Last year was a banner year for removal before service, with
both the
Second and
Third Circuits weighing in to support application of the
removal statute according its terms, thereby giving their blessing
to the so-called "snap" or "wrinkle" removal
practice that this Blog has advocated for a decade.
See Gibbons v. Bristol-Myers Squibb
Co., 919 F.3d 699, 705-07 (2d Cir. March 26, 2019);
Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant,
Inc., 902 F.3d 147, 151-54 (3d Cir. 2018). Particularly
given coincidental personal jurisdiction developments that tend to
restrict mass tort plaintiffs seeking aggregation to suing
defendants in their "home" courts, removal before service
is now another accepted means for combating the other side's
incessant forum-shopping. E.g., Anderson
v. Merck & Co., 2019 WL 161512, at *1-2 (D.N.J. Jan.
10, 2019) (denying remand in 104 Zostavax cases).
