Whether the Class Action Fairness Act permits federal courts to exercise removal jurisdiction over cases that plaintiffs attempt to restyle or refile to evade CAFA's jurisdictional requirements, notwithstanding the plaintiffs' use of different state procedural rules or voluntary dismissal and refiling tactics

No question identified. : 2. This case concerns the ability of class action plaintiffs to subvert the jurisdictional protections of the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) through procedural gamesmanship. It also raises important questions about what actions qualify for removal under CAFA’s definition of a “class action.” 3. In August 2021, Troy Stephenson, Christina Stephenson, and Steven Barnett (“Plaintiffs”) filed their case against Indemnity in Pennsylvania state court on behalf of an interstate class of insurance policyholders (“Subscribers”). They challenged Indemnity’s collection of a contractually authorized “Management Fee,” which compensates Indemnity for running the insurance business for Subscribers. In response, Indemnity exercised its right to remove under CAFA. But, in an effort to avoid federal court, Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed and then quickly refiled an amended version of their complaint in the same state court. They pleaded the same claim based on the same legal theory and facts as before. And they continued, through the same counsel, to seek the same class-wide injunctive relief and damages for the purported benefit of millions of Subscribers. But, in that second complaint, Plaintiffs! tried to disguise their class action by nominally styling their case under different state procedural rules. 4. Indemnity again removed, arguing that Plaintiffs’ false labeling and their post-removal amendment through barred remand. The district court disagreed, holding that the jurisdictional inquiry turned solely on the procedural rules that Plaintiffs deployed in their latest complaint. (Exhibit 3). In 1 Susan Rubel, who was listed as a fourth plaintiff in the original complaint, was not listed on the second complaint. doing so, the district court relied on Erie Insurance Exchange v. Erie Indemnity Co., 722 F.3d 154 (3d Cir. 2013), an earlier Third Circuit decision that had adopted a narrow view of which state procedural rules qualify for treatment as a removable “class action” under CAFA. Based on that narrow view, the district court held that Plaintiffs’ latest complaint did not qualify for removal despite the fact that Plaintiffs had initially brought their suit as a class action and despite the fact that Plaintiffs sought to represent and to benefit “all” two-million-plus Subscribers nationwide. 5. After an initial denial, the Third Circuit granted Indemnity’s petition for permission to appeal. (Exhibit 4). See 28 U.S.C. § 1453(¢)(1). 6. Following merits briefing and oral argument, the Third Circuit affirmed. Finding itself “bound to follow” the previous Third Circuit decision’s cramped reading of CAFA’s definitional provision, the court “conclude[d] that this case is not a class action on its face.” Ex. 1 at 9. It observed that “[t]his does not end [the jurisdictional] inquiry,” because a reviewing court “must cut through any pleading artifice to identify whether the case is in substance an interstate class action.” Id. at 9-10. But then the Third Circuit ignored Plaintiffs’ jurisdictional machinations based on its novel view that courts may “look beyond the four corners of a complaint only when addressing factual predicates.” Id. at 10-11 (emphasis added). Applying that distinction—which neither this Court nor any other Circuit appears to have drawn in the past—the Third Circuit concluded that Plaintiffs’ false labels concerned legal requirements, not “facts beyond the Complaint.” Id. at 11. 7. Turning to Indemnity’s other argument, the Third Circuit did not dispute that federal jurisdiction attached when Indemnity first removed Plaintiffs’ case. Id. at 13. And it conceded that “[t]he operative facts and the legal theory” were “identical” to those in Plaintiffs’ original class action complaint. Jd. at 5. But it once again elevated form over substance to allow Plaintiffs to escape that vested jurisdiction. While this Court has long held that “events occurring subsequent to removal . . . do not oust the distri