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The Forum-Defendant Rule, The Mischief Rule, And Snap Removal, Howard M. Wasserman

William & Mary Law Review Online

Samuel Bray’s The Mischief Rule reconceptualizes and revitalizes that venerable canon of statutory interpretation. Bray’s new approach to the mischief rule offers a textual solution to an ongoing civil procedure puzzle—forum defendants and “snap removal.” The forum-defendant rule provides that a diversity case is not removable from state to federal court when a properly joined and served defendant is a citizen of the forum state. Snap removal occurs whena defendant removes before the forum defendant has been properly served, “snapping” the case into federal court. Three courts of appeals and a majority of district courts have endorsed this practice, concluding …