Tiwari v. Toyota Motor North America
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:25-cv-09461
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
In Prashant Tiwari v. Toyota Motor North America, Judge Pitts granted remand after amended claims removed federal questions, returning the case to state court.
Prashant Tiwari and the Toyota corporate and individual defendants; the lawsuit will proceed in Santa Clara County Superior Court rather than federal court.
What happened
Prashant Tiwari v. Toyota Motor North America, Inc., et al. concerns Tiwari’s request to move his lawsuit back to Santa Clara County Superior Court. Tiwari represented himself.
Tiwari’s original complaint included federal claims, allowing the federal court to hear the case. After Toyota removed the case to federal court, Tiwari amended his complaint and removed those federal claims, leaving only state-law claims.
The court granted Tiwari’s motion to remand and ordered the case sent to Santa Clara County Superior Court because the federal court no longer had authority to decide it. The order was signed by United States District Judge P. Casey Pitts.
The detailed version
- Tiwari v. Toyota Motor North America · No. 5:25-cv-09461
- Virginia Demarchi
- Dec. 16, 2025
Background
Pro se plaintiff Prashant Tiwari moved to remand his action against various Toyota corporate and individual defendants. “Pro se” means that he represented himself. The case had been removed to federal court after Tiwari filed an original complaint containing federal causes of action.
Jurisdiction
The original federal claims gave the court federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. After Toyota’s removal, Tiwari amended his complaint to eliminate the federal causes of action. The amended complaint left only state-law claims. The court stated that when a plaintiff removes the federal claims that supported removal, the federal court’s power to decide the dispute ends. The defendants acknowledged that the court no longer had subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning authority to hear the case.
Ruling
The court granted Tiwari’s motion to remand and ordered that the case be remanded to Santa Clara County Superior Court. This order resolved the motion based on the federal court’s lack of subject-matter jurisdiction; it did not decide the underlying state-law claims. The opinion was signed by United States District Judge P. Casey Pitts.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.