Jones v. John Crane-Houdaille, Inc.
| Decision Date | 06 April 2012 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. CCB-11-2374 |
| Parties | MICHAEL R. JONES ET AL. v. JOHN CRANE-HOUDAILLE, INC. ET AL. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Now pending is the plaintiffs' motion to remand this product liability action to Maryland state court. After Michael R. Jones was diagnosed with mesothelioma, he and his wife Paulette Jones brought an asbestos product liability suit in Maryland state court against nearly two dozen manufacturers and other companies. The defendants removed the case to this court, contending Mr. Jones's alleged exposure occurred on a federal enclave, and therefore this court has federal question jurisdiction, jurisdiction pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 457, or both. The plaintiffs filed a motion to remand, challenging the sufficiency of the defendants' notice of removal. The question has been fully briefed and no hearing is necessary. See Local Rule 105.6. For the following reasons, the plaintiffs' motion to remand will be denied without prejudice.
Mr. Jones and his wife filed a short form asbestos product liability complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on June 14, 2011. Through joint interrogatories the defendants discovered that the only job site on which Mr. Jones was alleged to have been exposed to asbestos was Edgewood Arsenal at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Edgewood, Maryland. In their notice of removal, defendants claimed Edgewood Arsenal "is a federal enclave and thus,controlled under federal enclave jurisdiction." (ECF No. 1, at 1.)
The defendant companies' notice of removal articulated two theories under which Edgewood Arsenal's alleged federal enclave status could result in federal court jurisdiction. First, defendants asserted that federal question jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 as a direct result of the Arsenal's enclave status. To support this proposition, defendants cited Akin v. Big Three Indus., Inc., 851 F. Supp. 819, 822 (E.D. Tex. 1994). In Akin, the court adopted the reasoning that "any law existing in territory over which the United States has exclusive sovereignty must derive its authority and force from the United States and is for that reason federal law." Id. (citing Mater v. Holley, 200 F.2d 123, 124 (5th Cir.1952)). A suit based on events occurring in a federal enclave, where state law has been federalized, therefore must necessarily arise under federal law and implicates federal question jurisdiction under §1331. "It would be incongruous to hold that although the United States has exclusive sovereignty in [a federal enclave], its courts are without power to adjudicate controversies arising there." Mater, 200 F.2d at 124.
As a second theory, defendants reference 16 U.S.C. § 457, a 1928 federal statute thatprescribes the appropriate application of state law in actions for death or personal injury "within a national park or other place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States." Fourth Circuit precedent squarely supports the exercise of federal jurisdiction under § 457, though there is some lack of clarity about whether § 457 simply gives rises to § 1331 federal question jurisdiction or whether § 457 creates a separate grant of federal jurisdiction independent of §1331. Compare Adams v. Alliant Techsystems, Inc., 201 F. Supp. 2d 700, 705 n.4 (W.D. Va. 2002) () with Stokes v. Adair, 265 F.2d 662, 665-66 (4th Cir. 1959) ().
Following the logic of the Fourth Circuit in Stokes, neither of these theories suggest a claim arising in a federal enclave may only be tried in federal court. See Stokes, 265 F.2d at 666. That the federal government's exclusive legislative jurisdiction federalizes state law in a federal enclave does not necessarily lead to exclusive judicial jurisdiction for the federal courts. Applying either of defendants' legal theories, the federal government's exclusive legislative jurisdiction over a federal enclave in effect federalizes state law for the purpose of creating federal question jurisdiction in federal courts. State courts, however, are courts of general subject matter jurisdiction and may hear claims brought under either state or federal law. Thus, under the defendants' theories, if the defendants had not chosen to remove this case to federal court, the case could still have been properly tried in Maryland state court.
In moving to remand, the plaintiffs do not contest the defendants' legal theories. Rather, they argue, the notice of removal is facially defective because it contains an insufficient showingthat Edgewood Arsenal is in fact a federal enclave. Tracking the language of the constitutional grant of authority, whether real property becomes a federal enclave may turn on whether the property in question was "'purchased by the Consent of the Legislature' . . . within the meaning of Art. I, s 8, cl. 17." Paul v. U.S., 371 U.S. 245, 264 (1963). While the defendants' notice of removal contains historical information about Edgewood Arsenal, it does not contain any reference to consent by the State of Maryland to exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction over the property. As a result, the plaintiffs argue, the notice of removal "fail[s] to set out the jurisdictional facts that would support federal jurisdiction." (ECF No. 29, at 10.)
This court cannot agree with the plaintiffs. The federal removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a), provides the content requirements for a notice of removal. Along with a copy of all the process, pleadings, and orders already served, the notice need only contain "a short and plain statement of the grounds for removal." Id. This language "is deliberately parallel to the requirements for notice pleading in Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Ellenburg v. Spartan Motors Chassis, Inc., 519 F.3d 192, 199 (4th Cir. 2008) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554-56 (2007). Thus, the Fourth Circuit has concluded that a district court should not hold a removing party's notice of removal to "a higher pleading standard than the one imposed on a plaintiff in drafting an initial complaint." Id. at 200.
Measured against the plausibility standard of Twombly, the notice of removal is not defective for failing to allege Maryland's consent to exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction. A judge in this district has previously explained, in detail, why the federal government has exclusive legislative jurisdiction over portions, at least, of the Aberdeen Proving Ground. See United States v. Holmes, 414 F. Supp. 831 (D. Md. 1976). As noted in Holmes, the Maryland"general consent statute" in effect at the establishment of the Aberdeen Proving Ground provided the State's consent to exclusive legislative jurisdiction by the United States for any land the federal government acquired for arsenals, among other purposes. Id. at 843 (...
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