Ruhlen v. Holiday Haven Homeowners, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | No. 21-90022,21-90022 |
| Citation | 28 F.4th 226 |
| Parties | George RUHLEN, CRP/CRE Ponce De Leon Owner, LLC, CRP/CRE Portfolio Venture, LLC, CRP/CRE Member, LLC, J. Allen Bobo, Lutz, Bobo, & Telfair, P.A., Petitioners, v. HOLIDAY HAVEN HOMEOWNERS, INC., Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Mahlon Herbert Barlow, II, Nicholas Consalvo, Sivyer Barlow & Watson, PA, Tampa, FL, J. Allen Bobo, Jody B. Gabel, Lutz Bobo Telfair, PA, Sarasota, FL, for Petitioners.
Daniel W. Perry, Daniel Perry, Esq., Orlando, FL, for Respondent Holiday Haven Homeowners, Inc.
Joseph S. Justice, Jamie Lynn White, Buckley Seacord & Justice, PA, Orlando, FL, for Respondents Cove TRS-Venture 1, LLC, and The Waters-Venture I, LLC.
Aaron Behar, Michael Harper, BeharBehar, Sunrise, FL, Martin T. Buckley, Buckley Seacord & Justice, PA, Orlando, FL, Ramy Pablo Elmasri, Clausen Miller, PC, Ali Vakili Mirghahari, Sivyer Barlow & Watson, PA, Tampa, FL, Kevin S. Hennessy, Lewis Longman & Walker, PA, Bradenton, FL, Nicole Janine Poot, Lewis Longman & Walker, PA, Michael J. Rivero, Zinober Diana Monteverde, St. Petersburg, FL, Joseph S. Justice, Jamie Lynn White, Buckley Seacord & Justice, PA, Orlando, FL, Charles Allen Schillinger, Schillinger & Coleman, PA, Melbourne, FL, for Service.
Before: Rosenbaum, Newsom, and Branch, Circuit Judges.
This case is before us on a petition for permission to appeal. The plaintiffs, a group of current and former mobile homeowners and their homeowners’ association, filed this action in Florida state court against numerous defendants, alleging violations of the Florida Antitrust Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiffs framed their suit as a "representative action" filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.222.
The defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida based on the ADA claim and the Class Action Fairness Act. CAFA allows removal of a "class action," which it defines to mean "any civil action filed under rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or similar State statute or rule of judicial procedure authorizing an action to be brought by 1 or more representative persons as a class action." 28 U.S.C. §§ 1453(b), 1332(d)(1)(B).
In an amended complaint, the plaintiffs omitted their ADA claim and added other state-law claims, including one alleging violations of the Florida Mobile Home Act, Fla. Stat. § 723.001 et seq . Under that count, the homeowners’ association reiterated that it was authorized to file the action in its "representative capacity under Rule 1.222 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and Section[ ] 723.075" of the Florida Statutes. The district court then sua sponte remanded the case to state court. In so doing, the district court determined that federal-question jurisdiction no longer existed because the amended complaint asserted only state-law claims and that CAFA didn't provide jurisdiction because a claim brought in a representative capacity under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.222 "is not a class action, as that term is understood for CAFA jurisdiction."
The defendants then filed with this Court a petition for permission to appeal. Before deciding whether we should grant the defendants’ petition, we must determine whether we have jurisdiction to consider their appeal. We hold that we do not.
As a general rule, we may not review a district court's decision to remand a case based on its determination that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d) ; Hunter v. City of Montgomery , 859 F.3d 1329, 1333 (11th Cir. 2017) (citing Thermtron Prods., Inc. v. Hermansdorfer , 423 U.S. 336, 345–46, 96 S.Ct. 584, 46 L.Ed.2d 542 (1976) ). As relevant here, however, there is a statutory exception to the general rule that applies where the appeal is "from an order of a district court granting or denying a motion to remand a class action to the State court from which it was removed." 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1).
While this case may involve a "class action" that was "removed" from a "State court"—that is the crux of the parties’ dispute—neither party here ever filed a "motion to remand" the suit to state court. Rather, the district court sua sponte remanded the case. Accordingly, we must decide whether the phrase "an order of a district court granting or denying a motion to remand a class action" covers a district court's sua sponte remand order.
