Shao filed the initial complaint on 5/15/21, served Allstate on 5/19/21, and 4/8/21 was the deadline date a response was due. The defendant did not respond, without filing a request to extend the deadline in order to move the case to the federal court, until 4/20/21[1], 12 days after the deadline date, on which date the Notice of Removal was filed at the federal court to remove the case from the circuit court to the federal court by arbitrarily claiming that the claim sum by Shao exceeded $75,000, which was the ceiling for a suit to be filed at the circuit court. After exchanges of arguments, the lead attorney for Allstate, Mr. Humphrey, agreed that Shao’s claim was less than $75,000 and eligible to be trialed in the circuit court. In Shao’s mind, perhaps a layman’s mind, the assertion that Shao’s claim was over $75,000 itself was bogus, the Removal to the federal court was an invalid legal act; thus, the defendant was still liable for default for failure to appear on the deadline date. Judge Carroll sided with the defendant in his following the procedure and denied the motion for default by the plaintiff, who is still waiting for a trial.
[1] The deadline day of removing the case to the federal court is 4-19-21; however, the Court’s CM/ECF SERVER was down on that very day. Shao had verified that assertion by the defendant.
My suit against Allstate has suddenly in August 2022 come out of the long slumber since 6-1-2021, becoming very active. It enters the discovery phase.