Riyanto v. Boeing Co.

638 F.Supp.3d 902

Irfansyah RIYANTO, Personal Representative of the Heirs of Toni Ismail, deceased,Rahmawati, deceased, and Athar Riski Riawan, deceased, Plaintiff, v. The BOEING COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant.

No. 21-cv-1475

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division

Signed November 2, 2022

Alexandra Marie Wisner, Floyd A. Wisner, Wisner Law Firm, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Bates McIntyre Larson, Daniel Thomas Burley, Jillian Brett Sommers, Kathleen A. Stetsko, Perkins Coie LLP, Chicago, IL, Daniel Patrick Ridlon, Mack Harrison Shultz, Jr., Rachel Elizabeth Constantino-Wallace, Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle, WA, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Robert M. Dow, Jr., United States District Judge

In this action, which was removed from the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Plaintiff Irfansyah Riyanto ("Plaintiff") brings suit against the Boeing Company ("Defendant") as the personal representative of the heirs of Toni Ismail, Rahmawati, and Athar Riski Riawan, all of whom perished when a Boeing jet crashed into the Java Sea. Currently before the Court are Plaintiff's motion to remand [14] and Defendant's motion to reassign other cases to this Court based on relatedness [27]. For the following reasons, Plaintiff's motion to remand [14] is granted. This case is remanded to the Circuit Court of Cook County for all further proceedings. Defendant's motion to reassign [27] is denied as moot. Civil case terminated.

I. Background

On the afternoon of January 9, 2021, all sixty-two people aboard Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 ("SJY 182") died when the Boeing 737-500 Jet crashed into the Java Sea less than five minutes after take-off from Jakarta International Airport on the Indonesian Island of Java. The fifty-six passengers, two pilots, and four crew members were Indonesian citizens and residents; and the airplane that crashed was owned and operated by Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian company. The airplane was designed and manufactured by Defendant, a United States corporation, incorporated in Delaware, with its principal place of business in Illinois at the time that this litigation commenced and removed.

On February 17, 2021, Plaintiff filed this civil in personam action in the Circuit Court of Cook County as Personal Representative for the decedents and also in his personal capacity as a survivor. In a four-count complaint, Plaintiff, a foreign state citizen, names Boeing as the only Defendant. Plaintiff asserts claims of wrongful death, survival, negligence, and strict products liability arising out of Defendant's alleged breach of duties concerning the design, manufacture, sale, and post-sale maintenance of SJY 182 and the education and training of pilots. On March 17, 2021, Defendant filed and served a notice of removal [1] pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a), as amended by the Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011, and 28 U.S.C. § 1446. Defendant asserts that federal subject matter jurisdiction exists based on admiralty, see 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), and diversity, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Plaintiff has moved to remand the case to state court. See [14]. While Plaintiff's motion was pending, Defendant filed a motion to reassign other cases arising out of the same plane crash to this Court based on relatedness. See [27].

II. Legal Standard

As the removing party, Defendant bears the burden of showing that removal was proper. See Dancel v. Groupon, Inc., 940 F.3d 381, 385 (7th Cir. 2019); Grecian Delight Foods, Inc. v. Great American Insurance Co. of New York, 365 F. Supp. 3d 948, 952 (N.D. Ill. 2019). "A case must be remanded to state court if subject-matter jurisdiction is lacking or if the defendant failed to comply with the removal statute." Ayotte v. Boeing Company, 316 F. Supp. 3d 1066, 1072 (N.D. Ill. 2018) (citing GE Betz, Inc. v. Zee Co., 718 F.3d 615, 625-26 (7th Cir. 2013)). Any doubts concerning the propriety of removal should be resolved in favor of the plaintiff's choice of forum in state court. See Schur v. L.A. Weight Loss Centers, Inc., 577 F.3d 752, 758 (7th Cir. 2009); Wragge v. Boeing Company, 532 F. Supp. 3d 616, 620 (N.D. Ill. 2021).

