HEAVEN v. PRIME HYDRATION LLC

Filing 18

MEMORANDUM AND/OR OPINION. SIGNED BY DISTRICT JUDGE NITZA I QUINONES ALEJANDRO ON 1/7/25. 1/7/25 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.(bw)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
SHANTAY HEAVEN,
individually and on behalf of all
others similarly situated
Plaintiff
v.
PRIME HYDRATION LLC
Defendant

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NITZA I. QUIÑONES ALEJANDRO, J.

CIVIL ACTION

NO. 21-1334
NO. 24-4754

JANUARY 7, 2025

MEMORANDUM OPINION
INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff Shantay Heaven (“Plaintiff” or “Heaven”) commenced this putative class action
in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, on behalf of herself and all other individuals, residents
of Pennsylvania, who are similarly situated, against Defendant Prime Hydration LLC
(“Defendant” or “Prime”), under the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance
Control Act, (“WESCA”) 18 Pa. C.S.§§ 5701, et seq., asserting that Defendant enabled Meta
Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) and Google LLC (“Google”) to collect various communications of
visitors to Prime’s website. Defendant timely removed this matter to this Court pursuant to 28
U.S.C. §§ 1441, 1446, and 1453, and the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. §
1332(d). (ECF 1). Thereafter, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss arguing, inter alia, that Plaintiff
lacks Article III standing. (ECF 5). Plaintiff filed a response in opposition to the motion to
dismiss, (ECF 7), and a motion to remand, (ECF 6), therein arguing, inter alia, that upon removal,
Defendant failed to meet its burden to establish subject-matter jurisdiction because Defendant’s

own motion to dismiss argues that Plaintiff lacks Article III standing, a component of subjectmatter jurisdiction.
For the reasons set forth herein, this Court finds that: (1) Plaintiff’s complaint fails to plead
facts sufficient to establish Article III standing — consequently, this Court lacks subject-matter
jurisdiction over this matter; (2) as such, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), the appropriate remedy
is to remand this matter to the state court from which it was removed; and (3) Plaintiff is not
entitled to fees and costs incurred for bringing the motion to remand. Consistent with these
findings, Plaintiff’s motion to remand is granted, in part, and Defendant’s motion to dismiss is
denied, as moot.
BACKGROUND1
The facts relevant to the parties’ respective motions regarding this Court’s jurisdiction are
summarized as follows:
Plaintiff is an individual with a Facebook account. (Compl., ECF 1-1, at ¶
8). Facebook is owned by Meta. (Id. ¶ 26). Defendant is a retailer of sports and
energy drinks and maintains a website for the marketing and sale of its drinks. (Id.
¶¶ 3, 9). In February of 2024, Plaintiff visited Defendant’s website and used the
search bar to search for different drink flavors, such as “ice pop,” “meta moon,”
and “blue raspberry.” (Id. ¶ 8).
Unbeknownst to Plaintiff, Defendant had integrated the Meta Pixel and
Google Analytics Pixel into its website. (Id. ¶¶ 57, 73). The Meta Pixel is a piece
of code that “tracks the people and the type of actions they take” on a website. (Id.
¶ 33). For instance, if an individual searches for a particular Prime drink, that
This Court accepts as true the allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint. See Steel Valley Auth. v. Union
Switch and Signal Div., 809 F.2d 1006, 1010 (3d Cir. 1987) (noting that when considering a motion to
remand, a district court must “focus on the plaintiff’s complaint at the time the petition for removal was
filed” and “assume as true all factual allegations of the complaint”); Gould Elecs. Inc. v. U.S., 220 F.3d
169, 177 (3d Cir. 2000) (finding that in motions to dismiss challenging subject-matter jurisdiction “[i]f the
defendant raises no challenge to the facts alleged in the pleadings, the court may rule on the motion by
accepting the allegations as true”); Katz v. Six Flags Great Adventure, LLC, 2018 3831337, at *1 n.1 (D.N.J.
Aug. 13, 2018) (accepting as true the facts alleged in the complaint and drawing all inferences in Plaintiff’s
favor when ruling on a motion to remand and a motion to dismiss).
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information is transmitted to Meta’s servers. (Id. ¶ 34). After collecting this
information, Meta “processes it, analyzes it, and assimilates it into datasets.” (Id.
¶ 36). The Meta Pixel also enables Meta to pair a website user’s search history with
their identity, by connecting the user’s search history to their Facebook ID. (Id. ¶¶
63-64). A Facebook ID is a unique number that leads to an individual’s Facebook
page. (Id. ¶ 65). When creating a Facebook account, users must provide their first
and last name, along with their birthday and gender. (Id. ¶ 25).
Similarly, Google Analytics collects website data through a Google
Analytics Pixel, a piece of code installed on a website. (Id. ¶ 48). Google receives
the electronic communications of website visitors through features like search bars.
(Id. ¶ 51). Google analyzes this information and provides it to entities like
Defendant. (Id. ¶ 52). Google can also use the information to, inter alia,
personalize content and ads on Google and partner sites. (Id. ¶ 53). Plaintiff did
not consent to her data being intercepted by Meta or Google. (Id. ¶ 8).

