Will The En Banc Ninth Circuit Clarify When A Subdivided Mass Action Can Be Removed Under CAFA?

We've blogged before about plaintiffs' attempts to circumvent the "mass action" provisions in the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ("CAFA"), which  allow defendants to remove to federal court certain cases raising "claims of 100 or more persons that are proposed to be tried jointly." 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(11)(B)(i). To evade removal, creative plaintiffs' lawyers have subdivided their mass actions into parallel cases of fewer than 100 persons each. Some courts have gone along with the charade. See, e.g., Scimone v. Carnival Corp., No. 13-12291 (11th Cir. July 1, 2013); Abrahamsen v. ConocoPhillips, Co., 503 F. App'x 157, 160 (3d Cir. 2012); Anderson v. Bayer Corp., 610 F.3d 390, 392 (7th Cir. 2010); Tanoh v. Dow Chem. Co., 561 F.3d 945, 950-51 (9th Cir. 2009).