Adelaja v. Guillen
- Susan Illston
- 3:24-cv-08159
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Adelaja v. Guillen, Judge Illston denied remand, holding federal law permits removal before service despite the forum-defendant rule.
Abimbola Adelaja and defendants Jerome Guillen and Jeremy Gallaher; the ruling kept the case in federal court rather than returning it to California state court.
What happened
Adelaja v. Guillen began as a California state-court damages action by Abimbola Adelaja against Jerome Guillen, Jeremy Gallaher, and unnamed defendants. Guillen and Gallaher removed the case to federal court before serving the complaint on Guillen.
Adelaja asked the federal court to send the case back to state court, arguing that removal by California defendants conflicted with the forum-defendant rule. That rule generally prevents removal based only on diversity of citizenship when a properly joined and served defendant is a citizen of the state where the case was filed.
The court recognized that the defendants’ early removal appeared to involve gamesmanship but held that the statute’s wording permits this kind of removal before service. Judge Susan Illston therefore denied Adelaja’s motion to remand.
The detailed version
- Adelaja v. Guillen · No. 3:24-cv-08159
- Susan Illston
- Feb. 14, 2025
Background
Abimbola Adelaja filed a California state-court action for damages against Jerome Guillen, Jeremy Gallaher, and Does 1–20. The opinion states that Adelaja resides in New York and that Guillen and Gallaher reside in California. Guillen and Gallaher jointly removed the case to the Northern District of California on November 19, 2024. The record discussed in the opinion indicates that the defendants removed the case before Guillen was served with the original complaint.
Issue
Adelaja moved to remand, meaning to return the case to state court. The dispute concerned the “forum-defendant rule” in 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(2). That rule provides that a case otherwise removable only through diversity jurisdiction may not be removed when a properly joined and served defendant is a citizen of the state where the action was filed. The defendants’ removal before service was described as “snap removal.”
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that the party relying on federal jurisdiction generally bears the burden of showing that removal is proper. It also noted that the Ninth Circuit had not resolved whether snap removal is permitted, although appellate courts in other circuits had allowed it.
The court observed that the California defendants removed the case shortly after the state-court filing and after receiving notice of possible litigation. It stated that these circumstances suggested gamesmanship and that removal by in-state defendants was inconsistent with the purpose of protecting out-of-state defendants from possible local prejudice.
Nevertheless, the court emphasized the importance of consistent decisions within the Northern District of California. It held that a fair reading of the plain language of § 1441(b)(2) allows snap removal before a forum defendant has been served. The court therefore followed the district’s general approach permitting snap removals.
Disposition
The court denied Adelaja’s motion to remand. The opinion does not state that the motion was denied with or without prejudice.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.