Sun v. Teager
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-01166
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Sun v. Teager, Judge Swain remanded the removal to the Illinois court because this federal court could not hear it.
Carrie D. Teager’s attempted removal was remanded to the Illinois state court, so the state-court action continued there rather than in the Southern District of New York.
What happened
In Sun v. Teager, Carrie D. Teager, representing herself, tried to move an Illinois state-court case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Jianmin Sun had filed the state case in DuPage County, Illinois, seeking, among other things, Teager’s eviction from a residence in Naperville, Illinois.
The court explained that a state case may be moved only to the federal district covering the location of the state court. The Southern District of New York does not cover DuPage County, Illinois. The opinion also noted that Teager had not paid the removal fee and had submitted an incomplete application to proceed without paying fees, but the court decided the removal was improper for the location-based reason.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain remanded the case to the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court in DuPage County, Illinois, under the federal removal statute. The court stated that all pending matters were terminated.
The detailed version
- Sun v. Teager · No. 1:22-cv-01166
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 14, 2022
Background
Carrie D. Teager, appearing without a lawyer, filed a notice seeking to remove to the Southern District of New York an action that Jianmin Sun had filed in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court in DuPage County, Illinois. Teager alleged that Sun’s state-court case sought, among other things, her eviction from a residence in Naperville, Illinois.
Teager filed the notice of removal on February 10, 2022. She had not paid the removal fee and submitted an incomplete application to proceed without paying court fees. She also did not attach the pleadings, orders, or other papers from the Illinois case.
This was not the first attempted removal. Teager and codefendant Rachel Johnson had previously attempted to remove the case to the Northern District of Illinois, which remanded it after they failed to show federal subject-matter jurisdiction. Johnson later filed another removal notice in the Southern District of New York, and that case was also remanded because the removal was improper.
Legal standard
Federal law permits a defendant to remove a state-court civil action only if the federal court has original jurisdiction and is the federal district court embracing the place where the state action is pending. The court explained that removal procedures are strictly construed. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), a federal court may remand a case for a procedural defect within 30 days after the removal notice, or at any time if the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.
Court’s analysis and ruling
The court held that removal to the Southern District of New York was improper because the Illinois state case was pending in DuPage County, Illinois, and the Southern District of New York does not cover that county. The opinion noted that the Northern District of Illinois was the proper federal district for removal, although that court had already remanded the action to the Illinois Circuit Court.
The court remanded the action to the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court in DuPage County, Illinois, under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). It also stated that all pending matters were terminated.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.