Hood v. Gilster-Mary Lee Corp., No. 15-1458 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseFormer and current employees filed a class action lawsuit in state court against Gilster and other defendants, alleging lung impairment (or potential lung impairment) from exposure to butter-flavoring products, including diacetyl, used in Gilster’s microwave popcorn packaging plant in Jasper, Missouri. Defendants removed the action to federal court. Six weeks later, the employees dismissed all defendants except Gilster. The district court ordered a remand to state court based on the Class Action Fairness Act’s local-controversy exception, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(4), under which, a court is required to decline jurisdiction when “greater than two-thirds of the members of all proposed plaintiff classes in the aggregate are citizens of the State in which the action was originally filed,” determined as of the date of the filing. The district court permitted discovery on state citizenship. For all of the potential class members, except the current employees, plaintiffs provided only last-known addresses, some 27 years old, and did not identify state citizenship. The court ultimately found that 41 percent of potential class members were Missouri citizens. The Eighth Circuit reversed. Because the employees did not meet their burden of proof that a CAFA exception applies, the court erred by resolving doubt in favor of the party seeking remand.
Court Description: Benton, Author, with Loken and Colloton, Circuit Judges] Civil Case - Class Action Fairness Act. District court's order remanding case to state court based on local-controversy exception is reversed. District court erred in finding that over two-thirds of potential class members were Missouri citizens based on extrapolation of Missouri citizens who responded to questionnaire to the citizenship for those potential class members who did not respond. Because employees did not meet their burden of proof that local-controversy exception applied, the district court erred by resolving doubt in favor of the party seeking the remand. Home | Contact Us | Employment | Glossary of Legal Terms | Site Map | RSS Privacy Policy|BrowseAloud
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