Gomez v. Roadrunner Transportation Services, Inc.

Background

Fernando Gomez filed a putative class action in San Francisco County Superior Court in 2018. He alleged that Roadrunner Transportation Services, Inc. misclassified him and other truck drivers as independent contractors and therefore failed to pay overtime, provide meal and rest periods, provide accurate wage statements, and pay waiting-time penalties. He also brought a claim under California’s Unfair Competition Law and sought attorney’s fees and costs.

Roadrunner removed the case to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, which provides federal jurisdiction over certain class actions when the class has more than 100 members, the parties are minimally diverse, and the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. The court previously remanded the case after finding that Roadrunner had not shown that the amount in controversy exceeded $5 million.

The case then proceeded in state court. After Gomez died, the state court allowed Ron Moore to be added as a plaintiff and class representative. The plaintiffs later filed amended complaints, including a second amended complaint that added a claim for willful misclassification. They eventually filed a third amended complaint. Roadrunner removed the action to federal court again on January 10, 2023, and Gomez and Moore moved to remand it.

Arguments and analysis

The plaintiffs argued that the second removal was untimely, that Roadrunner had waived its right to remove, and that Roadrunner had not proved that the amount in controversy exceeded $5 million. Roadrunner argued that the removal was timely because it needed to combine its estimate of 819 putative class members with the penalties alleged in the third amended complaint before it could calculate the amount in controversy.

The court decided the motion based on timeliness and did not address the other arguments. Under the removal statute, a defendant generally must remove within 30 days after receiving a pleading that shows the case is removable. In a class action, the one-year limit on removal does not apply, but the 30-day deadlines still do. The court explained that a defendant cannot ignore information showing that a case is removable and wait to remove until a later, more strategically favorable time.

The court found that Roadrunner had enough information to determine that the case was removable when it received the second amended complaint. Roadrunner had previously represented that it had identified approximately 666 putative class members. The second amended complaint used the same class definition and included the same civil penalties for willful misclassification that Roadrunner later used in its calculation. The court concluded that Roadrunner could have performed the same calculation at that time and therefore should have removed within 30 days.

Disposition

The court held that Roadrunner’s second removal was untimely. It granted the plaintiffs’ motion to remand, remanded the action to San Francisco County Superior Court, and directed the clerk to close the federal case. The opinion did not decide whether the amount in controversy actually exceeded $5 million or whether Roadrunner waived its right to remove.