[00:00:00] Speaker 00: Case number 23-5091. [00:00:01] Speaker 00: Abraham J. Harris, at balance, versus U.S. [00:00:05] Speaker 00: Department of Transportation, FMCSA, and United States of America. [00:00:10] Speaker 00: Mr. Harris, for the at balance. [00:00:12] Speaker 00: Ms. [00:00:12] Speaker 00: Lyons, for the at police. [00:00:14] Speaker 00: Mr. Bielert, amicus curiae. [00:00:17] Speaker 05: Right. [00:00:18] Speaker 05: Mr. Harris, if you'll come up to the podium. [00:00:24] Speaker 02: Good morning. [00:00:26] Speaker 02: Good morning. [00:00:28] Speaker 02: If it may please the court, I am Abram J. Harris, the plaintiff in the appellant. [00:00:35] Speaker 02: I am not a lawyer, so please excuse me if my presentation doesn't measure up to that bar. [00:00:42] Speaker 02: The basic facts in this case are not disputed. [00:00:47] Speaker 02: My case was filed in DC Superior Court. [00:00:52] Speaker 02: It was dismissed. [00:00:54] Speaker 02: A judgment dismissal entered. [00:00:57] Speaker 02: and I filed an appeal to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. [00:01:02] Speaker 02: The government then filed a notice of removal in the district court independently, entered a judgment of dismissal after it was made an assessment of the merits. [00:01:18] Speaker 02: Although I'm not a lawyer, I do understand that Moore's federal practice is considered [00:01:27] Speaker 02: standard reference work on the federal court's procedure. [00:01:33] Speaker 02: It's written by lawyers, judges, and professors who write and amend the federal rules. [00:01:42] Speaker 02: So I think that when Moore's federal practice says something, we should listen. [00:01:53] Speaker 02: And what does Moore say with respect to the matter at hand? [00:01:57] Speaker 02: absent a specific rule statute, removal statute, such as governing the FDIC, quote, the better rule is that removal to an appellate court is improper unless the removal statute otherwise provides. [00:02:19] Speaker 02: This approach comports with the general rule that the removal statute be strictly [00:02:27] Speaker 02: construed." [00:02:30] Speaker 02: Unquote. [00:02:31] Speaker 02: Neither Appelli nor Mikas recognized Moore's analysts or case cited therein. [00:02:42] Speaker 02: Quote, it would seem obvious, the Ninth Circuit has said, that to remove an action in the federal court from the state court [00:02:55] Speaker 02: It would first be pending in the state court. [00:02:59] Speaker 02: Unquote. [00:03:01] Speaker 02: Case. [00:03:03] Speaker 02: Restruta versus Adams in the Ninth Circuit. [00:03:08] Speaker 02: The state civil action is still pending. [00:03:13] Speaker 02: And thus removable. [00:03:16] Speaker 02: As long as the parties are still actively contesting the case in the state court system. [00:03:24] Speaker 02: The case has not achieved a final resolution. [00:03:29] Speaker 02: Case Yemen versus JP Morgan Company in the Ninth Circuit. [00:03:37] Speaker 02: I'm sorry, in the Seventh Circuit. [00:03:40] Speaker 02: That depends on the state, or in this case, District Columbia law. [00:03:46] Speaker 02: Under District Columbia law, a judgment or order is final when it is [00:03:54] Speaker 02: when it, quote, terminates the action in the Superior Court. [00:04:00] Speaker 02: Case cited Frost versus People's Drugs Store in D.C. [00:04:09] Speaker 02: Circuit, overruled on other grounds by Rolinski versus Lewis. [00:04:19] Speaker 02: C. Ford's versus Chart One in the D.C. [00:04:22] Speaker 02: Circuit. [00:04:22] Speaker 02: That is this case here. [00:04:25] Speaker 02: Once a case is dismissed in superior court, there is nothing pending in the court to remove. [00:04:36] Speaker 02: As a matter of logic or common sense, the district court had nothing to remove. [00:04:54] Speaker 02: The district court had nothing to dismiss. [00:04:58] Speaker 02: The government removed a dismissal case. [00:05:02] Speaker 02: Appellee and amicus involves a special removal statute. [00:05:08] Speaker 02: In addition, these decisions recognize, at least in dicta, that it is not clear whether the general removal statute permits appellients removal. [00:05:24] Speaker 02: Maryland Company in the fifth district in the fifth search. [00:05:34] Speaker 02: Finally, what could a removal do in this case? [00:05:41] Speaker 02: The case was dismissed and the District of Columbus Superior Court again under the decision cited by the appellee. [00:05:50] Speaker 02: All the district court could do [00:05:52] Speaker 02: was entered to the Superior Court ruling as a final judgment and presumably hear the appeal in this court. [00:06:03] Speaker 02: That is, however, is not what the District Court did. [00:06:07] Speaker 02: It reached its merits, which it could not do without violating the faith and the credit [00:06:20] Speaker 02: Thus, even if the Pelliot's positions were adopted, which appears to be supported by no precedence whatsoever, and contrary to the authority on the issue mentioned in Moore's, the district court's decision cannot stand. [00:06:46] Speaker 02: I yield back. [00:06:49] Speaker 04: A couple of