In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., IP 00-9373-C-B/S.
| Decision Date | 11 April 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. IP 00-9373-C-B/S.,No.IP 00-5155-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5035-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5003-B/S.,No. IP 00-5136-B/S.,No. 1373.,No. IP 00-5074-B/S.,No. IP 00-5217-B/S.,No. IP 00-5071-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5040-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5073-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5001-C-B/S.,No. IP 00-5007-B/S.,No. IP 00-5052-B/S.,IP 00-9373-C-B/S.,1373.,IP 00-5155-C-B/S.,IP 00-5052-B/S.,IP 00-5040-C-B/S.,IP 00-5003-B/S.,IP 00-5001-C-B/S.,IP 00-5007-B/S.,IP 00-5035-C-B/S.,IP 00-5136-B/S.,IP 00-5071-C-B/S.,IP 00-5074-B/S.,IP 00-5073-C-B/S.,IP 00-5217-B/S. |
| Citation | 256 F.Supp.2d 884 |
| Parties | In re BRIDGESTONE/FIRESTONE, INC., TIRES PRODUCTS LIBILITY LITIGATION. This Order Relates To: Cobb, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Davison, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Felice, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Ford, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Kaufman, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. Sanders, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Spied, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Weeks, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Lahaniatis, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Patterson, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Lujick, Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. Brett, v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana |
Don Barrett, Barrett Law Office Pa, Lexington, MS, Victor Manuel Diaz Jr., Podhurst Orseck Josefsberg & Eaton, Miami, FL, Mike Eidson, Colson Hicks Eidson, Coral Gables, FL, Irwin B. Levin, Cohen & Malad, William E. Winingham, Wilson Kehoe & Winingham, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiffs.
John H. Beisner, O'Melveny & Myers, LLP, Washington, DC, Daniel P. Byron, Bingham McHale LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Mark Herrmann, Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, Thomas S. Kilbane, Squire Sanders & Dempsey LLP, Cleveland, OH, Mark Merkle, Krieg Devault LLP, Randall Riggs, Locke Reynolds LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Colin P. Smith, Holland & Knight LLC, Chicago, IL, Thomas G. Stayton, Baker & Daniels, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants.
ORDER ON MOTIONS FOR REMAND
In October of 2000, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ("Panel") issued its Transfer Order establishing the "In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness Tires Products Liability Litigation" for the purpose of coordinated or consolidated proceedings pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Since that original transfer order, the Panel has transferred, under 47 certified transfer orders, a total of 740 cases. The vast majority of the cases in this MDL are actions seeking damages for personal injury or wrongful death.
A number of the cases transferred to the MDL, however, were brought as class actions on behalf of owners of the subject tires and, in some cases, on behalf of owners of the Ford Explorer.1 These cases seek various types of money damages and injunctive relief, as explained more specifically below. Many of the complaints brought as class actions had originally been filed in state courts and were removed by the defendants to federal court, culminating in their transfer to this MDL. The plaintiffs in the above-captioned cases, maintaining that federal subject matter jurisdiction is lacking, have filed motions for remand to state court.2
As will become apparent below, the analysis of each of these remand motions will turn primarily on the allegations of the complaint in that case, and specifically, on the relief requested. Certain issues are, however, implicated in multiple cases, so the Court will first address the principles that govern analysis of the issue and then apply those principles to each of the cases.
As we have noted in ruling on numerous motions for remand, the law of the Seventh Circuit governs the removal and remand issues presented in these cases because the law of the circuit where the transferee court sits governs questions of federal law in MDL proceedings. In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of September 1, 1983, 829 F.2d 1171, 1176 (D.C.Cir.1987) (). Remand and removal, the issues now before the Court, are procedural questions that hinge on federal law. In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., ATX, ATX II, 128 F.Supp.2d 1198 (S.D.Ind.2001). As a consequence, we invited all parties in these cases to submit supplemental briefing focusing on the law of the Seventh Circuit. Defendants Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire ("Firestone") and Ford Motor Company ("Ford") jointly filed supplemntal briefing, but only the plaintiffs in the Weeks, Felice, and Kaufman cases did so.3
Following the initial attorney conferences conducted by the Court and the appointment of plaintiffs' lead class counsel and management committees, the Court directed class counsel to prepare and file a Master Complaint that, according to the Case Management Order,
shall apply to all pending Class Action Cases and to those subsequently filed, removed, or transferred to this Court as part of this proceeding. The Master Complaint shall be deemed to amend the complaints in the Class Action Cases to reflect the content of the Master Complaint, including all claims and theories contained therein.