DISCUSSION
Defendant’s motion to dismiss and Plaintiff’s motion to remand are largely intertwined.
Defendant moves to dismiss for, inter alia, lack of subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(1), arguing that Plaintiff lacks an injury in fact sufficient
to confer Article III standing. (ECF 5). In response, Plaintiff takes no position on whether this
Court has Article III standing. (ECF 7). Instead, in the motion to remand, Plaintiff argues that
Defendant has failed to meet its burden to establish that this Court has subject-matter jurisdiction
because Defendant argues in its motion to dismiss that Plaintiff lacks Article III standing.2 (ECF
6). As such, both the motion to dismiss and the motion to remand raise the issue of this Court’s
jurisdiction over this matter.

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Plaintiff does not dispute, and this Court similarly finds, that Defendant has met the requirements
of CAFA, which, typically, allows the removal of class actions that (a) satisfy minimal diversity
requirements; (c) present an amount in controversy exceeding five million dollars in the aggregate,
exclusive of interest and costs; and (d) involve a class of at least 100 members. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d);
Frederico v. Home Depot, 507 F.3d 188, 195 (3d Cir. 2007); Lewis v. Ford Motor Co., 610 F. Supp. 2d
476, 480 (W.D. Pa. 2009).

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Generally, a defendant may remove a civil action from state court to federal court “so long
as the district court would have had subject-matter jurisdiction had the case been originally filed
before it.” A.S. ex rel. Miller v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 769 F.3d 204, 208 (3d Cir. 2014); 28
U.S.C. § 1441(a). Article III standing is a part of subject-matter jurisdiction. See Finkelman v.
Nat’l Football League, 810 F.3d 187, 195 (3d Cir. 2016) (“Absent standing on the part of the
named plaintiffs, we must dismiss a putative class action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”);
Johnson v. Patenaude & Felix. A.P.C., 2021 WL 3260064, at *3 (M.D. Pa. July 29, 2021) (“Article
III standing is, without question, a component of subject matter jurisdiction.”).

“[T]he party

asserting federal jurisdiction in a removal case bears the burden of showing, at all stages of the
litigation, that the case is properly before the federal court.” Frederico, 507 F.3d at 193.
Additionally, “[i]f at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject
matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).
Plaintiff argues the analysis should end here because Defendant cannot meet its burden to
show this case is properly before a federal court while simultaneously arguing that Plaintiff lacks
Article III standing. However, as argued by Defendant, federal courts have “an independent
obligation to determine if subject-matter jurisdiction exists” and must “exercise the jurisdiction
that is conferred upon them by Congress…[with] no more right to decline the exercise of
jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not.” Hartig Drug Co. Inc. v. Senju Pharma.
Co., 836 F.3d 261, 267 (3d Cir. 2016) (quoting Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006),
and Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 716 (1996)).
Neither party, nor this Court, has found any precedent of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit (the “Third Circuit”) that addresses this particular issue. (See Pl.’s Reply,
ECF 15, at p. 3 (“As Defendant admits, the Third Circuit has not ruled on the present issue.”)).

