Phillips et al v. DePaul University et al

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 4/24/2012:(mb, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
JONATHAN PHILLIPS, et al.,

)
)
Plaintiffs,
)
)
v.
)
)
DePAUL UNIVERSITY, etc., et al.,)
)
Defendants.
)

No.

12 C 1791

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Plaintiffs have moved to remand this CAFA action to its
place of origin, the Circuit Court of Cook County, and defendant
DePaul University (“DePaul”) has filed its memorandum in
opposition.

Today this Court has ruled orally that if DePaul’s

presentation were to be modified to take account of the fact that
its Law School’s figures as to the states of citizenship of its
current student body have been based on representations in the
students’ original applications for admission, while the yearafter-year experience of DePaul’s graduating classes is that a
much higher percentage have chosen Illinois citizenship instead,
it is a near certainly that well over two-thirds of the members
of the proposed plaintiff classes in the aggregate are Illinois
citizens.

On that premise this Court would be compelled by 28

U.S.C. §1332(d)(4) to decline to exercise jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. §1332(d)(2).
In that respect, even under DePaul’s own skewed mixture of
(1) the actual current citizenship of its alumni from the Law

School classes of 2007 through 2011 and (2) the non-current (and
doubtless inaccurate) citizenship information as to the three inschool classes of 2012 through 2014, 1,604 putative class members
out of a putative total of 2,440 have Illinois citizenship.

That

works out to 65.7%, or less than 1% below the two-thirds figure.
That means that just 23 students of the Law School’s present
student body would have to have shifted to Illinois citizenship
to compel this Court to decline CAFA jurisdiction.
But it is unnecessary to tweak the figures in that manner.
More importantly, even if DePaul’s skewed approach were to be
adopted, this Court’s oral ruling has explained in detail why the
interests of justice and the totality of the circumstances have
led this Court to decline under 28 U.S.C. §1332(d)(3) to exercise
such jurisdiction.

Accordingly this Court grants plaintiffs’

motion to remand the action to the state court, and the Clerk of
this District Court is ordered to mail the certified copy of the
order of remand to the Clerk of the Circuit Court forthwith.

________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:

April 24, 2012

2