Case Management Order (dated January 30, 2001) § V.A. The defendants maintain that the Master Complaint, which includes claims based on federal law, therefore "supersedes" all class complaints that had been transferred to the MDL, effectively amending those complaints to assert federal claims and thus creating federal subject matter jurisdiction over all class cases, even if federal jurisdiction would not have otherwise existed. The defendants also maintain that construing the Master Complaint in this manner is appropriate because (1) plaintiffs' class counsel initially did not seek rulings on the remand motions, and (2) the Case Management Order provided a vehicle for objection by plaintiffs who did not want to be bound by that Order, and none objected. We find each of these arguments to be without merit.
First, the primary purpose of the Master Complaint was to create the operative document by which the pre-trial procedures to be accomplished in this MDL— most notably, discovery, the class certification determination, and the testing of the class claims' legal sufficiency—could be completed.4 It was not the Court's purpose for the Master Complaint to preclude challenges to federal subject matter jurisdiction in individual cases, nor have the defendants demonstrated to us as a general proposition that we could so construe it.5 Moreover, the Case Management Order expressly provides that it "shall not make any entity a party to any action in which the entity has not been named, served or added in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." (Id. § I.A.3.)6
Second, although the defendants point to one district court's ruling that a particular class lawyer had forfeited the right to press for remand, the circumstances are not at all similar here. In In re Compact Disc Minimum Price Antitrust Litigation, 2001 WL 243490 (D.Me. Mar. 12, 2001), one of plaintiffs' counsel in the MDL attended the hearings, sought to be named lead counsel, and never mentioned his remand motion or voiced an objection to the consolidated complaint. He raised it only after the court declined to choose him as lead counsel. The court held under that under these circumstances, he was estopped to do so. Id. at *1-*2. In contrast, the plaintiffs in the above cases made clear early (and in some cases, often and adamantly) their position that federal subject matter jurisdiction was absent. Class liaison's initial representation to the Court that class plaintiffs were not at that time seeking rulings on the pending remand motions did not suggest, nor did the Court infer, that these plaintiffs would not or could not later seek rulings.7 Indeed, very shortly thereafter, class liaison counsel provided a list of cases (including most of those that are the subject of this order) in which the plaintiffs sought rulings on their remand motions.
Finally, the provision of the Case Management Order that the defendants now say required the plaintiffs to make a formal, timely objection to preserve their remand motions has no application here. That provision says:
Should parties in any subsequently filed or transferred action wish to object to the terms of this Order, they must do so within twenty (20) days of receipt of this Order from Liaison Counsel.
Id. § I.B. (emphasis added). First, the defendants' argument begs the question of whether the Case Management Order established any procedure as to which class plaintiffs who wanted to preserve jurisdictional arguments had reason to object, a question we have just answered in the negative. More important, this provision simply creates the means by which parties transferred to the MDL after entry of the Case Management Order could object to its terms; it has no application to the cases, like all but one of those at issue here, that were already pending in the MDL at the time of the Order.
For these reasons, we find that the filing of the Master Complaint has no effect on the right of the plaintiffs in the above cases to challenge the subject matter jurisdiction of this court.
The defendants have grounded removal in all of these cases except Davison on diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.8 That basis for federal jurisdiction fails, say the plaintiffs, because the $75,000 amount in controversy requirement has not been met. The class complaints at issue, though they vary, typically seek compensatory damages, punitive damages, declaratory and/or injunctive relief, and attorney fees. Firestone and Ford, while acknowledging the well-established principle that class members' claims generally cannot be aggregated to reach the $75,000 threshold, nevertheless maintain, first, that a single plaintiffs money damages claim does exceed the jurisdictional minimum, and, second, that...
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