Table of Content
Both Home Depot and Lowe's gained their share of one-star reviews, accompanied by complaints about staff members who customers perceived as rude or unfriendly. By the same token, both stores received a fair number of five-star reviews that praised helpful and friendly staff. As might be expected from a review site, though, one-star reviews about customer service outnumbered five-star reviews. Thus, all three grounds for excluding original plaintiffs in Shamrock Oil actually support allowing third-party defendants to remove under §1441.
And in other removal provisions, Congress has clearly extended removal authority to parties other than the original defendant, see, e.g., §§1452, 1454, , but has not done so here. Finally, if, as this Court has held, a counterclaim defendant who was the original plaintiff is not one of “the defendants,” see Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets,313 U.S. 100, 106–109, there is no textual reason to reach a different conclusion for a counterclaim defendant who was not part of the initial lawsuit. This reading, Home Depot asserts, runs counter to the history and purposes of removal by preventing a party involuntarily brought into state-court proceedings from removing the claim against it to federal court. But the limits Congress has imposed on removal show that it did not intend to allow all defendants an unqualified right to remove, see, e.g., §1441, and Home Depot’s interpretation makes little sense in the context of other removal provisions, see, e.g., §1446. The general removal statute, 28 U. In this case, we address whether either provision allows a third-party counterclaim defendant—that is, a party brought into a lawsuit through a counterclaim filed by the original defendant—to remove the counterclaim filed against it.
Majority opinion
The Product Liability Advisory Council (“Council”), in support of Home Depot, explains that Congress enacted CAFA in large part because of the significant level of hostility state courts demonstrated against class action defendants. Allowing this CAFA loophole, the Council argues, would reinvigorate the widespread state court abuse that CAFA sought to prevent. Under the WPC rule, we consider only the plaintiff’s claims to see if there is federal-question jurisdiction. Whether the defendant raises federal counterclaims is irrelevant. See, e.g., Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc.,535 U.S. 826, 831 . Likewise, in a case involving standard diversity jurisdiction (based on complete diversity under §1332 rather than minimal diversity under CAFA), it is “the sum demanded .
The Court held that Section 1441 did not permit removal by a third-party counterclaim defendant. Moreover, the Court held that Home Depot could not remove under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 because the term "any defendant" in 28 U.S.C.S. § 1453 simply clarified that certain limitations on removal that might otherwise apply did not limit removal under § 1453. The Court averred that Congress did not expand the types of parties eligible to remove a class action under § 1453 beyond § 1441’s limits, so § 1453 did not permit a third-party counterclaim defendant to remove. Respondent’s final and most radical argument against petitioner’s CAFA claim is that CAFA’s removal language does not independently authorize removal at all. On this view, all that §1453 does is “make a few surgical changes [in certain class-action cases] to the procedures that ordinarily govern removal,” while the actual power to remove comes from the general removal provision, §1441. More to the point, even if third-party defendants could not secure the agreement needed to remove an entire civil action under §1441, counting them as “defendants” under §1441 would make a difference by allowing them to invoke §1441, which would permit them to remove certain claims without original defendants’ consent.
Text of the opinion
As part of a naming sponsorship by Commerzbank AG, the Waldstadion was renamed the Commerzbank-Arena on 1 May 2005 for ten years. Commerzbank agreed to pay around €30 million to the city hosting company as part of the deal. During the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the stadium was officially referred to as the FIFA World Cup Stadium Frankfurt, as FIFA rules do not permit commercial naming of stadia. The Turkish Football Federation has also staged several games in the arena, as Turks form a significant ethnic minority in Germany. Beşiktaş won the Turkish Super Cup with a 1–0 win over Galatasaray. Due to the suspension by UEFA of the Turkish national stadium, the qualifying matches for UEFA Euro 2008 against Malta (final score 2–0 to Turkey), against Moldova (5–0 for the Turks) and against Norway (final score 2–2) were also played here.
Jackson moved to remand, arguing that precedent barred removal by a “third-party/additional counter defendant like Home Depot.” App. Shortly thereafter, Jackson amended his third-party class-action claims to remove any reference to Citibank. We have often explained that “ederal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America,511 U.S. 375, 377 .
Languages
Because in the context of these removal provisions the term “defendant” refers only to the party sued by the original plaintiff, we conclude that neither provision allows such a third party to remove. We next consider whether CAFA’s removal provision, §1453, permits a third-party counterclaim defendant to remove. Home Depot contends that even if it could not remove under §1441, it could remove under §1453 because that statute is worded differently. Although this is a closer question, we agree with Jackson. Conversely, Jackson argues that the phrase “any defendant” in CAFA’s text does not, by itself, expand removal rights to third-party defendants.
When all costs are averaged out, the price of shopping at Lowe's vs. Home Depot is essentially the same. Lowe's and Home Depot stores engage in competitive pricing, so it is common to find similar popular items priced within pennies of each other. Less popular items tend to have the greatest price disparity. To provide a wide sampling, Yelp offers customer reviews of 250 individual Lowe's and Home Depot stores across five major U.S. metropolitan areas. From these 250 stores, review averages were tallied.
ORDER ON PARTIES' CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Both Home Depot and Lowe's will deliver heavy items from local stores, including fence panels, masonry, landscape rock, and lumber. Smaller items such aslight fixtures, electrical parts, blinds, and tools are serviced from warehouse distribution centers and delivered by parcel post, through FedEx, USPS, or UPS. Both Lowe's and Home Depot, in general, are lenient about accepting returns.
S., at 595 (‘CAFA’s primary objective’ is to ‘ensur “Federal court consideration of interstate cases of national importance.” ’ (quoting §2, 119Stat. 5)); S. Rep. No. 109–14, p. 43 (CAFA’s ‘provisions should be read broadly, with a strong preference that interstate class actions should be heard in a federal court if properly removed by any defendant.’).” Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. v. Owens, 574 U.S. 81, 89 . Respondent’s answer from precedent backfires. Against our many cases reading the word “any” capaciously , see Small, 544 U. S., at 396 (Thomas, J., dissenting) , he cites two cases that assigned the word a narrower scope. But in both, context compelled that departure from plain meaning.
Jackson also dropped his counterclaim against Citibank, eliminating it from the case. (“Citibank”) sued George W. Jackson in North Carolina state court to collect on his credit card debt. Two months later, Jackson counterclaimed against Citibank, also adding third-party class action claims against Home Depot and Carolina Water Systems, Inc. (“CWS”).
The main user of the stadium is the football team Eintracht Frankfurt, which has used the stadium as its home base since 1963. The new arena was officially opened at the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup, the test run for the 2006 World Cup. Both the opening match (Germany 4–3 Australia) and the final (Brazil 4–1 Argentina) were hosted at the stadium.
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