Removal is for Nerds

For those of you who just finished taking CivPro, maybe you were already aware of this. For everyone else, on December 7 Obama signed into law the Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011, H.R. 394, P.L. 112-63.

The Act significantly modifies the situations in which a defendant may revove cases under both federal question and diversity jurisdiction. Linked to this article is a brief summary.

In even briefer summary:

-The 30 day removal clock now runs for each defendant when they are served, which resolved a circuit split. The Ninth Circuit rule was the same as the new codified one.

-Treatment of resident aliens: The Act clarifies that resident aliens are not citizens for diversity purposes. In other words, two aliens suing each other and are domiciled in different states cannot invoke diversity jurisdiction.

-The Act clarifies that corporations are citizens of both their state of incorporation and their primary place of business.

-District Courts will no longer have discretion to decide unrelated state law claims following removal. This is a significant departure: Before this change courts had the discretion to keep a case intact even where state law claims were entirely unrelated to federal questions. Now the case will be severed unless a court has supplemental jurisdiction under section 1367.

-Now codified is the widely-accepted rule that all defendants must consent to removal, except in class actions.

There are also numerous venue changes, which I will let others explain. My personal opinion is that V*tter will have to come up with some new jokes next semester.