For better or worse, § 1453(c)(1) ’s text is best interpreted not to encompass a district court's decision to remand sua sponte . Black's Law Dictionary defines the term "motion" as "[a] written or oral application requesting a court to make a specified ruling or order"—and thus, we think, clearly contemplates party initiation. Motion , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). Even though we sometimes say—and indeed, Black's says—that a court acting sua sponte does so "on its own motion," Sua Sponte , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), that shorthand colloquialism doesn't accurately capture reality; the court in that instance does not actually "request[ ]" anything of itself, nor does it grant or deny anyone else's request.
Numerous sources corroborate our conclusion that, in ordinary legal parlance, a "motion" is a request or an application made by a party . Bouvier's Law Dictionary, for instance, explains—like Black's—that a "motion is presented to a court ... by one party." Motion (Movant or Move) , The Wolters Kluwer Bouvier Law Dictionary: Desk Edition (Stephen Michael Sheppard ed., 2012). So too, legal encyclopedias explain that "[t]he term ‘motion’ generally means an application made to a court or judge to obtain a rule or order directing some act to be done in the applicant's favor in a pending case," 56 Am. Jur. 2d Motions, Rules, and Orders § 1 (2020) (footnotes omitted), that "[t]he term ‘motion’ generally means an application made to a court or judge for the purpose of obtaining a rule or order directing some act to be done in favor of the applicant in a pending case," 60 C.J.S. Motions and Orders § 1 (2020) (footnotes omitted), and that a "motion is a request for relief, usually interlocutory relief, within a case," id .
Accordingly, we find ourselves constrained to conclude (colloquialisms aside) that when a court sua sponte orders a remand, it is not "granting" its own "motion" within the meaning of § 1453(c)(1) —any more than it would be "denying" its own motion in the absence of such an order. For good or ill, the ordinary meaning of the word "motion" refers to a request or an application made by a party; it does not contemplate something a court does on its own. In re Wild , 994 F.3d 1244, 1257 (11th Cir. 2021) (en banc) .
Our dissenting colleague disagrees because she believes that Congress's "clear intention" in enacting § 1453(c)(1) was to include sua sponte remands. We readily admit the possibility that Congress "inten[ded]" § 1453(c)(1) to cover instances in which a district court sua sponte remands a case to state court, as well as those in which the court issues an order "granting or denying a motion to remand." But "[i]t is the text's meaning, and not the content of anyone's expectations or intentions, that binds us as law." Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 398 (2012) (quoting Laurence H. Tribe, "Comment," in Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law 65, 66 (1997)). Accordingly, when interpreting a statute, our "inquiry both begins and ends with a careful examination of the statute's language." Wild , 994 F.3d at 1255. We "must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." CRI-Leslie, LLC v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue , 882 F.3d 1026, 1033 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotation marks omitted). We simply aren't at liberty to "plumb a statute's supposed purposes and policies in search of the [legislature's] intent." Wild , 994 F.3d at 1255.1
The dissent contends that our interpretation of § 1453(c)(1) produces an absurd result. And again, we can agree that omitting sua sponte orders from the statute's scope may seem a little (or perhaps more than a little) odd. But the absurdity bar is a high one, and "[s]omething that ‘may seem odd ... is not absurd.’ " Scalia & Garner, Reading Law , at 237 (ellipses in original) (quoting Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Servs., Inc. , 545 U.S. 546, 565, 125 S.Ct. 2611, 162 L.Ed.2d 502 (2005) ). As Justice Story famously—and graphically—explained, the absurdity exception to the plain-meaning rule governs only where "applying the provision to the case would be so monstrous, that all mankind would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application." 1 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 427, at 303 (2d ed. 1858). We just don't think that this case meets the "monstrous[ness]" threshold.
Because the remand in this case was not ordered upon the motion of any party, § 1453(c)(1) ’s exception doesn't apply here. The result may be an odd one, but it's the one that the statute's plain language requires. "If Congress thinks that we've misapprehended its true intent—or, more accurately, that the language that it enacted ... inaccurately reflects its true intent—then it can and should say so by amending" § 1453(c)(1). CRI-Leslie , 882 F.3d at 1033.
Because we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's sua sponte remand, the Petition for Permission to Appeal pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act is DENIED .
I disagree with the majority's conclusion that we lack authority to grant the petition for permission to appeal the district court's sua sponte order remanding the case to state court. Not only can we consider the petition, but this case...
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