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However, the Seventh Circuit — while not explicitly saying that an independent analysis of Article
III standing is required — concluded that plaintiffs lacked standing in a decision finding remand
appropriate when defendant removed the action to federal court, then argued plaintiff lacked
standing. See Collier v. SP Plus Corp., 889 F.3d 894, 896 (7th Cir. 2018) (noting that “it is clear
that [plaintiffs’] complaint did not sufficiently allege an actual injury”).
In situations where defendants have removed an action to federal court, then contested
Article III standing, several courts have concluded that an independent analysis of whether
plaintiffs have standing is appropriate. Katz, 2018 WL 3831337, at *5 (“As a result of this
independent obligation and the inability of parties to waive subject matter jurisdiction, a federal
court cannot simply accept a stipulation of the parties regarding subject matter jurisdiction —
whether it be that jurisdiction does or does not exist — without rendering an affirmative finding
on the issue.”); Zanotti v. Invention Submission Corp., 2020 WL 2857304, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. June
2, 2020) (concluding it is appropriate to conduct an independent review of subject-matter
jurisdiction); Johnson, 2021 WL 3260064, at *3 (engaging in an independent analysis to determine
if the plaintiff had Article III standing); Brahamsha v. Supercell OY, 2017 WL 3037382, at *1, 6
(D.N.J. July 17, 2017) (exercising the court’s independent obligation to examine standing).
This Court finds persuasive the line of cases that has proceeded to analyze Article III
standing in similar circumstances. 3 Therefore, mindful of a district court’s independent obligation

This Court recognizes that another line of cases supports Plaintiff’s view and finds remand
appropriate, without further analysis, under similar circumstances. See, e.g., Mocek v. Allsaints USA Ltd.,
220 F. Supp. 3d 910, 914 (N.D. Ill. 2016) (finding that when a Defendant removed an action to federal
court, then moved to dismiss for lack of standing, remand was appropriate “on any analysis” because “no
party [was] willing to overcome the presumption against federal jurisdiction”); Walker v. Kroger Co., 2022
WL 20208929, at *2 (N.D. Cal. June 21, 2022) (“By arguing, immediately upon removal…that [Plaintiff]
lacks standing, [Defendant] has not met its burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction.”); Barnes v.
ARYZTA,LLC, 288 F. Supp. 3d 834, 839 (N.D. Ill. 2017) (quoting Richman Bros. Co. v. Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of Am., 114 F. Supp. 185, 190 (N.D. Ohio 1953)) (noting, in the context of a CAFA case
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to examine subject-matter jurisdiction, this Court will determine whether Plaintiff has Article III
standing.
A. Plaintiff’s Article III Standing
Article III of the Constitution limits federal judicial power to the resolution of “Cases” and
“Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 423 (2021).
“Standing to sue is a doctrine rooted in the traditional understanding of a case or controversy.”
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338 (2016). To establish standing, a plaintiff must have:
“(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant,
and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Id. “To establish injury in
fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest’ that
is ‘concrete and particularized’ and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id. at
339 (quoting Lujan v. Defens. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)).
“A concrete injury must be de facto; that is, it must actually exist.” Id. at 340 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The term “concrete” is meant to convey that the injury is “real” and not
“abstract.” Id. A concrete injury includes tangible harms, such as physical and monetary harms,
and intangible harms, such as reputational harms, disclosure of private information, and intrusion
upon seclusion. TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 425. When determining whether an intangible injury is
sufficiently concrete to constitute an injury in fact, “it is instructive to consider whether an alleged
intangible harm has a close relationship to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as providing
a basis for a lawsuit in English or American courts.” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 340-41.

where the removing party later moved to dismiss based on Article III standing, that “[t]o say that a court is
without jurisdiction to decide a case on its merits [yet] has jurisdiction merely to remove the case is to state
a contradiction.”).

