Fraudulent Joinder & Bad Faith – Explaining Another Removal Muddle

Here's some more inside baseball on grounds for removing cases from state to federal court.  In brief, the issue is this: does the "bad faith" standard added to the removal statute (28 U.S.C. §1446(c)(1)) in 2011 approximate the fraudulent joinder standard so that fraudulent joinder becomes a form of "bad faith" not subject to the one-year limit otherwise imposed on removals by reason of diversity of citizenship?  Fraudulent joinder is also an exception the "voluntary/involuntary" rule.  E.g., Crockett v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 436 F.3d 529, 532 (5th Cir. 2006); Mayes v. Rapoport, 198 F.3d 457, 461 n.8 (4th Cir. 1999); Insinga v. LaBella, 845 F.2d 249, 254 (11th Cir. 1988).

We wish to acknowledge the assistance of Emily Kimmelman, a Reed Smith 2016 summer associate, in compiling the research for this post.