Schroeder v. amazon.com Services, LLC

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 17, 2026
• Docket: 25-5631
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 17 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

TIMOTHY SCHROEDER, No. 25-5631 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:24-cv-02067-JR v. MEMORANDUM* AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC, a limited liability company,

Defendant - Appellant,

and

VEDANT DOMKONDEKAR, an individual,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Karin J. Immergut, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 3, 2026 Phoenix, Arizona

Before: CALLAHAN, OWENS, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.

Timothy Schroeder commenced this civil action in Oregon state court,

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. asserting state law claims for relief against his employer, Amazon.com Services

LLC (Amazon), and his former manager, Vedant Domkondekar. Because

Schroeder and Domkondekar are both citizens of Oregon, Amazon initially could

not remove the case from state to federal court. But the state court mistakenly

dismissed Domkondekar, and Amazon removed the case to federal district court

during the brief time before the state court took action to reinstate Domkondekar in

the case. The district court then granted Schroeder’s motion to remand the case to

state court. Amazon appeals the district court’s remand order, arguing that the

district court exceeded the scope of its remand authority under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1447(c). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

“[W]e review de novo a district court’s decision to remand a removed case.”

Casola v. Dexcom, Inc., 98 F.4th 947, 953 (9th Cir. 2024) (citing Lively v. Wild

Oats Mkts., Inc., 456 F.3d 933, 938 (9th Cir. 2006)). However, 28 U.S.C.

§ 1447(d) limits our review to the question of “whether the district court exceeded

the scope of its [28 U.S.C.] § 1447(c) authority by issuing the remand order.” Id.

(citing Lively, 456 F.3d at 938).

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), a district court has authority to remand an action

to the state court from which it was removed for either (1) “lack of subject matter

jurisdiction” or (2) any other defect. A challenge to removal based on the district

court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised “at any time before final

2 25-5631 judgment.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). But a challenge based on a non-jurisdictional

defect has a use-it-or-lose-it nature: “[a] motion to remand the case on th[is] basis

. . . must be made within 30 days after the filing of the notice of removal.” Id.; see

also Lively, 456 F.3d at 942 (describing non-jurisdictional removal defects as

“waivable”). Accordingly, a district court exceeds its authority by remanding for

an alleged non-jurisdictional defect that a party failed to assert before the 30-day

window closed. Lively, 456 F.3d at 942. In assessing whether a party timely

raised a non-jurisdictional defect, “the critical date is not when a motion to remand

is filed, but when a moving party asserts a [non-jurisdictional] defect as a basis for

remand.” N. Cal. Dist. Council of Laborers v. Pittsburg-Des Moines Steel Co, 69

F.3d 1034, 1038 (9th Cir. 1995).

Here, the district court granted Schroeder’s motion to remand based on a

non-jurisdictional removal defect—that the removal to federal court violated the

“voluntary-involuntary” doctrine. This doctrine “requires that a suit remain in

state court unless a ‘voluntary’ act of the plaintiff brings about a change that

renders the case removable.” Self v. Gen. Motors Corp., 588 F.2d 655, 657 (9th

Cir. 1978). It protects a plaintiff’s “power . . . to determine the removability of his

case,” by ensuring that “whether such a case non-removable when commenced

shall afterwards become removable depends . . . solely upon the form which the

plaintiff by his voluntary action shall give to the pleadings in the case as it

3 25-5631 progresses towards a conclusion.” Id. at 659.

Amazon contends that the district court, in remanding the case, exceeded its

authority because Schroeder asserted his voluntary-involuntary doctrine argument

after the 30-day period had expired. Amazon does not contest that Schroeder

timely filed his remand motion. But Amazon argues that Schroeder failed to raise

his voluntary-involuntary doctrine argument until he filed his reply brief in support

of his remand motion, which came 59 days after removal.

We disagree. Schroeder effectively asserted his voluntary-involuntary

doctrine argument in his timely motion to remand. The central premise of his

motion was that Domkondekar’s dismissal, which rendered the case removable,

resulted not from his own voluntary act but from a “clerical mistake” by the state

court that he acted quickly to correct and “in fact, corrected within one day of the

dismissal.” Although his motion to remand did not formally use the phrase

“voluntary-involuntary doctrine,” it functionally argued that the suit should remain

in state court because he took no voluntary act to cause “a change that render[ed]

the case removable.” See id. at 657. And Amazon, in its responsive filing in the

district court to Schroeder’s motion to remand, defended removal on the explicit

ground that Schroeder’s “deliberate decision” brought about Domkondekar’s

dismissal. Defendant Amazon’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Remand at 1,

Schroeder v. Amazon.com Servs. LLC, No. 24-cv-02067 (D. Or. Jan. 27, 2025),

4 25-5631 Dkt. No. 11. The voluntary-involuntary doctrine is judge-made, and invoking it

requires no magic words. Schroeder’s timely remand motion adequately invoked it

here. As a result, the district court, in granting Schroeder’s remand motion, acted

within its authority under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).

The district court’s remand of this action to the state court is AFFIRMED.

5 25-5631