## Facts

- Ohio trucking companies purchased or leased 65 commercial trucks manufactured by Navistar through an Ohio authorized dealer between 2011 and 2012; the trucks allegedly experienced repeated breakdowns.
- Plaintiffs filed an Ohio state-court action in 2015 against Navistar and the dealer, voluntarily dismissed it, and refiled against the same defendants in 2016.
- At a pre-suit meeting, plaintiffs’ principal stated plaintiffs did not have a problem with the dealer but would sue the dealer to prevent Navistar from removing to federal court.
- During over two years of state-court litigation, plaintiffs pursued extensive discovery and motion practice primarily directed at Navistar and conducted minimal, largely derivative discovery directed at the dealer.
- Plaintiffs did not depose the dealer’s representative or employees and made no meaningful attempt to resolve or pursue the dealer to judgment.
- In March 2019, while summary-judgment proceedings were pending, plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the dealer, leaving Navistar as the only defendant.
- Within 30 days of the dealer’s dismissal, Navistar removed the case to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction.
- Plaintiffs moved to remand, arguing the one-year removal limit for diversity cases barred removal.

## Issues

1. Whether removal more than one year after commencement of the action was permitted under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1) because plaintiffs acted in bad faith to prevent removal by joining and retaining a nondiverse dealer.
2. Whether the evidence (including an admission of motive, litigation conduct, and timing of dismissal) satisfied Navistar’s burden to show bad faith sufficient to defeat remand.

## Decision

- The court denied plaintiffs’ motion to remand.
- The court held that plaintiffs acted in bad faith under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1) by joining and keeping the nondiverse dealer in the case past the one-year mark to block removal.
- The court ruled that Navistar’s removal was proper notwithstanding the one-year limitation because the statutory bad-faith exception applied.

## Legal Principles

- A diversity case generally may not be removed more than one year after commencement, unless the district court finds the plaintiff acted in bad faith to prevent removal. 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1).
- Bad faith may be shown by direct evidence of intent to block removal and by circumstantial evidence from litigation conduct, including failure to pursue meaningful discovery, failure to seek resolution against the nondiverse defendant, and strategic timing of dismissal after the one-year mark.
- The removing defendant bears the burden to establish bad faith; sufficiently strong evidence can satisfy even a clear-and-convincing standard where applied.
- When a plaintiff joins and retains a nondiverse defendant without a genuine objective of pursuing that defendant to judgment, the court may treat the conduct as bad faith permitting late removal.

## Conclusion

The court kept the case in federal court, finding that plaintiffs intentionally used and maintained a nondiverse dealer as a jurisdictional obstacle rather than as a real target of the litigation, triggering § 1446(c)(1)’s bad-faith exception to the one-year removal bar.


Keller Logistics Grp., Inc. v. Navistar, Inc., 391 F. Supp. 3d 774 (N.D. Ohio 2019)