Background
John Ewalt, Steve Wylie, and Bonnie Navarre filed a putative class action against GateHouse Media Ohio Holdings II in Ohio state court in 2019. GateHouse timely removed the action under the Class Action Fairness Act, and the parties litigated in federal court for approximately five years. After denying class certification in May 2024, the district court sua sponte remanded the case, reasoning that it could no longer exercise jurisdiction and declining supplemental jurisdiction.
After the case returned to state court, the plaintiffs filed a renewed class-certification motion in January 2025. GateHouse removed the action again within 30 days of that motion but more than 2,000 days after receiving the original complaint. The district court denied the plaintiffs’ remand motion after equitably tolling the removal deadline to avoid penalizing GateHouse for the court’s earlier, erroneous remand. The Sixth Circuit accepted an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1).
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit held that GateHouse’s second removal was untimely under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1). Because the 2019 complaint contained solid and unambiguous information establishing removability under CAFA, it triggered the sole applicable 30-day removal period. The plaintiffs’ later state-court class-certification motion did not restart that clock, and § 1446(b)(3) did not apply because the case was removable from the outset.
The court acknowledged that the district court’s 2024 remand was erroneous because denial of class certification does not eliminate CAFA jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s decision in Enbridge Energy foreclosed equitable tolling of § 1446(b)(1)’s strict and mandatory deadline. The Sixth Circuit therefore reversed and instructed the district court to remand the action to state court. In its amended opinion, the court also held that GateHouse forfeited its request to permit consideration of a Rule 60(b) motion because its appellate brief mentioned the issue only once, in a footnote, without developed argument.
Key Takeaways
- When an initial complaint unambiguously establishes CAFA removability, receipt of that complaint starts the 30-day removal period, and later class-certification proceedings do not reset it.
- Section 1446(b)(1)’s removal deadline cannot be equitably tolled, even when a defendant’s untimely re-removal follows an erroneous federal remand order.
- A federal court retains CAFA jurisdiction after denying class certification, but an erroneous remand does not create a new removal period or excuse noncompliance with the original deadline.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that removal deadlines remain conclusive despite unusual procedural developments or compelling equities. Defendants facing a questionable CAFA remand must timely pursue available challenges rather than assume they can remove again if later state-court proceedings revive class issues.
The amended opinion also reinforces appellate-preservation rules: a passing footnote without developed argument will not preserve an issue, and a rehearing petition cannot be used to introduce an argument that could have been presented in the appellate brief.