Kitchin v. Bridgeton Landfill, LLC

• Citation: 3 F.4th 1089
• Decision Date: 08 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-2072,19-2072
• Parties: John C. KITCHIN; North West Auto Body; Mary Menke, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs - Appellees v. BRIDGETON LANDFILL, LLC; Republic Services, Inc.; Allied Services; Rock Road Industries, Inc., Defendants - Appellants
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

3 F.4th 1089

John C. KITCHIN; North West Auto Body; Mary Menke, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs - Appellees

v.BRIDGETON LANDFILL, LLC; Republic Services, Inc.; Allied Services; Rock Road Industries, Inc., Defendants - Appellants

No. 19-2072

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: January 14, 2021

Filed: July 8, 2021

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied August 12, 2021

Celeste Brustowicz, Victor T. Cobb, Barry J. Cooper, Jr., Stuart H. Smith, COOPER LAW FIRM, New Orleans, LA, Nathaniel R. Carroll, ARCH CITY DEFENDERS, Saint Louis, MO, Anthony D. Gray, JOHNSON & GRAY, Clayton, MO, Ryan A. Keane, Saint Louis, MO, Ron A. Rustin, Gretna, LA, for Plaintiffs - Appellees.

William Garland Beck, Allyson Elisabeth Cunningham, LATHROP GPM LLP, Kansas City, MO, for Defendants - Appellants.

Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Bridgeton Landfill, LLC; Republic Services, Inc.; and Allied Services, LLC ("Appellants") challenge the district court's decision to remand this removed action to state court under the local-controversy exception to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ("CAFA"). See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(4)(A). We reverse.

I.

At first in connection with the Manhattan Project during World War II and then for the federal government after the war, a government contractor refined uranium at a facility in downtown St. Louis, Missouri in the 1940s and 1950s.¹ Unsurprisingly, this activity created radioactive waste. Accordingly, the Manhattan Project acquired a tract of land near the present-day St. Louis Lambert International Airport in St. Louis County to store the waste. The Cotter Corporation (which is not a party in this action) later acquired some of this waste, and in 1973 it dumped more than 46,000 tons of a soil-and-radioactive-waste mixture at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Missouri. That soil-waste mixture was then used as cover for municipal refuse dumped in the landfill. In 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") placed the West Lake Landfill on the Superfund National Priorities List for site investigation and cleanup. See 42 U.S.C. § 9605.

Since 1995, John C. Kitchin, Jr., has owned property in Bridgeton, Missouri adjacent to the West Lake Landfill, where his family owns and operates the North West Auto Body Company. Mary Menke also owns property in Bridgeton, Missouri near the landfill. After learning in 2017 and 2018 that their properties were contaminated with radioactive material, Kitchin, North West Auto Body Company, and Menke ("Plaintiffs") filed a class-action complaint in Missouri state court against Bridgeton Landfill, LLC; Republic Services, Inc.; Allied Services, LLC; and Rock Road Industries, Inc. ("Defendants"). In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants "owned and/or operated" the West Lake Landfill and were responsible for the contamination of Plaintiffs’ property, which Plaintiffs claimed occurred due to Defendants’ allegedly improper acceptance and handling of radioactive waste at the landfill. Plaintiffs sought to represent two different subclasses consisting of Missouri citizens who either owned or resided on property within an eleven-square-mile region around the West Lake Landfill. The complaint asserted seven state-law tort claims and sought compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief.

It is undisputed here that, of the Defendants, only Rock Road Industries was a citizen of Missouri at the time Plaintiffs filed their complaint. Shortly after Plaintiffs filed their complaint, however, Rock Road Industries merged into Bridgeton Landfill, with Bridgeton Landfill being the surviving entity.

Appellants then removed the action to federal court. As grounds for removal, Appellants claimed that federal-question jurisdiction existed under the Price-Anderson Act ("PAA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2011 et seq. , as well as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("CERCLA"), 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et seq. , and they asserted that diversity jurisdiction existed under CAFA, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2). Plaintiffs moved to remand, arguing that their complaint did not trigger federal-question jurisdiction under either the PAA or CERCLA and that the district court had to "decline to exercise [CAFA] jurisdiction" because CAFA's local-controversy exception applied. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(4). The district court agreed, concluding that federal-question jurisdiction did not exist and that the local-controversy exception applied, so it granted Plaintiffs’ motion to remand. On appeal, Appellants challenge the district court's application of the local-controversy exception.

II.

