Hardin v. Central Transport LLC
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:26-cv-03208
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 6
In Hardin v. Central Transport LLC, Judge Corley granted Plaintiff's motion to remand after Plaintiff amended her complaint to add a non-diverse defendant, destroying the federal court's jurisdiction.
Employees who file state-law employment claims in California state court and whose employers remove to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction; plaintiffs who amend their complaints after removal to add non-diverse defendants; employers seeking to use 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e) to block post-removal amendments made as of right.
What happened
In Hardin v. Central Transport LLC, No. 26-cv-03208-JSC, Jacqueline Michelle Hardin sued her former employer, Central Transport LLC, and her former supervisor, Andrew Rodriguez, under California state law for retaliation and wrongful termination. Central Transport removed the case to federal court based on diversity of citizenship — meaning the parties are from different states — because at the time of removal, Hardin and Central Transport were the only named parties and they were citizens of different states. Eight days after removal, Hardin amended her complaint as of right (without needing the court's permission) to add Rodriguez, a California citizen like herself, as a named defendant.
The court addressed two questions: whether removal was improper in the first place, and whether adding Rodriguez after removal destroyed the court's jurisdiction. On the first question, the court found that removal was proper because Rodriguez was not named in the original state-court complaint — only unnamed placeholder defendants were listed — and federal law requires courts to ignore unnamed placeholder defendants when deciding whether diversity jurisdiction exists. On the second question, the court found that adding Rodriguez, a California citizen, eliminated the complete diversity of citizenship required for federal jurisdiction. The court also rejected Central Transport's argument that Rodriguez was fraudulently joined — meaning added solely to defeat federal jurisdiction without a real legal basis — finding that there is at least a possibility that a California court could find Rodriguez personally liable under the California Labor Code provision Hardin cited.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted Hardin's motion to remand and ordered the case returned to the Superior Court for the County of Alameda. The court denied the motion to remand on the ground that the original removal was improper, but granted it on the ground that the amended complaint destroyed federal jurisdiction. The court also noted that even if it had discretion to reject Rodriguez's addition, it would not have exercised that discretion given how quickly Hardin amended after removal and in light of recent Supreme Court authority affirming a plaintiff's right to amend a complaint to shape the jurisdictional basis of the case.
The detailed version
- Hardin v. Central Transport LLC · No. 3:26-cv-03208
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Aug. 25, 2026
Background
Plaintiff Jacqueline Michelle Hardin filed a complaint in California state court alleging six state-law claims — including retaliation and wrongful termination — against her former employer, Central Transport LLC, and unnamed placeholder ("Doe") defendants. The complaint identified Andrew Rodriguez by name as her supervisor but did not name him as a defendant. Hardin's complaint alleged she and Central Transport are California citizens; Central Transport alleged it is a Michigan citizen.
Central Transport removed the lawsuit to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, invoking diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, which grants federal courts jurisdiction when all plaintiffs and all defendants are citizens of different states and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. Eight days after removal, Hardin filed a First Amended Complaint (FAC) as of right — meaning without needing court permission — under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(1), naming Rodriguez, alleged to be a California citizen, as a defendant and asserting a claim against him under California Labor Code Section 98.6. Hardin then moved to remand the case to the Alameda County Superior Court.
Issues Presented
The court addressed two distinct questions: 1. Was the original removal improper because Rodriguez — identified in the original complaint as Hardin's supervisor but listed only as a Doe defendant — was a California citizen whose citizenship should have defeated diversity jurisdiction at the time of removal? 2. Did Hardin's post-removal amendment adding Rodriguez as a named defendant destroy the court's diversity jurisdiction and require remand?
Analysis
Issue 1: Diversity Jurisdiction at the Time of Removal
The court found that diversity jurisdiction existed at the time of removal and that the removal was proper. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(1), the citizenship of defendants sued under fictitious names (i.e., placeholder "Doe" defendants) is disregarded for removal purposes. The Ninth Circuit has confirmed this rule. Because Rodriguez was not a named defendant when the case was removed — only Central Transport and unnamed Doe defendants were — his California citizenship could not defeat diversity at that time. The court further noted that because the original complaint stated Hardin was "ignorant of the true names and capacities" of the Doe defendants, Rodriguez could not logically be among them, since his name and role were already known to Hardin. Accordingly, the court denied the motion to remand on this ground.
Issue 2: Effect of the Post-Removal Amendment
The court found that Hardin's FAC, which added Rodriguez as a named California citizen defendant, destroyed complete diversity — the requirement that every plaintiff be a citizen of a different state from every defendant — and divested the court of subject matter jurisdiction. The court relied on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, 604 U.S. 22 (2025), which held that a plaintiff's amendment to a removed complaint can destroy diversity jurisdiction and require remand.
Section 1447(e) Argument
Central Transport argued that under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e) — which allows a district court to deny or permit post-removal joinder of defendants whose addition would destroy jurisdiction — the court should refuse to allow Rodriguez's addition. The court rejected this argument on the ground that § 1447(e) applies when "the plaintiff seeks to join" a defendant, meaning the plaintiff requests leave of court to add someone. Here, Hardin amended as of right under Rule 15(a)(1) without seeking leave. The court concluded that Rule 15(a)(1) and § 1447(e) operate in different situations without conflict: Rule 15(a)(1) governs amendments as of right; § 1447(e) governs cases where the plaintiff seeks leave to join. The court quoted McDermott v. CareAllies, Inc., 503 F. Supp. 3d 225 (D.N.J. 2020) for this harmonization.
Fraudulent Joinder
The court agreed with Central Transport that even for amendments as of right, the doctrine of fraudulent joinder applies — otherwise a plaintiff could always defeat a proper removal with a frivolous amendment. Fraudulent joinder (a legal doctrine allowing courts to disregard a non-diverse defendant's citizenship when that defendant was added in bad faith or the plaintiff has no possible claim against them) can be established in the Ninth Circuit by: (1) actual fraud in pleading jurisdictional facts, or (2) the plaintiff's inability to establish any cause of action against the non-diverse party in state court. The standard is not identical to a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim; rather, it is closer to the "wholly insubstantial and frivolous" standard used for dismissing claims lacking federal jurisdiction.
The court concluded Central Transport had not met its burden to establish fraudulent joinder:
- On the legal viability of the claim: Courts have recognized that California Labor Code Section 98.6 uses the word "person," leaving open the question of whether individuals like Rodriguez can be held personally liable. Because there is a possibility a state court could find the complaint states a cause of action against Rodriguez, fraudulent joinder was not established on this basis. - On the factual fraud argument: Central Transport asserted its personnel records showed no Andrew Rodriguez supervising Hardin. The court found this insufficient to establish fraud in the pleading of jurisdictional facts. Central Transport did not claim Hardin was never supervised by anyone named Andrew Rodriguez, and it provided no legal authority setting forth the standard for such a finding.
Alternative Analysis Under § 1447(e)
The court also stated that even if § 1447(e) did apply to amendments as of right, it would not exercise its discretion to reject Rodriguez's joinder, because: (1) Hardin did not delay — she amended only eight days after removal; and (2) the Supreme Court's decision in Royal Canin establishes that a plaintiff's addition of a non-diverse defendant to defeat diversity jurisdiction should not weigh against allowing the amendment.
Disposition
The court denied the motion to remand on the ground that the original removal was improper, finding that diversity jurisdiction existed at the time of removal. The court granted the motion to remand on the ground that the FAC destroyed complete diversity, and ordered the action remanded to the Superior Court for the County of Alameda. The September 17, 2026 hearing was vacated.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.