The case involved "skylight caps"—insulated covers for skylights. Apparently Wal-Mart needs around a million of them.Walmart, CC BY 2.0
Yesterday, Chief Judge Connolly issued an opinion granting a preliminary injunction in Lennox AES Holdings LLC v. Benton, C.A. No. 25-575-CFC (D. Del.).
This contract case was originally filed in the Court of Chancery to enforce non-competition and non-solicitation provisions of an agreement related to the purchase of a business (or, at least, its assets).
The plaintiff is the business who purchased the assets. It filed suit in the Court of Chancery to stop the previous owner from selling certain kinds of products, which it alleged violated the agreement.
I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say that snap removal is a patently ridiculous concept. Whatever lawyer first decided to float this argument deserves all of the praise I can heap upon them, both for the inventiveness and sheer audacity. In fact, lets take a moment to snap for them now:
Some say he's still writing that brief. . .AI-Generated, displayed with permission
In any case, snap removal has been the law in the Third Circuit since Encompass Ins. Co. v. Stone Mansion Rest. Inc., 902 F.3d 147, 152-53 (3d Cir. 2018), where the Court held that the plain language of the removal statute required snap removal even though the "result may be peculiar." Id. at 153-54.
But real snappies will be aware of the next big thing—"super snap" removals, which the Third Circuit has yet to address. A super (duper) snap removal (expialadocious) is where the plaintiff electronically submits the complaint, the defendant becomes aware of it through their docket-monitoring service of choice, and then removes the case before the filing has even been accepted by the clerk.
Snappy.
The Ninth Circuit—the first to address this growing class of removals—held that they "had a foundational defect—the absence of an existing civil action in state court—that rendered them not just defective but legally null and void." Casola v. Dexcom, Inc., 98 F.4th 947, 963 (9th Cir. 2024).
Judge Noreika had a decision yesterday on a middle-ground between regular and snap removal, which I have chosen to call semi-super snap removal (expialadocious). The plaintiff in Higgins v. Novartis Pharms. Corp, C.A. No. 25-245-MN (D. Del. May 14, 2025) filed ...
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