Re Document Nos.: 8, 10

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO REMAND; GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION To AMEND THE NOTICE OF REMOVAL

RUDOLPH CONTRERAS, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

On June 9, 2014, plaintiff, Nieves Rocha, individually and as the personal representative of the estate of Oscar Rocha, commenced a legal malpractice action against the law firm Brown & Gould, LLP, attorney Daniel A. Brown, and David M. Lipman, P.A. in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The next day, defendants Brown & Gould and Daniel Brown were served with the Superior Court summons, complaint, and initial order and addendum. Three days later, defendant David Lipman was served with the same documents. On June 22, plaintiff filed a first amended complaint in the Superior Court that largely mirrored the original complaint, and on July 3, Brown & Gould and Daniel Brown filed a notice of removal in this Court based on diversity jurisdiction. The notice included a statement that Lipman consented to the removal.

Defendants, however, failed to include with their notice of removal a copy of several documents from the Superior Court proceeding, which, they concede, violated 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a). Specifically, defendants did not include with their removal notice a copy of the first amended complaint, the summons, and the initial order and addendum. Plaintiff subsequently filed a timely motion to remand on July 16, 2014, requesting the Court to send this case back to the Superior Court due to defendants' error. But for the reasons set forth below and in accordance with the majority of federal courts that have addressed this issue, the Court will deny plaintiff's motion to remand.

II. ANALYSIS

A civil action filed in state court may be removed to a United States district court if the case originally could have been brought in federal court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Title 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a) sets forth some of the basic procedural requirements for a defendant to follow when attempting to remove such an action. Specifically, this section instructs that a defendant

Id. § 1446(a) (emphasis added). It is undisputed that in this case, defendants failed to comply with the letter of § 1446(a) by not including with their original notice of removal a copy of the first amended complaint, the summons, and the initial order and addendum, all of which were part of the Superior Court record. See Defs.' Mem. Opp'n Mot. Remand, ECF No. 9, at 1. Instead, defendants argue that their mistake constitutes a procedural error that does not require remand to the Superior Court. Plaintiff, on the other hand, argues that defendants' error is fatal to the removal and remand therefore is appropriate.

Although "removal statutes are to be strictly construed," Williams v. Howard Univ., 984 F.Supp. 27, 29 (D.D.C. 1997), that does not mean every defect in the removal procedure under § 1446(a) requires remand as a matter of law. Admittedly, a few federal district courts have interpreted § 1446(a) as demanding absolute compliance such that a defendant's failure to include one document from the state court record — despite no actual prejudice to any party, including the court itself — requires remand.2 But with the question not yet having been addressed directly in this Circuit, the Court disagrees that a draconian application of § 1446(a) is required such that a minor, often inconsequential error in not attaching all the state court paperwork necessitates the disproportionate sanction of denying federal jurisdiction to a defendant. Instead, the Court sides with the majority of federal courts which have held that failure to include documents from the state court record under § 1446(a) is a procedural error that does not require remand and that can be cured at the federal court, even after expiration of the thirty-day removal period.3

Indeed, among the category of procedural mistakes a defendant potentially could make when removing an action, failing to include certain state court papers usually will qualify as de minimis at best. This is because in most instances, such as here, the error causes no prejudice to any party, does not delay proceedings in the federal forum, and is easily curable by a defendant filing a supplement with the correct paperwork — which is exactly what defendants have done in this case through their motion for leave to amend the notice of removal, which the Court grants.4 See generally Defs.' Mot. Amend Notice Removal, ECF No. 10.

Defendants' error also does not require remand for a second reason: although § 1446(a) clearly places the burden on a defendant to include the correct state court documents with the notice of removal, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia nonetheless automatically transfers a copy of the state court record to the clerk of this Court upon being informed that the removal notice was filed, and that record is promptly scanned and uploaded into the Court's electronic filing system. Thus, by the time plaintiff filed her motion to remand on July 16 complaining about defendants' error, this Court already had received the entire Superior Court record several days prior. See generally Original File From State Court, ECF No. 4. As such, not only was there no prejudice to any party from defendants' initial mistake, there was no practical need for defendants even to supplement the original notice of removal because their already-de minimis procedural defect was quickly corrected for when the state court documents were transferred and then posted electronically for this Court to access within just a few days of the removal notice being filed.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff's motion to remand (ECF No. 8) is DENIED, and defendants' motion to amend the notice of removal (ECF No. 10) is GRANTED.