Court Rules Wrongful Death Case Involving Defective Car Allegations Belongs in State Court - Bender v. Mazda Motor Corp.
As a Philadelphia accident lawyer, I handle many cases of auto accidents. In the majority of auto accident cases, one or both drivers caused the crash by negligently failing to pay attention or make good decisions. But every now and then, a case comes along in which the fault lies with the automobile itself, or one of its parts -- which means real responsibility for the crash can be assigned to the company that made the defective part. That was the allegation in Bender v. Mazda Motor Corp., a decision from the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Peggy Bender of Alabama alleged that a defective airbag in a Miata caused the death of a family member. Mazda attempted to remove the case to federal court on diversity grounds, but the federal court denied the motion and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. In this ruling, the Eleventh says an intervening decision did not change its mind.
For federal courts to have diversity jurisdiction, the amount of money being asked for must exceed $75,000. In opposing the motion to remove the case, Bender alleged that there was no evidence that the amount in controversy reached that much. In its answer, Mazda cited a similar case, Roe v. Michelin North America, in which the federal court found that even if the amount in controversy was not pleaded in court, it was "clear" and "readily deductible" that it would exceed $75,000. Mazda asked the district court to follow this ruling, or in the alternative, stay the case until an Eleventh Circuit ruling in Roe. The district court denied this and moved the case back to state court. After the Eleventh Circuit's ruling in Roe, which ultimately stayed in the federal courts, Mazda moved in district court to reconsider in light of the new decision. The district court denied this on the grounds that the case was out of its hands, remanded back to state court. Mazda appealed.
Before the Eleventh Circuit, Mazda argued that under a 1987 Eleventh Circuit case, Ritter v. Smith, the district court should have granted its motion to bring the case back to federal court. Bender counter-argued with another Eleventh Circuit case, 1992's Harris v. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama. The Eleventh found Harris most persuasive. That case cited 28 USC sec. 1447, which says in part that orders to remand are not reviewable on appeal or otherwise. In Harris, the Eleventh expressly found that district courts may not review their own remand orders. This trumps the motion to reconsider filed by Mazda, the appeals court found. The appeals court further found that the outcome of Roe did not matter in this case. Even if the remand to state court was legally erroneous, it said, review by the district court or the Eleventh Circuit is still barred by sec. 1447: "The case has been removed to state court, and that is where it will stay." Thus, it affirmed the district court's refusal to reconsider.
As a Philadelphia personal injury lawyer, I am familiar with cases in which large, well-funded companies pull out all the legal stops to avoid liability. This is common because large companies generally have the money to fight cases all the way up to federal appeals courts, when necessary. Because facing legal liability can be very expensive in the long run -- and because fighting a case in appeals courts is expensive for individual litigants like Bender -- it actually does make sense for defendants with a lot of funding to fight small issues to death. This tactic does not give defendants a better argument on the facts, of course -- it helps defendants dodge legal liability by removing facts from consideration.