Hull v. ConvergeOne, Inc.
- Susan Nelson
- 0:20-cv-00984
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Hull v. ConvergeOne, Judge Nelson lifted the stay after finding federal jurisdiction and ordered ConvergeOne to answer the amended complaint.
Samuel Hull and ConvergeOne, Inc.; the case proceeds in federal court, and ConvergeOne must respond to the Second Amended Complaint by March 5, 2021.
What happened
In Hull v. ConvergeOne, ConvergeOne removed the case even though the forum-defendant rule barred that removal. The court had previously treated the rule as a jurisdictional defect and stayed the case while the Eighth Circuit reconsidered its approach.
The Eighth Circuit later held that the forum-defendant rule is not jurisdictional. Based on that decision, the court found that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the case, lifted the stay, and ordered ConvergeOne to respond to Hull’s Second Amended Complaint by March 5, 2021.
Judge Susan Richard Nelson issued the order on February 12, 2021.
The detailed version
- Hull v. ConvergeOne, Inc. · No. 0:20-cv-00984
- Susan Nelson
- Feb. 12, 2021
Background
ConvergeOne removed Hull’s case to federal court. In an earlier order, the court found that the removal violated the forum-defendant rule. At that time, Eighth Circuit precedent treated that rule as jurisdictional and held that a violation created a non-waivable defect.
The court later stayed the proceedings while the Eighth Circuit reconsidered the issue in an en banc rehearing. On December 30, 2020, the Eighth Circuit overruled its earlier precedent and held that the forum-defendant rule is non-jurisdictional.
Ruling
In response to ConvergeOne’s unopposed supplemental filing, the court applied the Eighth Circuit’s new rule and found that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the claims. The court lifted the stay imposed by its September 18, 2020 order and ordered ConvergeOne to respond to Hull’s Second Amended Complaint by March 5, 2021.
The order addressed jurisdiction and case scheduling; it did not decide the underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.