A week or so ago a reader sent me an Evidenciary Hearing Transcript held in Macon Georgia that involved removed court cases from across the South with Academy as defendant. It appears that Academy was removing all manner of state court cases to Federal court despite not adequately pleading the diversity jurisdiction aspect of the removal. As an LLC, removal due to complete diversity is measured at the ownership level thus an LLC invoking diversity jurisdiction better be prepared to plead the states where all of its owners reside. In the case of Academy, which is owned by KKR, the members are evidently a state secret.
Despite that fact, various and sundry of Academy’s local law firms were evidently still removing cases to federal court and that fact did not sit will with District Court Judge Marc Treadwell, who called a hearing to discuss the matter back in October in a prelude to the possible sanctioning Academy for the improper removals. The transcript was good reading, especially since we covered this topic back during the insurance litigation with Nowdy’s archival post on the subject being very good. And like local firm Ungarino & Eckert which dominated some of those early removal stories we have a local connection with the Sher Garner law firm in New Orleans and its co managing partner James Garner. Here is a snippet where Garner’s name is dropped for the first time:
The full hearing transcript runs 66 pages and it is chock full of interesting information including a few Mississippi cases where the diversity removal was not adequately plead and such was evidently missed by both the litigants and the court. Unlike the removal problems experienced by Ungarino & Eckert, it appears Sher Garner is not headed for the judicial chop shop but Academy may well be based on the sheer number of cases improperly removed to Federal Court. Slabbed will be keeping an eye on this case.