Before proceeding to the merits, first we must address Plaintiffs’ claim that we lack jurisdiction over this appeal. See, e.g. , Arnold Crossroads, L.L.C. v. Gander Mountain Co. , 751 F.3d 935, 938 (8th Cir. 2014) ("Our first consideration on review is whether we have appellate jurisdiction over [the defendant's] appeal of the district court's remand order."). Under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we typically have appellate jurisdiction over final decisions and certain collateral orders of the district courts. See Dig. Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc. , 511 U.S. 863, 867, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994). Apparently presuming that the district court's remand order is not a final decision, Plaintiffs argue that we lack appellate jurisdiction under § 1291 because the remand order is not an appealable collateral order. See Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. , 517 U.S. 706, 712, 116 S.Ct. 1712, 135 L.Ed.2d 1 (1996) (discussing the collateral-order doctrine). Seemingly in the alternative, they also contend that 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c), a CAFA-specific grant of permissive appellate jurisdiction over remand orders, was Appellants’ "only ... pathway for appellate review" of the district court's remand order, which we closed off when we previously denied Appellants permission to appeal under § 1453(c).

Our precedent forecloses these arguments. In Jacks v. Meridian Resource Co. , we held that a remand order was both "final and appealable as a collateral order under § 1291" insofar as it was based on the district court's determination that the local-controversy exception applied. 701 F.3d 1224, 1229 (8th Cir. 2012) (citing Quackenbush , 517 U.S. at 711-14, 116 S.Ct. 1712 ). And, after recognizing that we had previously denied the appellants permission to appeal under § 1453(c), we nevertheless proceeded to address their separately filed § 1291 appeal, concluding that we had jurisdiction under § 1291 to review the district court's application of the local-controversy exception. Id. at 1128 n.2, 1229 ; see also Hunter v. City of Montgomery , 859 F.3d 1329, 1334 & n.3 (11th Cir. 2017) (explaining that § 1291 provides "an alternative basis for appellate jurisdiction" in addition to § 1453(c) to review remand orders based on CAFA's exceptions). Therefore, Jacks provides that we have jurisdiction under § 1291 over this appeal.

Accordingly, we proceed to the merits.

III.

The sole issue on appeal is whether CAFA's local-controversy exception requires remand in this case, as the district court found. We review this issue de novo . Graphic Commc'ns Local 1B Health & Welfare Fund A v. CVS Caremark Corp. , 636 F.3d 971, 973 (8th Cir. 2011) ; Opelousas Gen. Hosp. Auth. v. FairPay Sols., Inc. , 655 F.3d 358, 360 (5th Cir. 2011).

CAFA gives federal district courts subject-matter jurisdiction over class actions like this one, where the parties are minimally diverse (meaning any class member and any defendant are citizens of different states), all proposed plaintiff classes include at least 100 members in total, and the amount in controversy exceeds $5,000,000. See Westerfeld v. Indep. Processing, LLC , 621 F.3d 819, 822 (8th Cir. 2010) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d) ). Under CAFA's local-controversy exception, however, a federal district court "shall decline to exercise jurisdiction":

(i) over a class action in which—

(I) greater than two-thirds of the members of all proposed plaintiff classes in the aggregate are citizens of the State in which the action was originally filed;

(II) at least 1 defendant is a defendant—

(aa) from whom significant relief is sought by members of the plaintiff class;

(bb) whose alleged conduct forms a significant basis for the claims asserted by the proposed plaintiff class; and

(cc) who is a citizen of the State in which the action was originally filed; and

(III) principal injuries resulting from the alleged conduct or any related conduct of each defendant were incurred in the State in which the action was originally filed; and

(ii) during the 3-year period preceding the filing of that class action, no other class action has been filed asserting the same or similar factual allegations against any of the defendants on behalf of the same or other persons ....

28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(4)(A).

Although the exception is an abstention doctrine rather than a jurisdictional rule, Graphic Commc'ns , 636 F.3d at 973, it is mandatory, Westerfeld , 621 F.3d at 822. The party seeking remand on this basis has the burden to establish that the exception applies. Westerfeld , 621 F.3d at 822. And, given that the exception's provisions are listed in the conjunctive, see Erdahl v. Comm'r , 930 F.2d 585, 591 n.8 (8th Cir. 1991), the proponent of remand must show that each provision is met in order to trigger mandatory abstention, see, e.g. , Atwood v. Peterson , 936 F.3d 835, 841 & n.5 (8th Cir. 2019) (per curiam); Opelousas , 655 F.3d at 361 ; Coleman v. Estes Express Lines, Inc. , 631 F.3d 1010, 1013 (9th Cir. 2011). In considering whether the party seeking remand has met this burden, we must bear in mind that the "language and structure of CAFA" indicate that Congress contemplated broad federal court jurisdiction, see Westerfeld , 621 F.3d at 822, and that the local-controversy exception is a "narrow," nonjurisdictional exception to...