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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY CENTRAL DIVISION FRANKFORT

PATRICIA ADAMS AND RAYMOND ADAMS Plaintiffs, V. BELLSOUTH TELECOMMUNICATIONS, LLC, d/b/a AT&T KENTUCKY Defendant. *** ***

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Civil No.: 12-60-GFVT

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Plaintiffs' Motion to Remand. [R. 5.] The Plaintiffs, Patricia and Raymond Adams, assert that they sufficiently communicated to the Defendant, AT&T Kentucky, that the amount in controversy would exceed the $75,000 jurisdictional limit of this Court more than thirty days before the notice of removal was filed, thus rendering it untimely. Since that is not what the record shows, the Motion to Remand will be denied. I. The Adamses filed their complaint in Trimble County Circuit Court on September 26, 2011, and AT&T Kentucky was served the following day. [R. 5-1 at 1]. Pursuant to Kentucky law, the complaint does not provide a specific amount of relief, only that injuries had been sustained resulting in damages in excess of the $4,000 the jurisdictional

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minimum for Kentucky circuit courts. [R. 5-3 at 4].1 Even so, the Adamses maintain that AT&T Kentucky knew of the severity of the injuries and the expected expenses because of telephone and email discussions that took place between Patricia Adams and AT&T Kentucky before the filing of the complaint. [R. 5-1 at 2]. Patricia Adams submitted an affidavit stating that during one of her conversations with representatives of AT&T Kentucky, she informed them that her damages would be in excess of $100,000. [R 5-5 at 2]. She also provided two emails from August 2011, in which she does not discuss the amount of her alleged damages, but does indicate that AT&T Kentucky is in possession of her bills. [R. 5-7 and 5-8]. AT&T Kentucky recalls the conversations with Adams differently. According to AT&T Kentucky, "a claimant's communications with AT&T Kentucky's Risk Management Department are meticulously documented," and no such allegation of $100,000 in damages was ever made. [R. 6 at 3]. Further, AT&T Kentucky has tendered a claims log from its risk management file on Patricia Adams, which records notice of only $9,689.00 in medical bills at the time of the filing of the complaint. [R. 6-1]. AT&T Kentucky claims that it was not aware that Adams's claim would approach the jurisdictional limits of this Court until it received a letter from her attorney on August 23, 2012, alleging medical bills in the amount of $78,842.63. [R. 6-1]. AT&T Kentucky states that upon receipt of this letter it promptly removed the case to this Court within the permissible thirty day window.

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"In any action for unliquidated damages the prayer for damages in any pleading shall not recite any sum as alleged damages other than an allegation that damages are in excess of any minimum dollar amount necessary to establish the jurisdiction of the court . . . ." Ky. R. Civ. P. 8.01(2).

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AT&T Kentucky's notice of removal was filed on September 18, 2012. The Adamses argue that this is well over thirty days after the filing of their complaint, when AT&T Kentucky should have been aware of the amount of alleged damages, making remand appropriate. AT&T Kentucky maintains that because it did not know that the amount in controversy would cross the jurisdictional threshold of this Court until it received the August 23, 2012 letter, its notice of removal was timely filed.

II. A defendant may remove a civil action brought in state court to federal court only if the action is one over which the federal court could have exercised original jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C.

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Kentucky Law