Baker v. Equity Residential Management, L.L.C.

996 F. Supp. 2d 1, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18469, 2014 WL 554489
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedFebruary 12, 2014
DocketCivil Action No. 13-12217-RBC
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 996 F. Supp. 2d 1 (Baker v. Equity Residential Management, L.L.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Equity Residential Management, L.L.C., 996 F. Supp. 2d 1, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18469, 2014 WL 554489 (D. Mass. 2014).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR REMAND TO STATE COURT (6)

COLLINGS, United States Magistrate Judge.

I. Introduction

Putative class representatives Rachelle Baker and Jason Dittmann (“Plaintiffs”) filed a class action against Equity Residential Management, L.L.C. and EQR-Walden Park, L.L.C. (collectively “Equity”) for claims arising out of Equity’s failure to provide heat and hot water service for two apartment buildings (collectively “Walden Park”) at sporadic intervals on about twenty-four occasions between April 2012 and the present. These outages lasted anywhere from one to twenty-four hours at a time.

Ms. Baker and Mr. Dittmann are residents of one of the two Walden Park buildings, 225 Walden Street, Apartment 1L, Cambridge, Massachusetts. They seek to represent a putative class of similarly situated individuals living at Walden Park for a period during which the outages occurred. Equity Residential Management, L.L.C. is the plaintiffs’ lessor and is a Delaware corporation with a principle place of business located in Chicago, Illinois. EQR-Walden Park, L.L.C. owns the apartment complex and is a Delaware corporation with a principle place of business in Chicago, Illinois.2 Plaintiffs Baker and [3]*3Dittraann filed this class action in the Massachusetts Superior Court of Middlesex County on August 15, 2013 pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 23. Equity filed a Notice of Removal from State Court under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332, 1441, 1446, and 1453 claiming federal subject matter jurisdiction on the basis of diversity of citizenship and satisfaction of the other elements under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”). Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Remand, disputing satisfaction of the amount in controversy under § 1332(d)(2).

II. Applicable Law

CAFA provides for the removal to federal court of class actions filed in state court if they satisfy the statute’s minimal diversity and class size requirements and have more than $5 million in controversy, exclusive of interests and costs. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332(d), 1441(b), 1446(c), 1453; Amoche v. Guarantee Trust Life Ins. Co., 556 F.3d 41, 42-43 (1st Cir.2009). The only CAFA requirement at issue in this case is whether or not the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional threshold.

“[D]etermining whether a case belongs in federal court should be done quickly, without an extensive fact-finding inquiry.” Spielman v. Genzyme Corp., 251 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.2001). There is a “general rule of deference to the plaintiffs chosen forum.” Amoche, 556 F.3d at 50 (citing 14C Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3725, at 95 (3d ed.1998)) (recognizing that “a greater burden [is imposed] on defendants in the removal situation than is imposed on plaintiffs who wish to litigate in federal court by invoking its original jurisdiction” to demonstrate the amount in controversy but that “[t]his discrepancy in treatment of plaintiffs and defendants may be justified by the historical tradition that the plaintiff is the master of the forum and is empowered to choose the court system and venue in which litigation will proceed”). Thus, any doubts in the evidence should be resolved in favor of remand because the court has “a responsibility to police the border of federal jurisdiction.” Spielman, 251 F.3d at 4.

Law in the First Circuit, along with seven other circuits, places the burden of showing federal jurisdiction on the defendant removing under CAFA. Amoche, 556 F.3d at 48 — 49; accord Spivey v. Vertrue, Inc., 528 F.3d 982, 986 (7th Cir.2008) (“The removing party [under CAFA], as the proponent of federal jurisdiction, bears the burden of describing how the controversy exceeds $5 million.”); Strawn v. AT & T Mobility LLC, 530 F.3d 293, 298 (4th Cir.2008); Smith v. Nationwide Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 505 F.3d 401, 404-05 (6th Cir.2007); Morgan v. Gay, 471 F.3d 469, 473 (3d Cir.2006); DiTolla v. Doral Dental IPA of New York, 469 F.3d 271, 275 (2d Cir.2006); Miedema v. Maytag Corp., 450 F.3d 1322, 1329-30 (11th Cir.2006); Abrego Abrego v. The Dow Chem. Co., 443 F.3d 676, 685-86 (9th Cir.2006); Brill v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 427 F.3d 446, 447 (7th Cir.2005).

Where the complaint does not contain specific damage allegations, the removing defendant must show there is a reasonable probability that the amount in controversy exceeds the $5 million threshold at the time of removal Amoche, 556 F.3d at 43, 51; see also Blockbuster, Inc. v. Galeno, 472 F.3d 53, 58 (2d Cir.2006) [4]*4(“[The removing defendant] must show that it appears to a ‘reasonable probability’ that the aggregate claims of the plaintiff class are in excess of $5 million.”); Brill, 427 F.3d at 449 (“[T]he removing litigant must show a reasonable probability that the stakes exceed the [jurisdictional] minimum”). “When a plaintiffs complaint fails to specify damages, or specifies damages less than the federal jurisdictional amount, the courts have disagreed as to the burden that a defendant must meet to establish the jurisdictional sufficiency of the amount in controversy for removal purposes.” 14C Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3725.1, at 76 (4th ed. 2009). Where the complaint filed in state court alleges a specific damage amount that is less than the federal jurisdictional minimum, many circuits place a heavier burden — showing to a legal certainty that the amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional threshold — on the defendant than if the complaint did not claim a specific amount. See 14AA Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3702.2, at 395-96 (4th ed. 2011). This heavier burden reflects “the respect accorded the plaintiffs forum choice and the strict construction accorded the removal statute, which effectively amounts to a presumption against the amount in controversy requirement being satisfied and therefore a presumption against removal.” Id. (footnote omitted).

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Bluebook (online)
996 F. Supp. 2d 1, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18469, 2014 WL 554489, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-equity-residential-management-llc-mad-2014.