Halliburton v. Johnson & Johnson, 983 F. Supp. 2d 1355

Background

Plaintiffs (48 total across 12 state-court actions) sued Johnson & Johnson and Ethicon in Oklahoma state court alleging defects and related state-law claims from pelvic mesh products; plaintiffs are citizens of multiple states, including New Jersey.
Defendants removed all twelve cases to federal court asserting either complete diversity or, alternatively, CAFA mass-action jurisdiction. Removal facially failed complete diversity because at least one plaintiff in each case is a New Jersey citizen like defendants.
Plaintiffs moved to remand eleven of the twelve matters; defendants argued fraudulent misjoinder of the New Jersey plaintiffs and, alternatively, that the separate suits could be aggregated to meet CAFA’s 100-plaintiff mass-action threshold.
The central legal questions: whether the court should adopt and apply the procedural/fraudulent misjoinder doctrine to ignore non-diverse plaintiffs, and whether defendants may aggregate separate cases to create CAFA mass-action jurisdiction when plaintiffs did not propose joint trials.
The court declined to adopt fraudulent misjoinder in the Tenth Circuit and held that defendants cannot manufacture CAFA mass-action jurisdiction by aggregating separate suits where plaintiffs did not propose joint trial; therefore defendants failed to meet their burden to establish federal subject-matter jurisdiction.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether fraudulent/procedural misjoinder permits ignoring non-diverse plaintiffs to preserve diversity	Halliburton: complete diversity lacking; New Jersey plaintiffs are properly joined	Defendants: New Jersey plaintiffs were fraudulently misjoined/ improperly joined to defeat diversity; court should sever them	Court: declines to adopt procedural misjoinder in Tenth Circuit; removals under §1332(a) were improper because complete diversity did not exist at removal
Whether defendants may aggregate multiple separate suits to invoke CAFA mass-action jurisdiction	Halliburton: plaintiffs did not propose joint trials; CAFA mass-action requirements not met	Defendants: aggregate the separate actions to reach 100+ plaintiffs and meet CAFA thresholds	Court: follows Scimone and other circuits — defendants may not manufacture CAFA jurisdiction by aggregating separate cases where plaintiffs did not propose joint trial; CAFA mass-action requirement unmet
Burden of proof on removal	Plaintiffs: remand required because defendants failed to establish jurisdiction	Defendants: removal proper if defendants show minimal diversity/amount in controversy or misjoinder/severance	Court: removal statutes construed narrowly; defendants bear burden and failed to carry it; remand ordered
Proper procedural course if joinder improper under state law	Halliburton: severance not shown; remand appropriate	Defendants: federal court should sever and retain diverse claims	Court: if joinder improper under state law, defendants should have sought severance in state court before removal; federal court cannot reshape jurisdiction via Rule 21/Rule 82

Key Cases Cited

Laughlin v. Kmart Corp., 50 F.3d 871 (10th Cir. 1995) (presumption against removal jurisdiction)
Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp., 251 F.3d 1284 (10th Cir. 2001) (burden on removing party to establish jurisdiction)
Owen Equip. & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365 (U.S. 1978) (complete diversity requirement)
Tapscott v. MS Dealer Serv. Corp., 77 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 1996) (origin of procedural misjoinder doctrine)
Scimone v. Carnival Corp., 720 F.3d 876 (11th Cir. 2013) (defendants cannot aggregate separate suits to create CAFA mass-action jurisdiction when plaintiffs did not propose joint trial)
Anderson v. Bayer Corp., 610 F.3d 390 (7th Cir. 2010) (similar rejection of manufactured CAFA jurisdiction)
Tanoh v. Dow Chem. Co., 561 F.3d 945 (9th Cir. 2009) (CAFA mass-action aggregation limits)
Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, 133 S.Ct. 1345 (U.S. 2013) (plaintiffs can structure complaints to avoid federal jurisdiction)