By Haroon Vaseem, Associate – Legal
Big companies are winning jurisdictional battles even before the plaintiff can serve the summons. This is the age of “Snap Removal,” where an automated docket-monitoring system used by companies outpaces physical process servers to file a notice of removal and remove the case to federal court.
A Louisiana plaintiff sues a New York pharmaceutical company and a Texas pharmacy in Texas state court over an allegedly defective product. Because the pharmacy is a properly joined forum defendant, the forum-defendant rule would ordinarily prevent removal once it is served. As soon as the complaint hits the public docket, the New York pharmaceutical company’s automated system detects it and removes the case to federal court before the Texas pharmacy can be served—sometimes within minutes. This is known as “snap removal.”
Using automated docket monitoring, the defendant removes the case before the forum defendant is served, invoking § 1441(b)(2). The plaintiff, still constrained by traditional service procedures, must then spend time and money litigating jurisdiction in an unwanted forum. This digital advantage defeats the 1948 purpose of the forum-defendant rule.
This article examines the circuit split, Congress’s response, and potential solutions to snap removal that do not require new legislation.
The Statutory Lock
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1441, a defendant may remove a case to the federal district court embracing the state court if federal jurisdiction exists. But § 1441(b)(2) bars diversity-based removal when a properly joined and served defendant is a citizen of the forum state. The forum-defendant rule preserves the plaintiff’s choice of state court when a genuine local defendant is joined and served. Congress added the phrase “properly joined and served” in 1948 to prevent plaintiffs from defeating removal by naming forum defendants they did not intend to pursue or serve.
Before automated docket monitoring, snap removal was largely impossible because defendants typically learned of a suit through service. A genuine forum defendant would therefore be served before removal, closing the removal window. At the same time, the rule exposed sham joinder: if the plaintiff never served the local defendant, the out-of-state defendant could remove within its 30-day period. Service itself distinguished legitimate joinder from manipulation, without requiring preliminary federal litigation.
Automated docket monitoring has erased the distinction between genuine and fraudulent joinder. Defendants can now detect a filing before service and use a statute designed to prevent plaintiff gamesmanship as a tool for their own. As a result, even genuine plaintiffs must litigate jurisdiction in federal court before the merits are reached.
The Technological Divide
Snap removal creates a sharp procedural imbalance. Plaintiffs remain tied to traditional service, which may take hours or days, while defendants use real-time docket monitoring and pre-drafted electronic filings to remove a case within minutes. Both parties play on an uneven field, when one side operates under 1948-era procedures, the other uses 2026 technology.
Types of Snap
Two kinds of Snap Removal have taken their form: Standard Snap and Super Snap.
Standard Snap- In Standard Snap, an out-of-state defendant removes the case after filing but before the forum defendant is served, arguing that 28 U.S.C.S. § 1441 (b) (2) has not yet been triggered.
Super Snap- occurs when a defendant removes before the complaint is formally filed, relying on an automated alert. Although the premature notice is ineffective, some courts permit the defect to be cured by a supplemental notice filed after docketing.[1]
Judicial Divide Among Circuits
The Second and Third Circuits permit snap removal when removal occurs before the forum defendant is properly joined and served. In Gibbons v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 919 F.3d 699 (2d Cir. 2019), and Encompass Insurance Co. v. Stone Mansion Restaurant Inc., 902 F.3d 147 (3d Cir. 2018), both courts treated § 1441(b)(2) as unambiguous and applied its plain text. The Fifth Circuit reached a similar result in Texas Brine Co. v. American Arbitration Ass’n, 955 F.3d 482 (5th Cir. 2020), although its holding involved removal by a non-forum defendant.
The Sixth Circuit has not directly decided the issue, but dicta in McCall v. Scott, 239 F.3d 808 (6th Cir. 2001), has been cited in support of snap removal. The Eighth Circuit likewise acknowledged the doctrine in M & B Oil, Inc. v. Federated Mutual Insurance Co., 66 F.4th 1106 (8th Cir. 2023), while emphasizing that pre-service removal cannot cure incomplete diversity.
The Ninth Circuit addressed only “super snap” removal in Casola v. Dexcom, Inc., 98 F.4th 947 (9th Cir. 2024), holding that removal filed before the state action officially existed was a legal nullity, although a timely supplemental notice could cure the defect. The Eleventh Circuit has not squarely ruled on snap removal, but in Goodwin v. Reynolds, 757 F.3d 1216 (11th Cir. 2014), it recognized judicial discretion to remedy defendant gamesmanship.
What Encompass described as a “narrow circumstance” has become increasingly routine as automated docket monitoring enables defendants to detect and remove cases within minutes.
- Congressional Response
The Removal Jurisdiction Clarification Act of 2020,[2] proposed allowing plaintiffs to seek remand after service of the forum defendant. But the bill did not eliminate snap removal; it still required plaintiffs to litigate in federal court to recover their chosen forum, while imposing little consequence on defendants that exploited the service gap.
The Supreme Court has not resolved the issue, leaving the circuits divided and parties to incur jurisdictional costs before reaching the merits.
The Symmetry Fix
Rather than waiting for Congress, courts can use technology to eliminate the advantage created by automated docket monitoring.
- Service at the speed of filing
State e-filing systems could adopt a dual-action e-service process. When a complaint is submitted, the portal would send a provisional notice to the defendant’s registered agent. Any removal at that stage would be premature because the complaint has not yet been accepted or docketed, consistent with Casola v. Dexcom, Inc.
Once the clerk accepts the complaint, the system would simultaneously file the action and transmit official electronic service. By making filing and service concurrent, the system would eliminate the snap-removal window.
Because most courts already use e-filing platforms, this reform could be implemented by adding a service function to existing infrastructure, potentially through procedural rulemaking rather than legislation. In short, technology can be used to neutralize the advantage technology created.
- Modern approach using ‘Statutory Interpretation’
Section 1446(b) was enacted when defendants typically obtained the complaint only through formal service. Technology has displaced that assumption. Today, a defendant may retrieve the complaint from the public docket, review it, and use it to remove the case while still arguing that the removal clock has not begun because formal service has not occurred.
This allows the defendant to use the benefits of receiving the pleading while avoiding its legal consequences. Although that position may fit the statute’s literal wording, it conflicts with the underlying premise that service was the mechanism by which a defendant gained access to the complaint and became positioned to act on it.
The Active-Retriever Problem:
An objection arises from Murphy Bros., Inc. v. Michetti Pipe Stringing, Inc., 526 U.S. 344 (1999), where the Supreme Court held that receipt of a faxed complaint did not start the removal clock, and formal service was required. The Court emphasized that a defendant is not obliged to engage in litigation until brought under the court’s authority through formal process.
But Murphy Bros. involved a passive recipient of an unsolicited complaint. Snap removal involves an active retriever: a defendant that monitors the docket, obtains and reviews the complaint, and then uses it to invoke federal jurisdiction while denying the legal significance of receipt.
Courts should therefore consider whether a defendant’s voluntary use of the complaint for removal should limit its ability to rely on non-service as a tactical shield under § 1441(b)(2).
Final Thoughts
Snap removal creates an uneven contest between plaintiffs bound by traditional service and defendants operating at algorithmic speed. Courts can reduce that imbalance through technology-integrated filing and service systems, while interpreting the statute in light of modern litigation practices and its original purpose.
Until that balance is restored, genuine plaintiffs will continue to bear the cost of jurisdictional battles that Congress in 1948 could not have anticipated—and that technology should not be allowed to decide.
[2] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr5801/text/ih
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