126 Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com reasoning that includes assumptions.” The Ninth Circuit stressed that “those assumptions cannot be pulled from thin air but need some reasonable ground underlying them.”635 4. The Amount In Controversy Does Not Include Non-Class Action Claims Under CAFA, the amount in controversy cannot be inflated by including potential recovery on non-class claims. In Yocupicio v. PAE Grp., LLC,636 the Ninth Circuit held that “[w]here a plaintiff files an action containing class claims as well as non-class claims [such as a representative claim under PAGA], and the class claims do not meet the CAFA amount-in-controversy requirement while the non-class claims, standing alone, do not meet diversity of citizenship jurisdiction requirements, the amount involved in the non-class claims cannot be used to satisfy the CAFA jurisdictional amount, and the CAFA diversity provisions cannot be invoked to give the district court jurisdiction over the non-class claims.” D. Exceptions to CAFA Jurisdiction There are narrow exceptions to CAFA jurisdiction.637 The party that is seeking remand back to the state court bears the burden of proof in establishing any exceptions to CAFA jurisdiction.638 1. Local Controversy Exception Under the local controversy exception, a federal court must decline jurisdiction where: (1) greater than 2/3 of the proposed class members are citizens of the forum state,639 (2) at least one “significant” defendant (i.e., from whom significant relief is sought and whose alleged conduct forms a significant basis for the claims asserted by the class) is a citizen of the forum state, (3) the principal injuries caused by the alleged conduct or any related conduct of each defendant were incurred in the forum state, and (4) no other class action was filed within the past three years asserting the same or similar factual allegations against any of the defendants on behalf of the same or other persons.640 Some circuits, including the Eleventh Circuit, have made it clear that the CAFA’s language favors federal jurisdiction over class actions and that its legislative history suggests that Congress intended the local controversy exception to be a narrow one, “with all doubts resolved ‘in favor of exercising jurisdiction over the case.’”641 Consistent with this notion, several circuits agree that the party seeking remand back to the state court bears the burden to demonstrate that the court lacks jurisdiction under the “local controversy” exception.642 635 Ibarra, 775 F.3d at 1199; see also LaCross v. Knight Transp. Inc., 775 F.3d 1200, 1202 (9th Cir. 2015) (“when the defendant relies on a chain of reasoning that includes assumptions to satisfy its burden of proof, the chain of reasoning and its underlying assumptions must be reasonable ones”). 636 795 F.3d 1057, 1062 (9th Cir. 2015). 637 See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(4)(A)-(B). 638 Serrano v. 180 Connect, Inc., 478 F.3d 1018, 1024 (9th Cir. 2007). 639 “A person’s state of citizenship is established by domicile, not simply residence, and a residential address in California does not guarantee that the person’s legal domicile was in California.” King v. Great Am. Chicken Corp, Inc., 903 F.3d 875, 879 (9th Cir. 2018). 640 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d) (4). 641 Evans v. Walter Indus., Inc., 449 F.3d 1159 (11th Cir. 2006). 642 See Serrano, 478 F.3d at 1019 (noting agreement with other circuits that party seeking remand must demonstrate applicability of “local controversy” exception); Frazier v. Pioneer Americas LLC, 455 F.3d 542, 546 (5th Cir. 2006); Hart v.
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