S.D. Ill. Rejects Claim that Post-CAFA Amendments Render Action Removable

Based on the holding of the Seventh Circuit that an action is "commenced" under CAFA when it is filed in state court, the a judge in the Southern District of Illinois has rejected the argument that significant post-enactment changes to a complaint can change the commencement date to the date of the amendments. In Phillips v. Ford Motor Co., Slip Copy, 2005 WL 2654247 (S.D. Ill. Oct. 17, 2005) the defendant argued that expanding the class definition and adding two new named plaintiffs were sufficiently dramatic changes to warrant treating the action as having commenced at that time, which in this case was after the enactment date of CAFA:

CAFA was enacted by Congress on February 18, 2005 and applies only to cases commencing thereafter. Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, Pub.L. No. 109-2, § 9, 119 Stat. 14 (amending 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)). A case "commences" for purposes of CAFA when the plaintiff's complaint is filed in state court, not when it is removed. Knudsen, 411 F.3d 805, 806 (7th Cir.2005). "Amendments to class definitions do not commence new suits." Schorsch v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 417 F.3d 748, 751 (7th Cir.2005) (further specifying that "the workaday changes routine in class suits" do not initiate distinct claims).Defendant argues that because Plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint expands the number of affected products to include model-year 1996 Ford vehicles, and because Plaintiff adds two new named Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs have commenced a new case. The Court finds that this reasoning runs counter to Schorsch. Plaintiffs' changes are precisely the sort of "routine," "workaday" amendments the Seventh Circuit envisioned.

As Defendant points out, Plaintiffs made two primary changes when they filed their Second Amended Complaint on April 1, 2005. First, they amended the definition of their class to comport with the Madison County court's 2003 certification order. Under Schorsch, this act clearly does not "commence" a new case for CAFA purposes. See Schorsch, 417 F.3d at 751. Second, Plaintiffs added two new named Plaintiffs, Brede and Gulash, to their case. Defendant argues that this addition is not "routine," and that Brede (whose Ford vehicle was manufactured in 1996) "is a new party who has brought brand new claims." (Doc. 19, p. 13 n. 5.) The Court finds these arguments unpersuasive. The facts and circumstances underlying Gulash's claims are encompassed by each of Plaintiffs' first two complaints (the first of which was filed on October 26, 1999), while the facts and circumstances underlying Brede's claims are encompassed both by Plaintiffs' original complaint and by the Madison County court's 2003 certification order. Both sets of claims, moreover, arise of the same general set of facts as Plaintiffs' other claims.