Summary
The United States District Court for the Central District of California denied Eleazar Santos’s motion to remand his wage-and-hour class action against The Pictsweet Company. The court held that the successive removal was timely under CAFA, that intervening Ninth Circuit precedent constituted a relevant change in circumstances, and that the defendant’s assumed violation rates and attorneys’ fees supported an amount in controversy exceeding $5 million.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Defendant's second removal was barred by the one-year removal limitation in 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1).
- Whether the Ninth Circuit's intervening decision in Perez v. Rose Hills constituted a change in circumstances or other paper that could trigger a new removal period in a CAFA case.
- Whether Defendant's assumed violation rates and related amount-in-controversy calculations were reasonable under CAFA.
- Whether the declaration supporting Defendant's amount-in-controversy calculations was admissible or sufficient despite Plaintiff's objections concerning its underlying data.
- Whether Defendant's assumption that attorneys' fees would equal 25 percent of the claimed recovery was reasonable for purposes of calculating the amount in controversy.
- Whether the Court should take judicial notice of twenty-six similar complaints and remand orders submitted by Plaintiff.
Holdings
- The second removal was not barred by the one-year limitation in 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1) because CAFA removals are not subject to that one-year limit under 28 U.S.C. § 1453(b).
- An intervening court decision may constitute an other paper or relevant change in circumstances that triggers a new removal period in a CAFA case.
- Defendant's assumptions concerning meal and rest period violations, unpaid wages, waiting-time penalties, and the number of affected class members were reasonable and supported an amount in controversy exceeding CAFA's $5 million threshold.
- Plaintiff's objections to the lack of attached raw data and identification of source queries constituted, at most, a facial attack and did not defeat the plausibility or admissibility of the declaration supporting removal.
- Defendant's assumption that attorneys' fees would equal 25 percent of the underlying recovery was reasonable in this case, resulting in a total proposed amount in controversy of $8,838,754.76.
- The Court denied Plaintiff's request for judicial notice because, although the court filings and remand orders were matters of public record, their existence was irrelevant or unnecessary to resolving the remand motion.
Key quotations
“an assumption is not unreasonable simply because another equally valid assumption may exist.” (IV.C.2)
“the amount in controversy reflects the maximum recovery the plaintiff could reasonably recover, not the amount that the plaintiff is likely to recover.” (IV.C.2)
Factual background
Plaintiff was employed by Defendant from May 2022 through July 2022. He alleges violations of California wage-and-hour laws, including failure to pay wages, provide meal and rest periods, pay final wages, issue accurate wage statements, indemnify employment-related expenditures, and produce employment records. The Complaint asserted nine causes of action individually and on behalf of a putative class of California hourly or non-exempt employees. Defendant's second removal relied on a declaration and calculations placing the amount in controversy at $8,838,754.76, including assumed damages and attorneys' fees.
Procedural history
Santos filed the action in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara, on January 10, 2024. Defendant first removed the action on February 15, 2024, and the Court remanded it on July 9, 2024. Defendant removed the action a second time on April 10, 2025, relying on the Ninth Circuit's intervening decision in Perez v. Rose Hills. Santos moved to remand on May 15, 2025; the Court denied the motion after considering the parties' written submissions and denying Plaintiff's request for judicial notice.