BARBARA GATES v. THE QUAKER OATS COMPANY
Filing
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OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 8/3/2016. (TH, ) [Transferred from New Jersey on 8/3/2016.]
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
BARBARA GATES,
on behalf of herself and all
others similarly situated,
Plaintiff,
v.
THE QUAKER OATS COMPANY,
Defendant.
APPEARANCES:
STEPHEN PATRICK DENITTIS
DENITTIS OSEFCHEN, PC
5 GREENTREE CENTRE
525 ROUTE 73 NORTH, SUITE 410
MARLTON, NJ 08053
On behalf of plaintiff
LIZA M. WALSH
SELINA MIRIAM ELLIS
WALSH PIZZI O'REILLY FALANGA LLP
ONE RIVERFRONT PLAZA
1037 RAYMOND BLVD.
6TH FLOOR
NEWARK, NJ 07102
ANDREW S. TULUMELLO
JASON R. MELTZER
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
1050 CONNECTICUT AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036
MATTHEW A. HOFFMAN
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
333 SOUTH GRAND AVENUE
LOS ANGELES, CA 90071-3197
On behalf of defendant
1:16-cv-01944-NLH-JS
OPINION
HILLMAN, District Judge
Presently before the Court is the motion of defendant to
transfer venue to the Central District of California.
has not filed an opposition to defendant’s motion.
Plaintiff
For the
reasons expressed below, defendant’s motion will be granted.
BACKGROUND
This action, filed on April 7, 2016, is one of four
putative class actions pending in various federal courts against
defendant, The Quaker Oats Company, alleging that statements on
the packaging of certain Quaker Maple & Brown Sugar oatmeal
products are misleading because those products purportedly do
not contain maple syrup or maple sugar.
Plaintiff in this case,
Barbara Gates, makes essentially identical allegations against
Quaker as the other three cases, including the first-filed
action in the Central District of California.
See Eisenlord v.
The Quaker Oats Co., No. 16-cv-01442 (C.D. Cal.) (filed on March
1, 2016).
On April 8, 2016, the plaintiff in Aliano v. Quaker Oats
Co., No. 1:16-cv-03087 (N.D. Ill.) (filed Mar. 11, 2016), which
is currently pending in the Northern District of Illinois, moved
to transfer and consolidate all the pending putative class
actions, including this case, as part of an MDL.
Gates filed a
memorandum in support of that motion and asked the Judicial
Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (“J.P.M.L.”) to transfer her
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case from this Court to the Northern District of Illinois,
arguing that “[t]ransferring these cases . . . for centralized
management will promote the just and efficient conduct of the
respective multidistrict actions by eliminating the potential
for conflicting contemporaneous rulings by coordinate district
courts” presiding over “nearly identical cases seeking redress
against, inter alia, The Quaker Oats Company.”
at 7-8.)
(Docket No. 10-1
The J.P.M.L. denied Aliano’s motion, but suggested
that the parties seek “transfer of the later-filed cases under
the ‘first-to-file rule’ to streamline this litigation.”
(Id.
at 8.)
Quaker has moved to transfer this action, as well as the
Aliano action and the other pending action, Drey v. Quaker Oats
Co., No. 16-cv-04293 (N.D. Ill.) (filed April 13, 2016), to the
Central District of California, because the Eisenlord action
there was the first to be filed.
The court presiding over
Eisenlord has deferred the deadlines in that case pending the
decisions on the motions to transfer.
(See Docket No. 18.)
Even though plaintiff did not provide her consent to transfer
her action to the Central District of California, she has not
filed an opposition to Quaker’s motion to transfer.
DISCUSSION
A.
Standard for Jurisdiction
This Court may exercise subject matter jurisdiction over the
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action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2), the Class Action
Fairness Act (CAFA), which provides, in relevant part, that
“district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil
action in which the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or
value of $5,000,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is a
class action in which . . . (A) any member of a class of
plaintiffs is a citizen of a State different from any
defendant.”