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Notably, a statutory violation itself does not confer standing. See TransUnion, 594 U.S. at
427 (“[A]n injury in law is not an injury in fact. Only those plaintiffs who have been concretely
harmed by a defendant’s statutory violation may sue that private defendant over that violation in
federal court.”). Moreover, “[t]hat a suit may be a class action . . . adds nothing to the question of
standing, for even named plaintiffs who represent a class must allege and show that they personally
have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the class to
which they belong.” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 338 n.6 (quoting Simon v. E. Kentucky Welfare Rights
Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40 n.20 (1976)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, Plaintiff’s alleged injury is an invasion of her privacy. Recently, the Third Circuit
addressed how to determine standing when a plaintiff alleged she was injured by an invasion of
her privacy. Barclift v. Keystone Credit Servs., 93 F.4th 136, 145 (3d Cir. 2024). First, the Third
Circuit looked to the tort that most closely resembled the plaintiff’s injury, which it concluded was
the public disclosure of private information. Id. Then it determined that the type of harm at the
root of this tort was the “humiliation that accompanies the disclosure of sensitive or scandalizing
private information to public scrutiny.” Id. at 145-46 (quoting Nabozny v. Optio Sols. LLC, 84
F.4th 731, 736 (7th Cir. 2022)). The Third Circuit found the “harm stems from both the offensive
character of the information and its disclosure to the public.” Id. at 146. Ultimately therein, the
Third Circuit determined that the plaintiff lacked standing because her harm was not the kind
traditionally associated with public disclosure. Id.4

To collect a debt, the defendant in Barclift sent plaintiff’s personal information to a mailing vendor,
which mailed plaintiff a collection notice. Id. at 139. The Third Circuit concluded that transmission of
personal information to “a single ministerial intermediary” did not constitute a privacy harm traditionally
associated with public disclosure. Id. at 146 (quoting Nabozny, 84 F.4th at 736). Rather, the harm
associated with disclosures that remained “functionally internal are not closely related to those stemming
from public ones.” Id.
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Conducting a similar analysis, several district courts in this circuit have held that an
invasion of privacy associated with tracking online retail behavior is not sufficient to establish
Article III standing. See, e.g., Cook v. GameStop, Inc., 689 F. Supp. 3d 58 (W.D. Pa. 2023); In re
BPS Direct, LLC, 705 F. Supp. 3d 333 (E.D. Pa. 2023); Hartley v. Urban Outfitters, Inc., 2024
WL 3445004 (E.D. Pa. July 17, 2024); Amelia Ingrao and Elisabeth Pacana, Plaintiffs v. Add
Shoppers Inc, Nutrisystem, 2024 WL 4892514 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 25, 2024); Massie v. General Motors
LLC, 2022 WL 534468 (D. Del. Feb. 17, 2022). In Cook, the plaintiff brought claims under the
WESCA (the same Pennsylvania statute at issue here) premised on the defendant’s alleged tracking
of her interactions, such as her mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and the URLs of the
webpages she visited. 689 F. Supp. 3d at 61. In determining whether the plaintiff had Article III
standing, the court looked to “the nature of the information” intercepted, and found it was not the
kind of information historically protected by torts such as public disclosure of private information
and intrusion upon seclusion. Id. at 65. 5 The court reasoned that both torts protect “private”
information and concluded that basic online shopping information about a user does not clear this
hurdle. Id. To underscore this point, the court compared the plaintiff’s online searches to shopping
at brick-and-mortar stores:

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At common law, there are typically four privacy torts: intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation of
name or likeness, unreasonable publicity given to another’s private life (also known as public disclosure of
private information), and false light. Barclift, 93 F.4th at 145. The two closest to the harm at issue here —
intrusion upon seclusion and unreasonable publicity given to private life — both require “private”
information that, if publicized or intruded upon, would be “highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
Barclift, 93 F.4th at 145-46; Cook, 689 F. Supp. 3d at 65. See also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D
(defining publicity given to private life as “[o]ne who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life
of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind
that (a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) is not of legitimate concern to the public”);
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B (defining intrusion upon seclusion as “[o]ne who intentionally
intrudes, physical or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns,
is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a
reasonable person”).

