NAVATIER v. CAREONE et al
Filing
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OPINION & ORDER that this action is REMANDED to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Morris County. That this case is CLOSED. Signed by Judge Stanley R. Chesler on 11/19/13. (gmd, )
CLOSED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
CHARLOTTE NAVATIER,
Plaintiff,
v.
CAREONE, CAREONE AT MORRIS
ASSISTED LIVING, CAREONE LLC,
DARREN SEISE, CATHERINE OLEXA,
and DONNA MOGER,
Defendants.
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Civil Action No. 13-03992 (SRC)
OPINION & ORDER
CHESLER, District Judge
This matter is before the Court upon the Court’s own Order To Show Cause why the
action should not be remanded to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Morris
County. [Docket Entry 14.] Defendants Care One LLC, Care One at Parsippany Troy Hills
d/b/a Care One at Morris Assisted Living, LLC (“Care One Morris”), Darren Seise, Catherine
Olexa, and Donna Moger (collectively, “Defendants”) have submitted a response opposing
remand. [Docket Entry 15.] For the foregoing reasons, the Court cannot satisfy itself that there
is federal subject matter jurisdiction over this case and will therefore remand the action to the
Superior Court of New Jersey.
I.
Background
This lawsuit, originally filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, contains four state law
causes of action: (1) retaliation in violation of the New Jersey Conscientious Employee
Protection Act (“CEPA”), N.J. Stat. Ann. §§ 34:19-1 to -14; (2) tortious interference with
contract; (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress; and (4) defamation per se. In brief, the
Complaint alleges that Plaintiff Charlotte Navatier (“Plaintiff”) was terminated by her employer,
a nursing home in Parsippany, New Jersey called Care One Morris, in retaliation for complaints
Plaintiff made to her superiors regarding treatment of residents there. Plaintiff weaves into her
Complaint numerous references to federal law. For instance, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants’
actions surrounding her termination – including preventing Plaintiff from getting “necessary
paperwork signed for Medicaid” and “refusing to send out COBRA 1 [medical] insurance” to
prevent a gap in Plaintiff’s coverage – were so “extreme and outrageous” that Plaintiff suffered
severe emotional distress. (See Compl. ¶¶ 77, 79, 82, 85.) Furthermore, the Complaint alleges
that post-termination Plaintiff applied for a position with a competitor to Care One Morris but
did not receive a job offer because Defendants “[Darren] Seise and CareOne informed the
president of that company that . . . the Plaintif violated HIPAA 2 laws [while employed] at
CareOne.” (Id. ¶ 92.)
Defendants’ notice of removal, filed on June 27, 2013, asserts 28 U.S.C. § 1331 as a basis
for federal jurisdiction. Defendants theorize that the state court Complaint, by referencing the
various federal statutes set forth above, raises sufficient “federal questions” to warrant exercise
of this Court’s “arising under” jurisdiction. (See Notice of Removal ¶ 7.) The Notice of
Removal points to the IIED cause of action in particular as one that raises questions of federal
law. (See id.) Plaintiff has not contested removal in this case; indeed, Defendants have filed a
partial motion to dismiss [Docket Entry 7], to which the Plaintiff has submitted an opposition
1
The Court understands “COBRA” as used in this context to refer to insurance provided
pursuant to the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, codified in part at 29 U.S.C. §§ 1161
to 1169.
2
HIPAA presumably refers to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,
codified in part at 29 U.S.C. § 1181.
2
[Docket Entry 11.]
During the pendency of Defendants’ motion, however, the Court’s independent review of
the Complaint and Notice of Removal indicated that the Court could not satisfy itself that federal
subject matter jurisdiction over this action was present. See Meritcare Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury
Ins. Co., 166 F.3d 214, 217 (3d Cir. 1999), overruled on other grounds by Exxon Mobil Corp. v.
Allapattah Servs., Inc., 545 U.S. 546 (2005). Accordingly, the Court issued an Order To Show
Cause why the lawsuit should not be remanded to the Superior Court of New Jersey for want of
jurisdiction. [Docket Entry 14.] Defendant has submitted a letter application opposing remand.
[Docket Entry 15.] Plaintiff has failed to submit a response to the Order To Show Cause.
II.
Discussion
Federal courts are, of course, courts of limited jurisdiction. “Subject matter limitations
on federal jurisdiction serve institutional interests . . . [by keeping] the federal courts within the
bounds the Constitution and Congress have prescribed.” Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526
574, 583 (1999). To that end, subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived or consented to, and
“subject-matter delineations must be policed by the courts on their own initiative . . . .” Id. In
cases like the present one, where a state court action has been removed to federal court pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1441, the jurisdictional inquiry is particularly searching. See Batoff v. State Farm
Ins. Co., 977 F.2d 848, 851 (3d Cir. 1992) (“removal statutes are to be strictly construed against
removal and all doubts should be resolved in favor of remand” (quotation and marks omitted)).
The burden rests with the removing party to demonstrate that federal jurisdiction exists over the
action. Samuel-Bassett v. KIA Motors Am. Inc., 357 F.3d 392, 396 (3d Cir. 2004).