B.
Analysis
In federal court, venue questions are governed by 28 U.S.C.
§ 1404(a) or 28 U.S.C. § 1406.
Section 1404(a) provides for the
transfer of a case where both the original and the requested
venue are proper, while § 1406 applies where the original venue
is improper and provides for either transfer or dismissal of the
case.
See Jumara v. State Farm Ins. Co., 55 F.3d 873, 878 (3d
Cir. 1995) (explaining that although either statute could
theoretically provide a basis for the transfer of a case, only §
1406 can support a dismissal).
Defendant in this case has moved
for transfer pursuant to § 1404(a).
Even though the “analysis of whether transfer is appropriate
does not necessarily require extensive investigation,” Van
Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U.S. 517, 529 (1988), a district
court considering a § 1404(a) motion should evaluate both the
convenience of the parties and various public-interest
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considerations, Atlantic Marine Const. Co., Inc. v. U.S. Dist.
Court for Western Dist. of Texas, 134 S. Ct. 568, 581 n.6
(2013).
Factors relating to the parties' private interests
include: (1) relative ease of access to sources of proof; (2)
availability of compulsory process for attendance of unwilling,
and the cost of obtaining attendance of willing, witnesses; (3)
possibility of view of premises, if view would be appropriate to
the action; and (4) all other practical problems that make trial
of a case easy, expeditious and inexpensive.
Atlantic Marine,
134 S. Ct. at 581 n.6 (quoting Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454
U.S. 235, 241, n.6 (1981)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Public-interest factors may include: (1) the administrative
difficulties flowing from court congestion; (2) the local
interest in having localized controversies decided at home; and
(3) the interest in having the trial of a diversity case in a
forum that is at home with the law.
marks omitted).
Id. (internal quotation
The Court must also give some weight to the
plaintiffs' choice of forum.
Id. (citation omitted).
The
decision to transfer falls in the sound discretion of the trial
court.
Lony v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 886 F.2d 628, 632
(3d Cir. 1989).
A related doctrine is the “first-filed” rule.
Under the
“first-filed” rule, “[i]n all cases of federal concurrent
jurisdiction, the court which first has possession of the
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subject must decide it.”
E.E.O.C. v. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 850
F.2d 969, 971 (3d Cir. 1988), aff'd, 493 U.S. 182 (1990)
(citations omitted).
“[T]his policy of comity has served to
counsel trial judges to exercise their discretion by enjoining
the subsequent prosecution of similar cases in different federal
district courts.”
Id. (citations omitted).
“The first-filed
rule encourages sound judicial administration and promotes
comity among federal courts of equal rank.
It gives a court
‘the power’ to enjoin the subsequent prosecution of proceedings
involving the same parties and the same issues already before
another district court.”
Id. (citations omitted).
In this case, it is clear that the factors for transfer of
venue and the principles of the first-filed rule apply.
Plaintiff’s claims here mirror those in Eisenlord, almost
verbatim.
Plaintiff’s claims involve the same parties – the
putative class members and defendant Quaker.
Plaintiff’s claims
involve the same issues of law, including whether certain claims
are preempted by federal law.
See 21 U.S.C. § 343-1(a)(3) (the
Nutrition Labeling and Education Act).
Moreover, plaintiff
previously supported the transfer of her case as part of a MDL
because “centralization is necessary in order to avoid
duplication of discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings,
and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the
judiciary.”
Those considerations have not disappeared simply
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because the request for an MDL was denied.
Finally, plaintiff
has not opposed Quaker’s motion to transfer, which evidences a
tacit concession to all of these points.
CONCLUSION
Consequently, the Court finds that the public and private
factors for transfer of venue, together with the principles of
the first-filed rule, all warrant the transfer of this action to
the Central District of California.
An appropriate Order will
be entered.
Date: August 3, 2016
At Camden, New Jersey
s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.
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