Dudley v. Eli Lilly and Co.

Plaintiff filed suit against Lilly, alleging that Lilly did not make certain incentive payments due to plaintiff and other similarly situated individuals who had been employed at the company. Lilly removed to district court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), but the district court remanded to state court. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Lilly had not met its burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the amount in controversy exceeded $5,000,000, as required by federal subject matter jurisdiction under CAFA. Lilly failed to provide estimates of incentive payments that correspond to the categories of incentive payments identified in the complaint; failed to recognize and build into the calculus that not all of the Fixed Duration Employees were alleged to have been denied all of the incentive payments; and failed to provide any meaningful guidepost for the payment estimates it had provided. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Dudley v. Eli Lilly and Co." on Justia Law