Gordon v. Dotson et al

Filing 20

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER. (See Full Order.) IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff's motion for remand 15 is denied. Signed by District Judge Catherine D. Perry on 02/02/2016. (CBL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
CHAD GORDON,
Plaintiff,
vs.
ST. LOUIS CITY POLICE CHIEF,
et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 4:15 CV 1845 CDP

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Plaintiff moves to remand this action to state court on the ground that all
defendants have not properly consented to removal. Defendants Dewight Meeks,
Steven Wilson, Lori Rebholz, and Larry Dampier (“removing defendants”) timely
removed this case on December 11, 2015, within 30 days of defense counsel
Robert Isaacson agreeing to accept service of process on their behalf. Defendants
allege this Court has federal question subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §
1331. In their Notice of Removal, removing defendants state that the remaining
served defendants – Samuel Dotson, Francis Slay, Thomas Irwin, Bettye BattleTurner, and Erwin Switzer – consent to removal. All served defendants are
represented by defense counsel Robert Isaacson, who signed and filed the Notice
of Removal. One defendant, Matthew Watson, has yet to be served in this case.

Although all served defendants in fact consent to removal of this case,
plaintiff nevertheless argues that this case should be remanded because “no actual
consent of each and every defendant who are not the removing defendants [has]
been filed to date and the thirty day period starting from November 23, 2015, being
the date that defendants’ counsel received service on behalf of removing
defendants has expired therefore removal is defective and not timely.”
Plaintiff’s motion will be denied. “[R]emoval based on a federal question
requires the unanimous consent of all defendants.” Griffioen v. Cedar Rapids and
Iowa City Railway Co., 785 F.3d 1182, 1186 (8th Cir. 2015) (internal citation
omitted). To meet the consent requirement, “there must be some timely filed
written indication from each served defendant, or from some person with authority
to act on the defendant’s behalf, indicating that the defendant has actually
consented to the removal.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The removing defendant may properly give notice of a codefendant’s consent
provided the removing defendant has the authority to indicate consent on a
codefendant’s behalf and the notice of removal is timely. Id. Here, the removing
defendants indicated that their codefendants consented to removal by filing a
Notice of Removal which was also signed and filed by counsel for the consenting
defendants. As the Notice of Removal unequivocally indicates that all served
defendants have consented to removal by and through their attorney, all served
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defendants in fact consent to removal, and removal is otherwise timely, the motion
for remand will be denied.
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion for remand [15] is
denied.

_______________________________
CATHERINE D. PERRY
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Dated this 2nd day of February, 2016.

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