{"id":330,"date":"2026-01-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=330"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:00:00","slug":"franco-costco-cd-cal-denies-remand-bad-faith-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Franco v. Costco Wholesale Corp. \u2014 C.D. Cal. Denies Remand of Personal-Injury Case, Finding Plaintiff’s Service and Discovery Delays Were Bad Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
Case<\/dt>\n
Franco v. Costco Wholesale Corp.<\/dd>\n
Court<\/dt>\n
U.S. District Court \u2014 Central District of California<\/dd>\n
Date Decided<\/dt>\n
2026-01-05<\/dd>\n
Docket No.<\/dt>\n
2:25-cv-10274<\/dd>\n
Status<\/dt>\n
Unreported \/ Non-Citable<\/dd>\n
Topics<\/dt>\n
Removal jurisdiction; one-year removal limit; bad-faith exception under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 1446(c)(1); ‘other paper’ rule; citizenship vs. residency<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Background<\/h2>\n

Jeanneth Franco filed a personal-injury suit against Costco in Los Angeles County Superior Court on August 9, 2024, but did not serve Costco until April 2, 2025 \u2014 eight months after filing. With service, Franco delivered a statement of damages claiming $5,000,000 in general damages. Costco answered and immediately served written discovery requests on April 17, 2025. Franco missed her response deadline, asked for extensions, and ultimately did not provide her discovery responses until October 7, 2025, well past the one-year mark from when she commenced the action. Those October responses included an admission that she was a California citizen, the missing piece for diversity removal. Costco removed on October 24, 2025, more than a year after the case was filed.<\/p>\n

Franco moved to remand, arguing that Costco knew of her citizenship long before October 2025 from her membership records and an incident report she filled out at the store. She argued the removal was untimely on two grounds: (1) the one-year limit on diversity removals under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 1446(c) had passed, and (2) Costco should have known her citizenship from its own files.<\/p>\n

The Court’s Holding<\/h2>\n

Judge Michelle Williams Court denied the remand motion. The court first explained that under Ninth Circuit law (Harris v. Bankers Life), a removing defendant has no duty to investigate citizenship from its own records or other sources outside the four corners of the pleadings, motions, or other papers served by the plaintiff. Defendant is entitled to wait for an “other paper” that makes removability “unequivocally clear and certain.” Costco received the first such paper \u2014 Franco’s discovery response admitting California citizenship \u2014 on October 7, 2025, and removed within 30 days as \u00a7 1446(b)(3) requires.<\/p>\n

That left the one-year hard cap in \u00a7 1446(c)(1), which can only be excused if the plaintiff acted in “bad faith” to prevent removal. The court found bad faith. First, Franco’s eight-month delay in serving the complaint \u2014 explained only by her counsel’s vague reference to “strategy” while plaintiff was treating for injuries \u2014 was an intentional choice that suggested gamesmanship. Second, plaintiff’s five-month delay in responding to discovery (after receiving an extension that itself would have left time to remove within the year) and her counsel’s explanation that he “had difficulty reaching the plaintiff” could not justify the cumulative timing. Although the bad-faith threshold is high, the court concluded the totality of conduct amounted to strategic gamesmanship designed to defeat removal, and denied the remand motion.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n