The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
GIROD LOANCO, LLC CIVIL ACTION
VERSUS NO. 24-CV-2366
HENRY L. KLEIN SECTION: D(5)
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is a Motion to Remand to State Court filed by Plaintiff Girod
LoanCo, LLC (“Girod”).1 Defendant Henry L. Klein (“Klein”) did not file an opposition to
the Motion. After careful consideration of Girod’s memorandum, the record, and the
applicable law, the Court GRANTS the Motion.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND2
This case arises out of Girod’s efforts to recover a post-foreclosure sale balance owed
to Girod by Klein as the guarantor of a promissory note.3 Following the July 7, 2023 state
court judgment directing Klein to pay $317,185.47 to Girod, the parties engaged in post-
judgment discovery.4 October 1, 2024, two days before a scheduled hearing on a motion to
compel filed against Klein, Klein removed this case to this Court.5 After finding that the
Notice of Removal did not state a basis for subject matter jurisdiction, the Court ordered
Klein to file an amended notice of removal, allowing him an opportunity to properly allege
1 R. Doc. 29.
2 The Court has previously outlined the events that gave rise to this suit in a prior Order and Reasons. See R.
Doc. 30. For that reason, the Court details only the information relevant to the instant Motion to Remand to
State Court.
3 R. Docs. 27-1 at 1 and 30 at 1-2.
4 Id. at 206.
5 R. Docs. 1 at ¶¶ 7-16 and 27-1 at 377, 381.
the basis for this Court’s subject matter jurisdiction.6 Klein filed a Comprehensive Notice
of Removal on November 7, 2024, in which he invoked diversity jurisdiction and federal
question jurisdiction.7
On November 11, 2024, Girod filed a Motion for Sanctions, which sought, among other
thing, remand as a sanction against Klein.8 On December 4, 2024, this Court denied Girod’s
Motion for Sanctions but nevertheless remanded this case for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction.9 Hours before the Court issued its Order and Reasons remanding the case,
however, Girod filed the instant Motion to Remand to State Court, which, in addition to
seeking remand, asks the Court to impose attorney’s fees and costs against Klein.10 In
support of its request for attorney’s fees and costs, Girod argues that Klein knew he lacked
an objectively reasonable basis for removal—in part due to his failed attempts at removing
other cases on similar grounds—and that removal was merely a means of delaying the
October 3, 2024 state court hearing on Girod’s motion against Klein.11
In its Order and Reasons remanding this case, the Court noted that Girod’s Motion
to Remand to State Court was moot to the extent it sought remand but that the Motion
remained pending to the extent it sought attorney’s fees and costs.12 The same day the
Court ordered this matter remanded, Klein filed a Motion to Take Judicial Notice of Legal
6 Id. Hermes Health Alliance, LLC, Pittman Assets, LLC, Pittman Assets MSSC, LLC, Ozone Properties,
LLC, Bullet Advertising, LLC, Michael Pittman, Amy Schoultz Pittman, Marcus L. Pittman III, Janet
Lattanzi Pittman, and the Michael Norton Pittman Family Trust (the “Pittmans”) initially filed the Notice of
Removal as well. See R. Doc. 1. However, the Court instructed only Klein to file the amended notice of removal
as the Pittmans were not parties to the suit. See R. Doc. 11.
7 R. Doc. 18 at ¶¶ 1, 10.
8 R. Doc. 17.
9 Id. at 12.
10 R. Docs. 29 and 30.
11 R. Doc. 29-1 at 20-23.
12 R. Doc. 30 at 4 n.22.
Matters.13 Klein’s Motion did not address the issue of remand or attorney’s fees and costs,
and Klein did not file an additional response or opposition to Girod’s request for attorney’s
fees and costs.
II. LAW AND ANALYSIS
Title 28, United States Code, Section 1447(c) provides that a court, upon ordering
remand, “may require payment of just costs and any actual expenses, including attorney
fees, incurred as a result of the removal.” “In general, ‘courts may award attorney’s fees
under § 1447(c) only where the removing party lacked an objectively reasonable basis for
seeking removal.’”14 A party that ‘“could conclude from th[e] case law that its position was
not an unreasonable one’ at the time of removal” had an objectively reasonable basis for
removal.15 Costs and fees should not be ordered when a plaintiff’s “conduct after removal
play[ed] a substantial role in causing the case to remain in federal court.”16
After careful consideration, the Court finds that it is appropriate to assess costs and
attorney’s fees against Klein. As an initial matter, despite Klein’s assertions that this
matter was before the Court on both diversity and federal question jurisdiction, the Court
was unable to exercise jurisdiction over this matter on either basis. Federal question
jurisdiction, which must be found on the face of the state court petition, failed because the
Petition pleaded only state law claims for enforcement of a promissory note governed by
state law.17 Klein did not allege, nor could the Court understand, how these claims triggered
13 R. Doc. 31.
14 Thomas v. S. Farm Bureau Life Ins. Co., 751 F. App’x 538, 540 (quoting Martin v. Franklin Cap. Corp., 546
U.S. 132, 141 (2005)).
