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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Class Action Removals Were Timely, Court Says

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Reinstating two federal class actions, the 9th Circuit found Wednesday that Nationstar Mortgage and Dollar Tree Stores removed the cases from state court in time.

The complaints at issue have little in common other than that they both targeted businesses that later sought removability under the Class Action Fairness Act.

Richard Reyes is the lead plaintiff in a Los Angeles complaint that says Dollar Tree denies its employees rest breaks.

Laura Zamora Jordan meanwhile leads the complaint in Spokane, Wash., that says Nationstar changed the locks on her house well before it had commenced foreclosure proceedings.

The businesses in both cases removed the allegations against them from state court, and they did so within 30 days of ascertaining removability under the Class Action Fairness Act but more than two years after the case became removable on federal question grounds.

While the lower courts then remanded because they found those removals untimely, the 9th Circuit reversed on both counts Wednesday.

Judges J. Clifford Wallace, Milan Smith Jr. and Paul Watford sat on the San Francisco panel that reversed in the Nationstar case.

Judges Stephen Reinhardt, N. Randy Smith and Andrew Hurwitz meanwhile reversed from Pasadena.

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