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Product preference information is not personal information. This information is no
different from what GameStop employees would have been able to observe if
[Plaintiff] had gone into a brick-and-mortar store and began browsing the
inventory. Her physical movements in the store are like her mouse movements, her
pauses to look at inventory are like her mouse pointer hovering over products, and
her picking up video games off the shelf are like placing those same titles in her
virtual cart. [Plaintiff] certainly doesn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in
this kind of public shopping behavior in the physical world, and she doesn’t have
it in the digital world, either.
Id. at 66.
Guided by Cook, in In re BPS Direct, the court similarly found that website users who “did
not disclose highly sensitive personal information such as medical diagnosis information or
financial data from banks or credit cards cannot establish concrete harm.” 705 F. Supp. 3d at 355.
Notably, in allegations that mirror the present case, one of the plaintiffs in In re BPS Direct was a
Facebook user who alleged defendants assisted Facebook in intercepting communications that
included his name, Facebook ID, and the gun he purchased. Id. at 358-59. Despite encompassing
some personal information, the court held that the plaintiff’s allegations fell short because it was
“not persuaded concrete injury exists merely because [defendants] disclosed Website Users’ names
and addresses.” Id. at 359. Likewise, other courts have found that the collection of some basic
personal information does not create an injury in fact. Hartley v. Urban Outfitters, Inc., 2024 WL
3445004, at *1 (E.D. Pa. July 17, 2024) (finding no injury in fact when Plaintiff alleged Defendant
used “spy pixels” to record information about consumers opening promotional emails, which
included their email addresses); Amelia Ingrado and Elisabeth Pacana, Plaintiffs, v. AddShoppers,
Inc., Nutrisystem Inc., 2024 WL 4892514, *2 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 25, 2024) (finding “a person’s internet
browsing activity and email address is not sufficiently sensitive information to support the concrete
injury requirement for Article III standing”).

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Here, the factual allegations in the complaint are in line with the aforementioned cases.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant captured her searches for drink flavors, such as “ice pop,” “meta
moon,” and “blue raspberry,” and that this information was transmitted to Meta’s servers and
paired with Plaintiff’s Facebook ID. (Compl., ECF 1-1, at ¶¶ 8, 34, 63-64). Searches for drink
products are not the kind of “highly sensitive personal information” that have historically provided
a basis for privacy claims. See In re BPS Direct, 705 F. Supp. 3d at 355. Rather, like in Cook,
this Court finds that Plaintiff’s drink flavor searches more closely resemble a shopper entering a
brick-and-mortar store and walking through the drink aisle — information that would not create a
harm if disclosed. Additionally, that Plaintiff’s search information is tied to her Facebook ID does
not alter this Court’s conclusion. A Facebook ID, like other basic personal information, does not
necessarily result in an injury in fact if collected or disclosed. See In re BPS Direct, 705 F. Supp.
3d at 359; Hartley, 2024 WL 3445004, at *1; Amelia Ingrado, 2024 WL 4892514, at *2.6
This Court is aware that the Third Circuit has previously found injury sufficient to confer
standing in different internet privacy cases. See In re Nickelodeon Consumer Priv. Litig., 827 F.3d
262, 272-74 (3d Cir. 2016); In re: Google Inc. Cookie Placement Consumer Priv. Litig., 934 F.3d
316, 324-25 (3d Cir. 2019). However, this Court joins others in finding Nickelodeon and Google
distinguishable based on the nature of the information at issue. Cook, 689 F. Supp. 3d at 67; In re
BPS Direct, 705 F. Supp. 3d at 361. In Google, the plaintiffs alleged that Google created a web
browser “cookie” that tracked an internet user’s data — including, recording “every

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This Court is also aware that some decisions determining plaintiffs lacked standing have relied, at
least in part, on the fact that website operators collected only anonymous information. See Massie, 2022
WL 534468, at *5 (“Plaintiffs do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the anonymized . . . ”);
In re BPS Direct, 705 F. Supp. 3d at 359 (ultimately concluding that the court was not persuaded an injury
in fact existed but acknowledging that caselaw is “unclear” about whether disclosing information such as
names and addresses confers standing). However, this Court is persuaded that internet searches, combined
with a person’s Facebook ID, which simply leads to an individual’s Facebook page, (ECF 1-1 ¶ 65), are
not the kind of sensitive, private information that has been historically protected by courts.

