Jones et al v. John Crane-Houdaille, Inc. et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM. Signed by Judge Catherine C. Blake on 4/6/12. (dass, Deputy Clerk)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
MICHAEL R. JONES ET AL.
v.
JOHN CRANE-HOUDAILLE, INC. ET AL.
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Civil No. CCB-11-2374
MEMORANDUM
Now pending is the plaintiffs’ motion to remand this product liability action to Maryland
state court. After Michael R. Jones was diagnosed with mesothelioma, he and his wife Paulette
Jones brought an asbestos product liability suit in Maryland state court against nearly two dozen
manufacturers and other companies. The defendants removed the case to this court, contending
Mr. Jones’s alleged exposure occurred on a federal enclave, and therefore this court has federal
question jurisdiction, jurisdiction pursuant to 16 U.S.C. § 457, or both. The plaintiffs filed a
motion to remand, challenging the sufficiency of the defendants’ notice of removal.
The
question has been fully briefed and no hearing is necessary. See Local Rule 105.6. For the
following reasons, the plaintiffs’ motion to remand will be denied without prejudice.
Mr. Jones and his wife filed a short form asbestos product liability complaint in the
Circuit Court for Baltimore City on June 14, 2011. Through joint interrogatories the defendants
discovered that the only job site on which Mr. Jones was alleged to have been exposed to
asbestos was Edgewood Arsenal at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Edgewood, Maryland. In
their notice of removal, defendants claimed Edgewood Arsenal “is a federal enclave and thus,
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controlled under federal enclave jurisdiction.” (ECF No. 1, at 1.)
A federal enclave is an area over which the federal government has assumed exclusive
legislative jurisdiction through the application of Art. I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. See
Goodyear Atomic Corp. v. Miller, 486 U.S. 174, 182 n.4 (1988). Article I, Section 8 grants
Congress the power
[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever . . . over all Places
purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall
be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dock-Yards, and other needful
Buildings[.]
U.S. Const. art I, §8, cl.17.
The defendant companies’ notice of removal articulated two theories under which
Edgewood Arsenal’s alleged federal enclave status could result in federal court jurisdiction.
First, defendants asserted that federal question jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 as a
direct result of the Arsenal’s enclave status. To support this proposition, defendants cited Akin v.
Big Three Indus., Inc., 851 F. Supp. 819, 822 (E.D. Tex. 1994). In Akin, the court adopted the
reasoning that “any law existing in territory over which the United States has exclusive
sovereignty must derive its authority and force from the United States and is for that reason
federal law.” Id. (citing Mater v. Holley, 200 F.2d 123, 124 (5th Cir.1952)). A suit based on
events occurring in a federal enclave, where state law has been federalized, therefore must
necessarily arise under federal law and implicates federal question jurisdiction under §1331. “It
would be incongruous to hold that although the United States has exclusive sovereignty in [a
federal enclave], its courts are without power to adjudicate controversies arising there.” Mater,
200 F.2d at 124.
As a second theory, defendants reference 16 U.S.C. § 457, a 1928 federal statute that
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prescribes the appropriate application of state law in actions for death or personal injury “within
a national park or other place subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.” Fourth
Circuit precedent squarely supports the exercise of federal jurisdiction under § 457, though there
is some lack of clarity about whether § 457 simply gives rises to § 1331 federal question
jurisdiction or whether § 457 creates a separate grant of federal jurisdiction independent of
§1331. Compare Adams v. Alliant Techsystems, Inc., 201 F. Supp. 2d 700, 705 n.4 (W.D. Va.
2002) (citing 16 U.S.C. § 457 and holding that “[p]ersonal injury claims arising on [a federal]
enclave are subject to the court’s federal question jurisdiction”) with Stokes v. Adair, 265 F.2d
662, 665–66 (4th Cir. 1959) (apparently finding jurisdiction under 16 U.S.C. § 457 in an action
to recover for injuries sustained on the Fort Leavenworth military reservation).
Following the logic of the Fourth Circuit in Stokes, neither of these theories suggest a
claim arising in a federal enclave may only be tried in federal court. See Stokes, 265 F.2d at 666.
That the federal government’s exclusive legislative jurisdiction federalizes state law in a federal
enclave does not necessarily lead to exclusive judicial jurisdiction for the federal courts.
Applying either of defendants’ legal theories, the federal government’s exclusive legislative
jurisdiction over a federal enclave in effect federalizes state law for the purpose of creating
federal question jurisdiction in federal courts. State courts, however, are courts of general
subject matter jurisdiction and may hear claims brought under either state or federal law. Thus,
under the defendants’ theories, if the defendants had not chosen to remove this case to federal
court, the case could still have been properly tried in Maryland state court.
