R. Michael Stillwell v. Allstate Insurance Company

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a defendant failed to meet its “heavy burden of proving that [a party] was fraudulently joined”
• holding that district court erred by concluding that non-diverse defendant was fraudulently joined in case where plaintiff asserted bad faith claim against diverse insurer and separate breach of fiduciary duty claim against non-diverse agent that procured insurance
• explaining that any uncertainty in the state substantive law must be resolved in the plaintiff’s favor when analyzing fraudulent joinder
• explaining that any uncertainty in the state substantive law must be resolved in the plaintiff’s favor when analyzing fraudulent joinder
• noting that the standard for fraudulent 20 joinder is different from the standard applicable to a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss; the latter requires 21 plausibility while the former only possibility
• explaining that there is no fraudulent joinder if there is “a possibility that a state court would find that the complaint states a cause of action against any one of the resident defendants” (emphasis added) (citation omitted)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).