In its August 27, 2013 opinion in Rodriguez v. AT&T Mobility Services, the US Circuit Court for the Ninth Circuit ruled that, in accordance with the Supreme Court's decision in Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, a plaintiff filing a class action cannot stipulate in the complaint that the amount in controversy is less than the $5 million required for federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). Instead, defendants must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the aggregate amount in controversy exceeds $5 million to establish federal jurisdiction.

Plaintiff Robert Rodriguez filed a class action against AT&T Mobility Services in state court alleging violations of various California employment laws. AT&T removed the case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2). Rodriguez moved to remand. He argued that the $5 million requirement for federal jurisdiction under CAFA was not met because the complaint asserted that the aggregate amount in controversy was less than $5 million, and that he explicitly waived seeking any more than that. AT&T presented sworn declarations from AT&T representatives regarding the number of class members and the size of their claims, and argued that those, along with Rodriguez's assertions, established that the amount in controversy was greater than $5 million. The district court granted the motion to remand, holding that under Ninth Circuit case law, AT&T needed to demonstrate to a "legal certainty" that more than $5 million was at issue, and that Rodriguez's waiver foreclosed that question. AT&T appealed.

The Ninth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court recently held in Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles that a lead plaintiff cannot foreclose a defendant's ability to establish the $5 million in controversy by stipulating to a lower amount before class certification and that a plaintiff who files a proposed class action cannot legally bind the members of the proposed class before it is certified. The Ninth Circuit found that the reasoning in Standard Fire was "clearly irreconcilable" with its precedent establishing the "legal certainty" burden of proof regarding the amount in controversy. The Ninth Circuit previously considered the plaintiff the "master of the case," giving her the prerogative to forego a larger recovery to keep a suit in state court. Standard Fire, however, requires the district court to consider the aggregated claims of absent class members to determine the amount in controversy. The Ninth Circuit therefore held that the "legal certainty" standard was overruled, and that defendants now must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the aggregate amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional minimum.