Linzy v. Uber Technologies, Inc.

Background

Linzy alleged that Jose Alemar, while working as an Uber driver, struck and injured her on December 5, 2019, in the Bronx. She first sued Alemar and the vehicle owners in New York state court. After learning during Alemar’s deposition that he was working for Uber and was logged into Uber’s driver application at the time of the accident, Linzy filed a separate state-court action against Uber.

Linzy’s claims against Uber included vicarious liability and negligent hiring, training, retention, and supervision. The two state-court actions arose from the same accident, but Linzy did not move to consolidate them before Uber removed the case against Uber to federal court.

Removal jurisdiction

The court held that Uber’s removal was proper under diversity jurisdiction. Linzy was a resident of New York State, while Uber was incorporated in Delaware and had its principal place of business in California. Although Linzy did not state a specific damages amount in her complaint, she did not dispute that the injuries, possible surgeries, hospitalization, disability, and medical expenses described in her bill of particulars placed more than $75,000 in controversy.

Request for discretionary remand

Linzy sought a discretionary remand under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e), arguing that the federal case should return to state court so it could be consolidated with her case against Alemar. The court explained that the statute addresses a plaintiff’s attempt to add a defendant whose presence would eliminate federal jurisdiction. Linzy did not seek to add Alemar to the federal case, so the statute’s text did not require remand.

The court considered decisions that had allowed remand in some circumstances to facilitate consolidation with related state-court actions. It relied on the reasoning of a similar decision involving Uber, which considered whether refusing remand would cause duplicative litigation, create a risk of inconsistent results, or prejudice a party. The court concluded that Linzy’s circumstances did not warrant discretionary remand. Linzy had filed separate actions against different defendants and had not moved to consolidate them in state court before removal.

The court also found that coordinated discovery could address common factual issues without remanding the case. It stated that the case-management plan could require coordination with the state-court action and noted that much of the discovery in that action appeared to be complete. The court further found that separate trials would not necessarily create an unmanageable problem because the state-court case would address Alemar’s liability, while the federal case would address liability issues specific to Uber.

Finally, the court held that the claims against Uber were qualitatively different from those against Alemar. The common facts from the accident could be handled through coordination, but they did not outweigh Uber’s statutory right to remain in federal court.

Disposition

The court denied Linzy’s motion to remand the case to state court and directed the clerk to terminate the motion. The court stated that it would separately refer the case to Magistrate Judge Aaron for general pretrial management.