Removal jurisdiction
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In the United States, removal jurisdiction refers to the power of a defendant to move a lawsuit filed in state court to the Federal district court of the original court's district. This is a general exception to the traditional American rule giving the plaintiff the authority to make the decision on the proper forum.
Removal is governed by statute, 28 U.S.C. §1441 et seq. Generally, a case may be removed if the original case could have been filed in federal court, but was not. Thus, removal requires an independent ground for jurisdiction such as diversity jurisdiction, federal question jurisdiction, or any other grant of federal jurisdiction. If removal is granted, the case will be removed to the federal district court which corresponds geographically to where the state action was initiated.
Removal is prohibited if any defendant is a citizen of the forum state where the suit is taking place under 28 U.S.C. §1441(b). The policy for this rule is that diversity jurisdiction is granted to prevent the defending party from being discriminated against in a foreign forum. However, when a defendant is already in a local court, it is expected that they will not be prejudiced against. Even if there are multiple defendants, even if one lives in the state where the lawsuit is taking place, the removal action will not be possible. When defendants want to remove, they must do so within 30 days of receiving service of notice under 28 U.S.C. §1446(b) (first paragraph). Every defendant has to agree to remove or removal will not be possible.
Finally, in a case where removal was not available based upon the initial pleading, but became available over the course of litigation, removal is only available one year after the suit was initiated under 28 U.S.C. §1441(b) (second paragraph). Thus, for example, in a suit between a Texas citizen against a Texas citizen and New York citizen will not be eligible for diversity. However, should the Texas defendant drop out of the claim, the New York citizen can remove as long as one year has not passed since the initiation of the suit. This is to prevent proceedings from being interrupted by removal to federal court (and thus starting over from scratch) after successfully completing a year of litigation.
A case having non-federal separate and independent claims may also be removed. By themselves, these issues would not be removable because they usually involve questions of state law. A court has the discretion to accept the case as a whole or remand those issues of state law.
State courts do not entertain questions of removal. Once a defendant has filed a motion to remove a case, any objection to removal is handled by the federal court. If a federal court finds that the motion was in fact defective or that the federal court does not have jurisdiction, the case is remanded to the state court.
There is no reverse "removal." That is, there is no ability for a defendant to remove a case from federal court into state court.
