ROBERT E. WIER, District Judge.
Before the Court is Plaintiff Rhonda Gentry's Motion to Remand this personal injury action to the Fayette Circuit Court. DE #13 (Motion). Defendants CF Kentucky Owner LLC and Friedman Management Company ("CF Kentucky" and "Friedman"; collectively, "Defendants") opposed (DE #17), and Plaintiff replied (DE #18). Because Defendants have pointed to multiple pieces of evidence that, when considered in conjunction, adequately establish the requisite amount in controversy, the Court declines to remand the case.
Defendants own and manage apartment complexes in Kentucky. DE #1-2 at 6, ¶ 3. Plaintiff (whose employer provides in-home care services) was visiting a patient of her employer at one such complex—the Cedarwood Apartments—when she allegedly slipped and fell on an icy patch, injuring herself. Id. at 7, ¶¶ 8-10. Blaming CF Kentucky and Friedman for lax upkeep of the property, Plaintiff sued in the Fayette Circuit for personal injury damages. Defendants removed the case (originally filed on December 21, 2017, see id. at 11) to this Court in September 2018 based on diversity jurisdiction. DE #1 (Notice of Removal). Just over a month later, Defendants (unopposed) sought leave to add their snow and ice removal vendor as a third-party defendant, which this Court granted. DE ##8, 14. On October 30, 2018, Plaintiff filed her motion to remand, arguing failure of the amount in controversy requirement.
Removal is proper if the plaintiff could have originally brought the case in federal court. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Defendants based removal exclusively on diversity jurisdiction, which exists "where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between . . . citizens of different states." 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). The amount in controversy must exceed the jurisdictional minimum at the time of removal. See Rogers v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 230 F.3d 868, 871 (6th Cir. 2000); see also Harnden v. Jayco, Inc., 496 F.3d 579, 581 (6th Cir. 2007). The burden rests on the removing party to demonstrate the amount in controversy requirement by a preponderance of the evidence. See Gafford v. Gen. Elec. Co., 997 F.2d 150, 158 (6th Cir. 1993), abrogated on other grounds by Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 130 S.Ct. 1181 (2010); see also Northup Props., Inc. v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, 567 F.3d 767, 769-70 (6th Cir. 2009) ("The burden is on [the removing party] to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the allegations in the complaint at the time of removal satisfy the amount-incontroversy requirement.").
In matters removed from Kentucky state courts, the amount in controversy is frequently unclear from the face of a complaint because the Kentucky Civil Rules bar plaintiffs from specifying the amount of unliquidated damages they seek. See Ky. R. Civ. P. 8.01(2). Parties thus often must engage in pre-removal discovery before a defendant can ascertain that the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and successfully remove the case. A removing party may satisfy the requirement via "competent proof" of the at-issue amount, see Cleveland Hous. Renewal Project v. Deutsche Bank Tr. Co., 621 F.3d 554, 559 (6th Cir. 2010), which "can include affidavits, documents, or interrogatories" obtained during pre-removal discovery. Bishop v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline, LLC, No. 5:17-CV-00424-JMH, 2018 WL 4686416, at *2 (E.D. Ky. Sept. 27, 2018). The Court evaluates such proof against the backdrop of "a `fair reading' of the allegations in the complaint." Shupe v. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., 566 F. App'x 476, 478 (6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Hayes v. Equitable Energy Res. Co., 266 F.3d 560, 573 (6th Cir. 2001)). Where uncertainty clouds the propriety of removal, courts must strictly construe removal statutes and resolve all doubts as to jurisdiction in favor of remand. See, e.g., Brierly, v. Alusuisse Flexible Packaging, Inc., 184 F.3d 527, 534 (6th Cir. 1999).
Indeed, here, Plaintiff did not specify any amount of damages in her Complaint. The Complaint merely alleges that Gentry seeks damages in excess of the Fayette Circuit's jurisdictional minimum, DE #1-2 ¶ 5, and includes a general list of types of damages she seeks, see id. at ¶ 14 (noting that damages "include[e], but [are] not specifically limited to, medical expenses, lost wages, permanent impairment to earn a living, pain, suffering, and emotional anguish, all past and future"). The Complaint does not elaborate further on damages sought. Defendants thus proffer two pieces of evidence obtained in pre-removal discovery to establish a sufficient amount in controversy. First, they cite a response to their request for admission (DE #1-3), which states as follows:
The timing matters: Gentry fell in January 2017 and filed suit in December 2017. The response at issue happened in August 2018, a month before removal.
In addition to these pieces of evidence, Defendants contend that Plaintiff's admission that she had incurred approximately $26,000 in medical expenses at the time she moved, in October 2018, for remand (see DE #13-1 at 6) provides context to value her claim at the time of removal.
While none of these things, alone, carries Defendants' burden, they, with the Complaint's damage categories, collectively surpass the jurisdictional threshold. The first piece of evidence, without more, would be insufficient to support federal subject matter jurisdiction. See Lobley v. Guebert, No. 5:16-CV-202-TBR, 2017 WL 1091796, at *1 (W.D. Ky. Mar. 22, 2017) (holding that a response refusing to admit or deny that the amount in controversy exceeded the jurisdictional minimum, standing alone, was insufficient); cf. Miller v. Malik, No. CIV. 11-74-ART, 2011 WL 2968428, at *2 (E.D. Ky. July 20, 2011) (viewing the plaintiff's refusal to deny the defendant's request for admission that damages exceeded $75,000 as "at least some evidence that her damages [we]re more than that amount" and, coupled with other evidence, as satisfying the amount in controversy). As in Miller, however, Plaintiff's refusal to deny that her damages exceeded the requisite amount when given the opportunity—while not dispositive of the jurisdictional inquiry— is "at least some evidence" that Gentry was seeking more than the minimum.
Defendants' second piece of evidence
Back to the timeline and the state of the record at removal: the alleged fall occurred in January 2017, the suit in December 2017, removal in September 2018, and the remand motion in October 2018. Plaintiff, a "healthcare provider," DE #13-1 at 1, claimed in the Complaint that she fell and suffered significant injuries. These included past and future pain and suffering, medical expenses, and permanent earning impairment. DE #1-2 at 7-8, ¶ 14. When Defendants tried to clarify the claimed losses through discovery, Plaintiff (in August 2018) refused the jurisdictional admission. But in the refusal, Plaintiff conceded that she continued to receive medical treatment a full seventeen months after the fall. Further, she pointed to an open and unresolved worker's comp claim, which she described as potentially having a "significant[]" effect on the civil case. In the remand motion, Plaintiff disclosed approximately $26,000 in accrued medical expenses and that she had received "temporary total disability" benefits from the comp carrier.
Thus, when Defendant effected removal, the matter involved a personal injury claimant seeking past ($26,000) and future medical expenses, past (a period of total disability) and future wage losses (including permanent impairment), and past and future pain and suffering. Plaintiff, the case master, refused to admit that the amount sought did not exceed the federal floor, but the refusal hinged on the Chapter 342 bar to double recovery not on the actual size of losses claimed. Defendants here have competently shown a matter within the original jurisdiction of the federal courts.
The proof obligation on a removing defendant is not a "daunting burden."
For the reasons discussed, the Court