Sun v. Johnson
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-01016
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Sun v. Johnson, Judge Swain remanded an improperly removed Illinois case because it belonged in the Northern District of Illinois.
The Illinois state-court action involving Jianmin Sun and Rachel L. Johnson was returned to the Illinois Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit; the federal case in the Southern District of New York was closed.
What happened
In Sun v. Johnson, Rachel L. Johnson tried to move an Illinois state-court case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The state case, filed by Jianmin Sun, included a request to evict Johnson from a residence in Naperville, Illinois.
The court explained that a state case may be moved to federal court only in the federal district covering the place where the state case is pending. Because this case was pending in DuPage County, Illinois, the proper federal court was the Northern District of Illinois, not the Southern District of New York.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain remanded the case to the Illinois Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit and closed the federal case. The order did not decide the underlying dispute.
The detailed version
- Sun v. Johnson · No. 1:22-cv-01016
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 7, 2022
Background
Rachel L. Johnson, appearing without a lawyer, filed a notice seeking to remove to the Southern District of New York a civil action pending in the Illinois Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Johnson alleged that Jianmin Sun had filed the Illinois action on October 6, 2021, seeking, among other things, Johnson's eviction from a residence in Naperville, Illinois. Johnson filed the notice of removal in the federal court on February 3, 2022.
Johnson had not paid the removal fees and had submitted an incomplete application to proceed without paying them. The order also notes that she did not attach the pleadings, orders, or other papers from the Illinois action to her notice of removal.
Legal standard
Federal law allows a defendant to remove a state-court civil action only when the federal court has original jurisdiction and the case is removed to the federal district court covering the place where the state action is pending. A remand sends the case back to the state court. The court may remand for a procedural defect or for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, which is the court's power to hear the case.
Court's analysis
The court held that removal to the Southern District of New York was improper. The Illinois state-court case was pending in DuPage County, Illinois, so the federal district court covering that location was the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The Southern District of New York was not the proper federal court for removal.
Disposition
The court remanded the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) to the Illinois Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. It directed the Clerk of Court to mail the order to that Illinois court and stated that the order closed the action in the Southern District of New York. The court did not decide the underlying dispute between the parties.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.