Tanoh v. Dow Chemical Co.

holding that CAFA’s requirement of 100 or more plaintiffs refers only to actual, named plaintiffs | noting that the “well- established presumption against federal removal jurisdiction” is applicable in the CAFA context | noting that “CAFA’s class action provisions are completely silent” about claim splitting to avoid the jurisdictional amount | agreeing with the district court that plaintiffs had not “‘strategically sought to avoid federal jurisdiction’ by filing several separate state court actions in groups fewer than one hundred” | rejecting “the general proposition that plaintiffs’ lawyers cannot ‘game’ the system by artificially structuring their suits so as to avoid CAFA jurisdiction” in the context of CAFA’s “mass action” provisions | APlaintiffs= separate state court actions may, of course, become removable at some later point if plaintiffs seek to join the claims for joint trial.@ | “[W]e cannot sensibly eiitertain the notion that Congress intended to allow courts to override the considered legislative limitations on the ‘mass action’ concept.” | plaintiffs filed actions containing fewer than 100 plaintiffs but aggregating to more than 100 plaintiffs, but neither plaintiffs nor the state court had proposed consolidating the actions for trial; CAFA jurisdiction absent | plaintiffs filed actions containing fewer than 100 plaintiffs but aggregating to more than 100 plaintiffs, but neither plaintiffs nor the state court had proposed consolidating the actions for trial; CAFA jurisdiction absent | “In this case, concluding that plaintiffs’ claims fall outside CAFA’s removal provisions is not absurd, but rather is consistent with ... the well-established rule that plaintiffs, as masters of their complaint, may choose their forum by selecting state over federal court.:..” | describing CAFA’s relaxation of standard diversity jurisdiction restrictions | limiting the number of plaintiffs below 100