The Court finds that Defendants have not met their burden here, and “it appear[ing] that
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the . . . [C]ourt lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” See 28 U.S.C. §
1447(d). The Court’s Order To Show Cause, picking up on the phrase “federal questions exist
with regard to [the IIED count],” assumed that Defendants were invoking “arising under”
jurisdiction on the grounds that the IIED claim “necessarily raise[d] a stated federal issue [that
is] actually disputed and substantial . . . .” See Grable & Sons Metal Prods., Inc. v. Darue
Engineering & Mfg., 545 U.S. 308, 312 (2005). The Court’s Order, noting that a Grable theory
bestows subject matter jurisdiction on only a “special and small category” of cases, see Empire
Healthchoice Assur., Inc. v. McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 699 (2006), informed both parties that
neither the allegations of the Complaint nor the Notice of Removal demonstrated that the socalled “implicates significant federal issues” test had been met here. See Treasurer of New
Jersey v. U.S. Dep’t of Treasury, 684 F.3d 382, 403 (3d Cir. 2012) (quoting Cal. Shock Trauma
Air Rescue v. State Comp. Ins. Fund, 636 F.3d 538, 542 (9th Cir. 2011)).
Defendants’ response to the Order to Show Cause, however, does not address Grable or
the significant federal issues test at all. Instead, Defendants argue that based on their review of
the Complaint, “it appeared that Plaintiff . . . was alleging violations of the Social Security Act . .
. [ERISA] . . . and/or [HIPAA] . . . even though [Plaintiff] did not specifically identify” such
causes of action. [See Docket Entry 15.] Based on this reading of the Complaint, Defendants
assert that the Court, for reasons of equity and efficiency, should retain jurisdiction over this
action until Plaintiff clarifies whether or not she is in fact asserting federal causes of action.
There is no merit to this argument. Plaintiff is under no obligation to amend her state
court Complaint to clarify for either Defendants or this Court what, if any, federal claims she is
raising or might at some point raise. Indeed, it would be inappropriate in the context of a 28
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U.S.C. § 1441 analysis to require Plaintiff to do so, as it is Defendants’ burden to demonstrate a
federal jurisdictional basis to the Court. Moreover, insofar as it appears to Defendants that the
Complaint raises causes of action under the various federal statutes referenced throughout, the
Court cannot agree. The Court reads the Complaint to allege no more than a CEPA violation and
three state law torts. Stating, as Plaintiff does, that CareOne Morris intentionally inflicted
emotional distress by preventing Plaintiff from signing Medicaid paperwork or withholding
COBRA insurance simply does not imply that Plaintiff is suing for Social Security Act or ERISA
violations. (See Compl. ¶¶ 77, 79.) Likewise, it is readily apparent that the reference to HIPAA
law violations in the defamation per se claim describes the allegedly false and defamatory
statements made by Defendants, not some type of claim under HIPAA. (See id. ¶ 92.) In short,
nothing on the face of the Complaint intimates a federal dispute in a manner sufficient to
implicate this Court’s 28 U.S.C. § 1331 “arising under” jurisdiction.
The Court will also briefly clarify why the Complaint and Notice of Removal cannot
satisfy the “implicates significant federal issues” test as an alternative basis of “arising under”
jurisdiction. Grable – the leading contemporary Supreme Court case on the issue of jurisdiction
over state law actions that have federal issues embedded within – was a state court quiet title
lawsuit in which “the only . . . issue contested” was “[t]he meaning of [a] federal tax provision.”
See 545 U.S. at 315. On these facts, the Grable Court found that a federal court can exercise §
1331 jurisdiction over a state law claim where the “state-law claim necessarily” raises a
“disputed and substantial” “stated federal issue . . . which [the] federal forum may entertain
without disturbing” the balance of “federal law and state judicial responsibilities.” See id. The
Supreme Court so held “principally because of the dominance of significant federal issues in that
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case.” See Treasurer of New Jersey, 684 F.3d at 403. In contrast, the federal issues that may
come up in the context of the IIED and defamation claims in this case are no more than ancillary
to those causes of action – the former requiring a fact-based inquiry into Defendants allegedly
extreme and outrageous conduct, and the latter focusing on the falsity of the statements made to
Care One Morris’s competitor and the negligence with which those statements were made. In
short, whether Plaintiff prevails on her IIED or defamation claims turns on proving the elements
of those torts, not answering significant issues of Social Security or ERISA law. Nothing about
this lawsuit indicates that it is one of those rare state law actions that raise an issue of federal law
sufficient to justify the exercise of federal jurisdiction. See Empire Healthchoice, 547 U.S. at
699.
It follows that with subject matter jurisdiction lacking here, the Court will remand this
lawsuit to the Superior Court of New Jersey. If Plaintiff should amend her Complaint to
affirmatively state a federal cause of action, Defendants will have thirty days from receipt of the
amended pleading to file their notice of removal. See 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(3).
Accordingly,
IT IS this 19th day of November, 2013,
ORDERED that this action be and hereby is REMANDED to the Superior Court of New
Jersey, Law Division, Morris County, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c); and it is further
ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall mail a certified copy of this Opinion &
Order to the Superior Court of New Jersey; and it is further
ORDERED that this case be and hereby is CLOSED.
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s/ Stanley R. Chesler
STANLEY R. CHESLER
United States District Judge
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