Order adding new defendant triggers remand

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted May 6, 2020 9:32 AM

Although U.S. District Judge Martha M. Pacold rejected Anthony Saracco’s arguments for using the Illinois misnomer statute to add Robin Gaddo (a fellow resident of Illinois) as a defendant in a negligence case that Federal Express removed to federal court based on diversity of citizenship, she granted Saracco’s motion to add the nondiverse defendant — relying on the factors judges use when determining whether the fraudulent joinder doctrine applies — and ordered a remand based on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1447(e). Saracco v. Federal …

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