questions. [00:06:50] Speaker 04: You still pursued your case. [00:06:53] Speaker 04: With the district court, even though you had the case pinning in state court. [00:06:59] Speaker 04: Even though you believed it should not have been with district court. [00:07:03] Speaker 02: Well, I didn't file it in district court and it was dismissed in state court. [00:07:10] Speaker 02: First. [00:07:12] Speaker 02: On July 22nd, 2022. [00:07:16] Speaker 02: On July 25th, 2022, I filed an appeal in District of Columbia Appeals Court. [00:07:28] Speaker 02: On August the 8th, Honorable Rigsby sent it to voluntary mediation. [00:07:39] Speaker 02: On August the 11th, [00:07:41] Speaker 02: appellee filed for a removal. [00:07:46] Speaker 02: It was already dismissed in Superior Court. [00:07:50] Speaker 02: However, that was 31 days, which appellee was already time barred anyway from filing a removal. [00:08:06] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:08:07] Speaker 05: All right. [00:08:08] Speaker 05: You have two minutes remaining, so you can use that if you want to in reply to either the amicus or to the government. [00:08:17] Speaker 05: But now we'll hear from the government. [00:08:19] Speaker 02: Okay, I'll use my two minutes. [00:08:21] Speaker 02: Um, additional two minutes left. [00:08:25] Speaker 05: All right now. [00:08:25] Speaker 05: Okay. [00:08:28] Speaker 02: The amicus [00:08:30] Speaker 02: It's impossible for the amicus to have judged this on the merits. [00:08:34] Speaker 02: For one, the amicus never cited Moore's federal rule, federal practice. [00:08:42] Speaker 02: The merits should have been cited as if the case was actually still pending in state court, but it was dismissed already. [00:08:54] Speaker 02: Because the amicus never brought up Moore, [00:09:02] Speaker 02: then the merits, it's an unbalanced opinion on the merits because it was time barred. [00:09:16] Speaker 02: It was already dismissed in Superior Court. [00:09:20] Speaker 02: The District of Columbia Court of Appeals had already got the appeal [00:09:29] Speaker 02: and had already made a ruling, which their ruling was they sent it to mediation. [00:09:35] Speaker 02: So two things took place. [00:09:38] Speaker 02: It was time barred and District Court of Columbia Court of Appeals made a ruling. [00:09:47] Speaker 02: So now the government makes it seem as if the case was pending in state court. [00:09:58] Speaker 02: That's not true. [00:10:00] Speaker 02: It was dismissed in state court. [00:10:04] Speaker 02: Honorable Rigsby, she didn't have the jurisdiction, so I had to further on. [00:10:09] Speaker 02: I had to go further into the district court. [00:10:13] Speaker 02: She didn't have the jurisdiction to remove it from district court at that time. [00:10:24] Speaker 05: All right, your time is up. [00:10:25] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:10:47] Speaker 05: morning. [00:10:49] Speaker 03: Good morning and may it please the court. [00:10:51] Speaker 03: Jane Lyons from the U.S. [00:10:52] Speaker 03: Attorney's Office and I'm here on behalf of the United States. [00:10:57] Speaker 03: Regarding the court's question from the briefing order, the government and amicus agree that the federal removal statute authorizes removal from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. [00:11:10] Speaker 03: The reading urged by Mr. Harris in his briefs and again this morning, [00:11:14] Speaker 03: is contrary to the plain meaning and purpose of Section 1442, and the court need not address any other issues in order to affirm the judgment below. [00:11:24] Speaker 03: I'm happy to answer any questions the court may have. [00:11:34] Speaker 05: All right. [00:11:38] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:11:38] Speaker 05: Thank you. [00:11:39] Speaker 05: We'll hear from Amicus, Mr. Beard, [00:11:49] Speaker 01: Good morning. [00:11:50] Speaker 01: May it please the court? [00:11:51] Speaker 01: My name is Jeff Beilert. [00:11:53] Speaker 01: I was appointed to assist the court. [00:11:56] Speaker 01: Seeing that you don't have many questions, I don't know that there's much for me to discuss. [00:12:01] Speaker 01: The reason why I didn't cite more in my brief is because it was talking about removal to an appellate court. [00:12:07] Speaker 01: Here, the removal was to the district court. [00:12:09] Speaker 01: And I think, Judge Childs, you already hit on an important issue, which is [00:12:13] Speaker 01: When Mr. Harris ended up in the federal district court, he had every opportunity to seek remand back to either the Court of Appeals or the Superior Court, if that's really where he thought he belonged. [00:12:25] Speaker 01: So the fact that he actually did litigate his case, filed an amended complaint, continued to be in federal court, I think [00:12:34] Speaker 01: he waived any argument that he would have had to get the case remanded. [00:12:39] Speaker 01: So I think that we've staked out our positions in the briefs unless the court has any questions. [00:12:48] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:12:48] Speaker 01: Thank you.