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The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled that cases removed to federal court must be explicitly remanded back to the trial court before a trial judge can entertain any additional filings on the state court docket.

The three-judge appellate panel's ruling originated from a Fair Labor Standards Act wage class action filed against Aria Health by health care workers who claimed they were underpaid. The case bounced between federal and state venues over the course of several years.

On appeal, Aria claimed that a Philadelphia trial judge was wrong to grant the plaintiffs' motion to reinstate the third amended complaint because the trial court did not have subject matter jurisdiction since the action had been removed to federal court in 2009 and was never remanded to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

"Specifically, appellants claim that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the action because, after the action was removed to federal court in 2009, the federal court did not remand the case back to the court of common pleas. We agree," said Superior Court Judge Judith Olson in the court's Jan. 22 opinion.

Olson said the federal district court's Aug. 7, 2012, order dismissing the case from federal court did not explicitly remand the case to the court of common pleas, and no order appeared on the common pleas docket.

"Nevertheless, following the district court's August 7, 2012 order, plaintiffs began filing motions at the court of common pleas docket, which was an action that had been removed to federal court and never remanded," Olson said. "The question now is whether the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to consider plaintiffs' filings at the 2009 court of common pleas docket and to grant plaintiffs' motion to reinstate the third amended complaint. We conclude that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action that was filed at the 2009 court of common pleas docket. we must, therefore, vacate the trial court's May 15, 2017 order."

The plaintiffs insisted that the trial court maintained jurisdiction over the case, Olson said. In part, they argued that 42 Pa.C.S.A. Section 5103(b), which deals with cases erroneously filed in federal court, permitted their actions in this case.

"The section simply does not speak to the situation currently before this court, where a plaintiff seeks to revive a state-court docket that was removed to federal court and never remanded," Olson said. "Stated another way, Section 5103 has no applicability to the remand procedures in federal court, which are governed by federal law, and the section obviously cannot provide the court of common pleas with subject matter jurisdiction to consider filings on a docket of a state court action that had been removed to federal court and never remanded. Thus, plaintiffs' claim fails."

John M. Elliott of Elliott Greenleaf represents Aria and did not respond to a request for comment. James Nelson Thomas of Thomas & Solomon in Rochester, New York, represents the plaintiffs and also did not respond to a request for comment.