Earlier today, the Supreme Court granted cert in Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Company, LLC v. Owens, No. 13-719, in which it will take up the contours of the standard for providing factual support in a notice of removal under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA). Specifically, the issue presented is as follows:
Whether a defendant seeking removal to federal court is required to include evidence supporting federal jurisdiction in the notice of removal, or is alleging the required “short and plain statement of the grounds for removal” enough?
This is the third CAFA removal case that the Court has accepted in as many years. During the October 2012 term, the Court decided Standard Fire Ins. Co. v Knowles, 133 S. Ct. 1345 (2013), in which it held that a class representative may not avoid CAFA jurisdiction by stipulating to a recovery of damages of less than $5,000,000 on behalf of members of the proposed class. Earlier in the current term, the Court decided Mississippi ex rel. Jim Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., Case No. 12-1036 (U.S. Jan. 14, 2014), holding that a parens patriae action brought by a state attorney general on behalf of Mississippi residents was not a “mass action” subject to CAFA.
