Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 97
action, and the plaintiff filed a motion to remand. The court granted the plaintiff’s motion
to remand. Id. at *45. The defendant argued that the sole CPPA claim in the complaint
depended upon the plaintiff’s representation of federal law because a necessary,
disputed, and substantial question to the plaintiff’s affirmative theory of relief is whether
federal law actually does consider any (even trace) quantity of metal in food to be
detrimental. The plaintiff countered that the complaint neither plead any federal cause of
action nor attempted to conceal any federal argument in its CPPA claim. The court
opined that the parties cited to no binding authority from either the D.C. Circuit or the
D.C. Court of Appeals directly addressing whether a CPPA representative action
seeking only injunctive relief and brought in a private attorney general posture is to be
deemed a “class action” within the scope of Rule 23 and/or the CAFA. Id. at *19. The
court noted that diversity jurisdiction was not established since the defendant failed to
meet its burden as the removing party to show by a preponderance of the evidence that
the parties are diverse. Id. at *44. Accordingly, the court held that it lacked subjectmatter jurisdiction over this matter on any of the grounds that the defendant proposed federal question, the CAFA, or ordinary diversity jurisdiction - therefore remanded the
case back to the state court. Id. at *13.
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