"Jurisdictional allegations control unless it is legally impossible for them to be true (or to have the asserted consequences)." Lu Junhong v. Boeing Co., 792 F.3d 805, 815 (7th Cir. 2015) (citing St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 289, 58 S.Ct. 586, 82 L.Ed. 845 (1938) (asking whether it "appears to a legal certainty" that the plaintiff cannot satisfy a jurisdictional requirement)). "That's equally true of a defendant's allegations in support of removal." Id. (citing Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. v. Wrens, 574 U.S. 81, 87-88, 135 S.Ct. 547, 190 L.Ed.2d 495 (2014) (explaining that a removing defendant's uncontested factual allegations can support federal jurisdiction)). In addition, "[w]hen considering a factual challenge to jurisdiction, courts 'may properly look beyond the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint and view whatever evidence has been submitted on the issue to determine whether in fact subject matter jurisdiction exists.' " Albert v. Oshkosh Corp., 47 F. 4th 570, 577 (7th Cir. 2022); see also Ayotte, 316 F Supp. 3d at 1072.

III. Analysis

Defendant argues that removal was proper based on admiralty jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), which grants the district courts "original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of: (1) Any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled." The parties spend the majority of their briefs analyzing whether Defendant can establish admiralty jurisdiction as a factual matter, which (the parties agree) exists if (1) the alleged tort occurred on navigable water (the locality test) and (2) the activity in question bears a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity (the connection test). See [18] at 9; [15] at 3-10. But this analysis is ultimately irrelevant if the Court agrees with Plaintiff that the last clause of § 1333(1), referred to as the "saving-to-suitors clause," bars removal regardless of whether Defendant can satisfy the locality or connection tests.

Lu Junhong establishes that, at least where a plaintiff does not object to removal based on the saving-to-suitors clause, the district court has "original jurisdiction" over admiralty claims and therefore an admiralty claim may be removed pursuant to the current, post-2011 amendment version of 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Lu Junhong, 792 F.3d at 818 ("Our conclusion that § 1333(1) supplies admiralty jurisdiction shows that subject-matter jurisdiction exists."). However, the plaintiff in Lu Junhong never invoked the saving-to-suitors clause, and the Seventh Circuit found that the argument was waived. The court of appeals also recognized that it might "be possible to argue that the saving-to-suitors clause itself forbids removal, without regard to any language in § 1441." Id. But it did "not think that it is the sort of contention about subject-matter jurisdiction that a federal court must resolve even if the parties disregard it." Id.

Here, Plaintiff has invoked the saving-to-suitors clause, requiring the Court to answer the question that Lu Junhong never reached. There is some confusion in the case law concerning how the 2011 amendment to § 1441 affects a plaintiff's ability to use the saving-to-suitors clause to prevent a defendant from removing an admiralty claim. Prior to the 2011 amendment, § 1441(b) read: "Any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded on a claim or right arising under the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States shall be removable without regard to the citizenship or residence of the parties." Romero v. Int'l Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354, 372 n.30, 79 S.Ct. 468, 3 L.Ed.2d 368 (1959). In Romero, the Supreme Court held that the words "claim or right arising under the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States" did "not extend, and could not reasonably be interpreted to extend, to cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." Id. at 378, 79 S.Ct. 468. The Court explained that "the historic option of a maritime suitor pursuing a common-law remedy to select his forum, state or federal, would be taken away by an expanded view of § 1331, since saving-clause actions would then be freely removable under § 1441." Id. at 371-72, 79 S.Ct. 468. Following Romero—and prior to the 2011 amendment to the removal statute—courts "consistently interpreted the 'savings clause' to preclude removal of maritime actions brought in state court and invoking a state law remedy, provided there is no independent basis for removal' such as the presence of a federal question or diversity of citizenship." Oklahoma ex rel. Edmondson v. Magnolia Marine Transport Co., 359 F.3d 1237, 1241 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Chimenti, 79 F.3d 534, 537 (6th Cir. 1996); citing U.S. Express Lines, Ltd. v. Higgins, 281 F.3d 383, 390 (3d Cir. 2002), and Servis v. Hiller Sys., Inc., 54 F.3d 203, 206-07 (4th Cir. 1995)).

In 2011, the removal statute was amended to read: "Except as otherwise expressly provided by Act of Congress, any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction, may be removed by the defendant or the defendants, to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place where such action is pending." 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). "Practically speaking, th[e] [2011] amendment limited the old 'home state rule' to only those cases where removal was based on diversity alone. Whereas before the amendment, no case could be removed if a defendant was in his home state, unless there was a federal question, now, all cases involving a home state defendant in which a federal court could have had original jurisdiction can be removed unless jurisdiction is...