Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Members of the House, H.R. 3624, the so-called Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act, is not really about fraud. Rather, this measure is just the latest attempt to tilt the civil justice system in favor of corporate defendants by making it more difficult for plaintiffs to pursue State law claims in State courts. Here is why I say that. To begin with, H.R. 3624 addresses a nonexistent problem. Under current law, a defendant may remove a case alleging solely State law claims to a Federal court only if there is complete diversity of citizenship between all plaintiffs and all defendants, with an exception. If the plaintiff adds an instate defendant to the case to defeat diversity jurisdiction, this constitutes fraudulent joinder and, in such circumstance, the case may be removed to Federal court. In determining whether a joinder was fraudulent, the court must consider only whether there was any basis for a claim against the nondiverse defendant. For the case to remain in Federal Court, the defendant must show that there was no possibility of recovery or no reasonable basis for adding the nondiverse defendant. This very high standard has ignited our Federal Courts for more than a century, and it has functioned well. H.R. 3624 would replace this time-honored standard with a thoroughly ambiguous one.…”