Motor Vehicle Law: Federal Court grants plaintiff’s motion to remand wrongful death lawsuit back to Connecticut State Court after finding no fraudulent joinder of defendants

The plaintiffs, family members and representatives of the decedent, brought this action against the defendant, who was operating her vehicle as an Uber driver when she struck and killed the decedent. In Connecticut Superior Court, the plaintiffs named the Uber driver, Uber, and several other high level administrative and executive position holders of Uber as defendants. The defendants timely removed the case to federal court under diversity jurisdiction. Diversity jurisdiction requires plaintiffs and defendants of a lawsuit to be “citizens of different states.” In this case, several of the individual defendants were residents of Connecticut, similar to the plaintiffs, which would ultimately defeat the federal court’s diversity jurisdiction.

The defendants, however, asserted that their citizenship should be disregarded insofar as they were fraudulently joined in an effort to defeat diversity jurisdiction. The plaintiffs subsequently filed a motion to remand the case back to Connecticut State Court asserting valid claims against each defendant. Upon review of the motion, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut stated that under the doctrine of fraudulent joinder, a defendant may invoke the federal court’s diversity jurisdiction by contending that the non-diverse defendants were not properly joined in state court. Joinder is considered fraudulent if the court finds from the pleadings that there is no possibility that the claims against that defendant could be asserted in state court and recovery is impossible.

In opposition to the plaintiff’s motion, the defendants argued that the individual defendants were not involved or responsible for the decedent’s injuries, nor the accident itself. Plaintiffs, however, asserted that each defendant had a specific role in the negligent policies and practices at Uber which resulted in the decedent’s death. Although evidence had been produced outlining the roles and responsibilities of the defendants, the court found that this is not clear and convincing evidence that the plaintiffs fraudulently joined any of the defendants. Although the plaintiffs’ theory of liability for the defendant may fail, the court stated that such a decision is not proper when determining fraudulent joinder. As a result, the federal court holds that the defendants did not meet their heavy burden of showing that they were improperly joined for the purpose of defeating diversity jurisdiction; that is,  the defendants had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that there is no possibility of recovery under Connecticut law, and the federal court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to remand back to Connecticut Superior Court. Cantafi v. Graybeal, 3:23-CV-01245 (KAD), 2024 WL 3271931 (D. Conn. July 2, 2024)