after removal the plaintiff seeks to join additional defendants whose joinder would destroy subject matter jurisdiction, the court may deny joinder, or permit joinder and remand the action to the State court.”) Because joinder should be permitted, the action must be remanded to state court.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons explained above, it is recommended that Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Amend Plaintiff's Amended Complaint (ECF No. 54) be granted. It is further recommended that this action then be remanded to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e).
Litigants who seek to challenge this Report and Recommendation must seek review by the district judge by filing objections by June 6, 2024. Any party opposing the objections shall file a response by June 20, 2024. Failure to file timely objections will waive the right of appeal.