MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) - A group of drug stores is objecting to a federal magistrate judge's recommendation that a class action lawsuit filed against it by a West Virginia firm should be heard in state court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled earlier this year that the district court should determine if the motion to remand the case to state court was filed in a timely fashion. It took Bailey & Glasser of Charleston, W.Va., 104 days after the case was removed to federal court to ask for its remand.
Magistrate Judge Janie Mayeron wrote last month that plaintiffs attorneys didn't realize they had a reasonable basis for pursuing remand until a Michigan federal court remanded three similar lawsuits.
"That Plaintiffs have no legitimate response is highlighted by the various ephemeral responses they have offered - the proverbial moving target," says the drug stores' objection, filed Thursday.
"In their opening brief on remand, Plaintiffs argued that they had noticed their remand motion for hearing 'the day following the Michigan district court's decision' remanding a similar case on the basis of the local controversy provision.
"In other words, Plaintiffs wanted this court to believe that their counsel was incapable of reading (the Class Action Fairness Act's) statutory text, and only capable of realizing 'that the same threshold issue needed to be addressed and resolved in this case' after the Michigan decision was issued."
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