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Ryan H. Nelson

First Page

71

Last Page

91

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In snap removal, an individual removes a civil action to federal district court from the courts of a state where one or more putative defendants are a citizen before any such putative defendant has been served with process. By removing before any forum-state defendants are served, the removal arguably eludes the forum-defendant rule, which prohibits removal based solely on the diversity or alienage jurisdiction statute if “any of the parties in interest properly . . . served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.” For years, federal judges and legal academics have disputed the propriety of snap removal as a matter of statutory interpretation: some endorse it; others decry it. Yet, these debates have focused entirely on whether snap removal evades the forum-defendant rule’s statutory bar, not whether the federal district courts exceed their constitutional boundaries by hearing the removed civil action if no defendant has been served or waived service. This essay is the first to tackle the constitutionality of snap removal, making the novel claim that the federal district courts may violate Article III by hearing civil actions removed via snap removal when no defendant has been served with process or waived service.

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