In moving to remand, the plaintiffs do not contest the defendants’ legal theories. Rather,
they argue, the notice of removal is facially defective because it contains an insufficient showing
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that Edgewood Arsenal is in fact a federal enclave. Tracking the language of the constitutional
grant of authority, whether real property becomes a federal enclave may turn on whether the
property in question was “‘purchased by the Consent of the Legislature’ . . . within the meaning
of Art. I, s 8, cl. 17.” Paul v. U.S., 371 U.S. 245, 264 (1963). While the defendants’ notice of
removal contains historical information about Edgewood Arsenal, it does not contain any
reference to consent by the State of Maryland to exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction over the
property. As a result, the plaintiffs argue, the notice of removal “fail[s] to set out the
jurisdictional facts that would support federal jurisdiction.” (ECF No. 29, at 10.)
This court cannot agree with the plaintiffs. The federal removal statute, 28 U.S.C. §
1446(a), provides the content requirements for a notice of removal. Along with a copy of all the
process, pleadings, and orders already served, the notice need only contain “a short and plain
statement of the grounds for removal.” Id. This language “is deliberately parallel to the
requirements for notice pleading in Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
Ellenburg v. Spartan Motors Chassis, Inc., 519 F.3d 192, 199 (4th Cir. 2008) (citing Bell Atl.
Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554–56 (2007). Thus, the Fourth Circuit has concluded that a
district court should not hold a removing party’s notice of removal to “a higher pleading standard
than the one imposed on a plaintiff in drafting an initial complaint.” Id. at 200.
Measured against the plausibility standard of Twombly, the notice of removal is not
defective for failing to allege Maryland’s consent to exclusive federal legislative jurisdiction. A
judge in this district has previously explained, in detail, why the federal government has
exclusive legislative jurisdiction over portions, at least, of the Aberdeen Proving Ground. See
United States v. Holmes, 414 F. Supp. 831 (D. Md. 1976). As noted in Holmes, the Maryland
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“general consent statute” in effect at the establishment of the Aberdeen Proving Ground provided
the State’s consent to exclusive legislative jurisdiction by the United States for any land the
federal government acquired for arsenals, among other purposes. Id. at 843 (citing 1906 Md.
Laws 1254, codified as amended at Md. Code Ann., State Gov’t § 14-101).1 “Such general
consent and cession statutes are ‘. . . not uncommon . . . and they are as effective for purposes of
Article I, s 8, Clause 17, as consent to each particular acquisition . . . .’” Id. at 843–44 (quoting
United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm’n, 412 U.S. 363, 372 n.15 (1973).
Other judges in this court have also noted that parts of Aberdeen Proving Ground are
federal enclaves. In addition to the decision in Holmes, opinions in several other cases in the
district have referred to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, on which Edgewood Arsenal sits, as a
federal enclave. See, e.g., U.S. v. James, 164 F. Supp. 2d 718, 719 (D. Md. 2001) (“[A]ppellant .
. . was . . . on a federal enclave, viz., Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.”); U.S. v. Beckman, 3
F. Supp. 2d 654 (D. Md. 1998) (“Beckman was . . . approaching the entrance to Aberdeen
Proving Ground, a federal enclave.”); U.S. v. Sauls, 981 F. Supp. 909, n.2 (D. Md. 1997) (citing
Holmes for the proposition that “[f]or the most part, jurisdiction at Aberdeen Proving Ground,
Maryland, is under the exclusive legislative jurisdiction of the United States”).
Plaintiffs are correct that determination of federal enclave status is a fact-intensive
undertaking. But to meet the Twombly standard, defendants need not provide enough facts to
prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Jones worked on a federal enclave. Rather,
the defendant need only provide enough factual allegations “to raise a right to relief above the
speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Given the existence of the 1906 general consent
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“The federal courts take judicial notice of the statutes of the states.” Southern Ry. Co. v. O'Dell, 252 F. 540, 543
(4th Cir. 1918).
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statute and the repeated references by judges in this court to the federal enclave status of portions
or all of Aberdeen Proving Ground, it is certainly plausible that Mr. Jones’s workplace on
Edgewood Arsenal was in a federal enclave where the federal government had exclusive
legislative jurisdiction.
After further discovery regarding the specific location of Mr. Jones’s workplace, and
further investigation of the date and manner by which the land on which it sits was procured by
the federal government, the court may make an authoritative determination as to federal enclave
status. And if at that time it appears there is no exclusive federal jurisdiction, then it may be
appropriate to remand this case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Until then, however, defendants have alleged facts and provided legal theories sufficient
to meet the threshold the Fourth Circuit has set for a notice of removal. At this point, it is
plausible that the court has subject matter jurisdiction over this personal injury action pursuant to
16 U.S.C. § 457. See Stokes, 265 F.2d at 665–66. The plaintiffs’ motion to remand will thus be
denied, but without prejudice pending further discovery.
A separate order follows.
April 6, 2012
Date
/s/
Catherine C. Blake
United States District Judge
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