CAFA Local Controversy Exception’s Proof Requirements Get Clarified By The 9th Circuit
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reportedly joined three other Circuits in concluding that “there must ordinarily be at least some facts in evidence from which the district court may make findings regarding class members’ citizenship for purposes of CAFA’s local controversy exception,” according to the Court’s class action legal opinion in Mondragon v. Capital One Auto Finance, No. 13-56699, D.C. No. 3:13-cv-00363-H-RBB. The local controversy exception, one of the exceptions to CAFA diversity jurisdiction in federal courts, reportedly requires that “greater than two-thirds of the members of all proposed plaintiff classes in the aggregate are citizens of the State in which the action was originally filed.”
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