15 Id. (quoting Valdes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 199 F.3d 290, 293 (5th Cir. 2000)).
16 Avitts v. Amoco Prod. Co., 111 F.3d 30, 32 (5th Cir. 1997).
17 See 1st Am. Bank & Tr. v. Marcantel, No. 24-CV-942, 2024 WL 5088289, at *2 (M.D. La. Dec. 12, 2024).
federal question jurisdiction.18 Similarly, because Klein insisted that Girod is a stateless
entity and “the presence of a single stateless entity as a party to a suit destroys complete
diversity,” the Court was unable to exercise diversity jurisdiction.19
Even if the Court had jurisdiction, however, this case would not have been eligible for
removal because a final judgment had already been entered by the state court by the time
Klein removed it.20 The Fifth Circuit has explained: “in no case have we ever approved of
the removal of a proceeding that had reached a truly final state court judgment—that is,
where the state court judgment was no longer subject to modification by the rendering court
or subject to further direct appellate review.”21 This matter, for which a final judgment had
been entered more than one year prior to removal, was simply not removable.22
While these bases alone would be enough to assess fees and costs against Klein, the
Court draws attention to Klein’s history of filing baseless removals. In Quinn v. Palmer,
Klein removed a case to another Section of this Court, alleging that the state court’s
handling of the matter gave rise to federal jurisdiction.23 In granting the plaintiff’s motion
to remand, Judge Ashe rejected the defendants’ bases for federal jurisdiction, finding that
the court could not exercise federal jurisdiction when the action was based entirely on state
law and “[t]he gravamen of Defendants’ claimed federal question jurisdiction is that they
have been and are being treated unfairly in the Louisiana state court system.”24 Two years
later, Mr. Klein faced a similar decision in Girod LoanCo , LLC v. Heisler, which, much like
18 See id.
19 R. Doc. 30 at 8 (citing Mitchell v. Bailey, 982 F.3d 937, 942 (5th Cir. 2020)).
20 See R. Doc. 27-1 at 206 (“This is a final appealable judgment.”).
21 Oviedo v. Hallbauer, 655 F.3d 419, 423 (5th Cir. 2011).
22 See id.
23 No. 18-CV-6999, 2018 WL 6630204 (E.D. La. Dec. 19, 2018).
24 Id. at *3-4.
this case, involved the removal of a case borne out of a “Verified Petition for Foreclosure by
Executory Process.”25 In Heisler, Chief Judge Brown granted the plaintiff’s motion to
remand,26 finding that the foreclosure proceeding at issue in that case concerned state and
not federal law.27 Most recently, in Girod Titling Trust v. Pittman Assets, LLC, a case before
this Section of the Court, Klein, as an attorney for defendants, removed to this Court mere
minutes before the scheduled sheriff’s sale for the property at the subject of the foreclosure
action from which Klein’s clients sought relief.28
Based on the foregoing, the Court finds that not only was removal baseless given the
pleadings in this matter, but that Mr. Klein knew his arguments lacked validity based on
prior court decisions. As the Court explained in Pittman Assets:
Baseless removals such as this one come at a significant cost to plaintiffs,
whose time and money is wasted defending such removals, as well as to courts,
which must allocate their limited resources to ensuring that they have federal
jurisdiction over the cases before them. To say that much ink has been spilled
in this matter would be an understatement. To safeguard against future
removals which lack an objectively reasonable basis such as this one, the Court
exercises its discretion and awards cost and attorney’s fees.29
Klein has demonstrated, in this case and others, a pattern of eleventh hour removals
of cases over which federal courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction, seemingly for the
25 No. 19-CV-13150, 2019 WL 7047282 (E.D. La. Dec. 23, 2019).
26 This is more appropriately referred to as the second motion to remand. Klein removed Heisler to this Court
on March 14, 2019, alleging diversity jurisdiction; Chief Judge Brown granted the plaintiff’s motion on June
5, 2019. Four months later, Mr. Klein re-removed the same matter to this Court, alleging federal question
jurisdiction; Chief Judge Brown (again) granted the plaintiff’s motion to remand and ordered attorney’s fees
to be paid.
27 Id. at *4. Additionally, as Girod points out, at least one of Klein’s proffered arguments—that Girod has no
right to collect on the notes and mortgage assigned to it because it is not registered in Louisiana—has been
rejected by the Louisiana Fourth and Fifth Circuit Courts of Appeal and another Section of this Court. R.
Docs. 20-23 and 20-24; Heisler v. Kean Miller, LLP, No. 21-CV-724, 2021 WL 5919507, at *6 n.70 (E.D. La.
Dec. 15, 2021).
28 See No. 24-CV-1993, 2024 WL 4471458 (E.D. La. Oct. 11, 2024).
29 2024 WL 4471458, at *9.
purpose of avoiding the effects of adverse state court rulings. For these reasons, the Court
awards attorney’s fees and costs to Girod.
HiIl. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff Girod LoanCo. LLC’s
Motion to Remand to State Court?° is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.
To the extent Girod seeks remand of this matter, the Motion is DENIED AS MOOT
as the Court previously ordered the remand of this matter to the Civil District
Court for the Parish of Orleans.?!
To the extent Girod seeks attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § □□□□□□□□
the Motion is GRANTED. Girod shall file a motion for costs and attorney’s fees, detailing
the amount incurred for the instant motion, within fourteen days of the date of this Order
and Reasons.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Henry L. Klein’s Motion to Take
Judicial Notice®? is DENIED AS MOOT.
New Orleans, Louisiana, February 19, 2025.
Ody i Voter
WENDY B.J/VITTER
United States District Judge
31 R. Doc. 30.
82. R. Doc. 31.