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communication request by that browser to sites participating in the ad network, including all search
terms the user has entered” — and did so in contravention of their browser’s cookie blockers. 934
F.3d at 320-21; In re Google Inc. Cookie Placement Consumer Priv. Litig., 806 F.3d 125, 131 (3d
Cir. 2015). In Nickelodeon, the defendant collected children’s personal information, including the
webpages they visited and what videos they watched on the websites, despite promising not to
collect any of the children’s personal information. 827 F.3d at 267. As such, in Google and
Nickelodeon, the defendants allegedly collected more sensitive and private information than that
at issue in the present action. Further, unlike in the present action, 7 the defendants collected this
information after promising they would not. See Faust v. AutoZone, Inc., 700 F. Supp. 3d 222,
230-31 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 1, 2023) (distinguishing Nickelodeon and Google by noting Defendants in
those actions “deceived plaintiffs by secretly collecting their private data after promising they
would not” and because the “type of data collected” was distinguishable from data revealing
shopping preferences).8
Accordingly, this Court finds that the information allegedly collected by the Defendant —
which includes sports and energy drink flavor searches combined with a Facebook ID — is not the
type of private information that, when disclosed, creates a harm sufficient to establish standing.
See Barclift, 93 F.4th at 145 (noting that the harm in privacy torts stems, in part, from the
“offensive character of the information”). Notably, Plaintiff did not suggest any information was
collected beyond drink searches connected to her Facebook ID, nor did she describe any harm

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Here, Plaintiff alleges that she did not consent to the collection of her private data, but she does not
allege that Defendant promised not to collect or disclose her data. (ECF 1-1).
In Nickelodeon, the Third Circuit held that Defendant Viacom’s message to parents about not
collecting children’s personal information “may have created an expectation of privacy,” such that
Plaintiffs’ intrusion upon seclusion claim should not be dismissed. 827 F.3d at 293-95.
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suffered other than an “invasion of [her] privacy.” (ECF 1-1 ¶ 14). We therefore find that, on the
facts as alleged in this complaint, Plaintiff lacks Article III standing.
Because this Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction on account of Plaintiff’s lack of Article
III standing, this matter must be remanded to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the court
from which it came. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) (requiring remand if “at any time before final
judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction”); Collier, 889 F.3d at
897 (finding remand, rather than dismissal, the appropriate remedy when a Defendant removes an
action to federal court, then moves to dismiss based on a lack of standing); Katz, 2018 WL
3831337, at *9 (same). Additionally, because this Court finds that this case should be remanded,
Defendant’s motion to dismiss is denied, as moot. As such, the Court needs not address the other
arguments raised in Defendant’s motion to dismiss. See Katz, 2018 WL 3831337, at *1 (denying
motion to dismiss as moot once the court determined the case should be remanded); Brahamsha,
2017 WL 3037382, at *7 (noting that the court need not reach the other issues raised in defendant’s
motion to dismiss once the court determined the case should be remanded, and that Defendant’s
motion to dismiss should be denied as moot).
B. Plaintiff’s request for fees and costs
Plaintiff argues that she is entitled to reasonable fees and costs incurred in bringing her
motion to remand. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), an order remanding a case “may require
payment of just costs and any actual expenses, including attorney fees, incurred as a result of the
removal.” A district court “has broad discretion and may be flexible” in determining whether
awarding fees is appropriate under § 1447(c). Mints v. Educ. Testing Serv., 99 F.3d 1253, 1260
(3d Cir. 1996). However, “[a]bsent unusual circumstances, courts may award attorney’s fees under

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§ 1447(c) only where the removing party lacked an objectively reasonable basis for seeking
removal.” Martin v. Franklin Cap. Corp., 546 U.S. 132, 141 (2005).
Although this Court ultimately finds that remand is appropriate, resolving the parties’
motions involved an analysis of multiple unsettled areas of law. Therefore, we cannot conclude
that Defendant lacked an “objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal.” See also Brahamsha,
2017 WL 3037382, at *6 (denying attorney’s fees and costs, in part, because the Third Circuit has
not yet crafted “any controlling precedent” on the issue). Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion, insofar
as it seeks fees and costs, is denied.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth, Plaintiff’s motion to remand and for fees and costs is granted, in
part. Plaintiff’s motion is granted insofar as it seeks to remand this action to the Philadelphia
Court of Common Pleas.

Plaintiff’s motion is denied insofar as it seeks fees and costs.

Additionally, Defendant’s motion to dismiss is denied as moot. An Order consistent with this
Memorandum Opinion follows.
NITZA I. QUIÑONES ALEJANDRO, J.

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