Preston v. Tenet Healthsystem Memorial Medical Center, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
485 F.3d 804 (5th Cir. 2007)
Preston (plaintiff) represented a class of patients allegedly injured during Hurricane Katrina at Tenet's Memorial hospital and LifeCare's leased floor within it (defendants); LifeCare removed the case under the Class Action Fairness Act, but the district court found the local-controversy, home-state, and discretionary-jurisdiction exceptions all applied because more than one-third of the class remained Louisiana citizens despite the storm's displacement, and remanded to state court.
Whether a federal court may remand a class action suit brought under the Class Action Fairness Act where more than one-third of the class members and the principal defendants are citizens of the state where the suit was filed.