UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ARCHIBALD DJABATEY,
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 26-cv-281 (TSC)
v.
COGAR GROUP, LTD., et al.,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
On December 24, 2025, Plaintiff Archibald Djabatey, proceeding pro se, filed suit in D.C.
Superior Court, alleging various violations of federal and state discrimination laws. See Receipt
of Original File (“Original File”), ECF No. 2; see also Corrected Notice of Removal (“Removal
Notice”) ¶ 1, ECF No. 4-1. On January 3, 2026, Plaintiff filed his First Amended Complaint,
supplementing his Complaint with additional factual allegations and incorporating new state law
tort claims. Original File at 3 1; Removal Notice ¶ 1; see also First Am. Compl., Djabatey v. Cogar
Group, LTD, et al., No. 2025-CAB-008437 (D.C. Super. Ct. Jan. 3, 2026). Defendant Cogar
Group removed the case on January 30, 2026, citing 28 U.S.C § 1441(a) and Plaintiff’s federal
claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 as the basis for removal jurisdiction. See Removal Notice ¶ 7, 11,
14. Plaintiff filed two motions the following day, including a Motion for Leave to Amend, ECF
No. 7, to eliminate his only federal claim, see Second Am. Compl., ECF No. 7-1, and a Motion to
1
Citations to materials transmitted from D.C Superior Court are to the page numbers automatically generated by CM/ECF.
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Remand, ECF No. 6. Defendants opposed both motions, see Defs.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Amend, ECF
No. 12; Defs.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Remand, ECF No. 11, and filed a Motion to Dismiss the original
Complaint and First Amended Complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, Defs.’ Mot. to Dismiss at 1, ECF No. 9-1.
For the reasons below, the court GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Amend,
GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion to Remand, and DENIES Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss as moot.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff is a Black man and former employee of Cogar Group. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 102, Djabatey,
No. 2025-CAB-008437 (D.C. Super. Ct. Dec. 24, 2025). During his employment, Plaintiff alleges
that he “was subjected to unusual scrutiny, inconsistent enforcement of workplace rules, and
conduct that departed from standard federal security practices, including actions by supervisory
personnel and individuals lacking supervisory authority.” Id. ¶ 21. On or around December 4,
2025, Plaintiff filed a written complaint with Cogar Group asserting “unequal treatment;
inconsistent enforcement of workplace rules; improper involvement of non-supervisory personnel
in disciplinary matters; and conduct that undermined professional boundaries and officer dignity.”
Id. ¶¶ 22, 58. Plaintiff also states that he reported “concerns regarding professionalism, selective
enforcement, and boundary violations.” Id. ¶ 35. Soon after filing his complaint, Plaintiff was
threatened, questioned about his presence at the workplace, told to change his previously flexible
work schedule, accused of dishonesty, and generally retaliated against. Id. ¶¶ 23–98. Plaintiff
claims that instead of investigating his complaint and taking corrective action, id. ¶¶ 49, 52, Cogar
Group removed him from his post, suspended from his schedule, and later terminated him. Id.
¶¶ 87–88, 112.
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Based on these events, Plaintiff brings numerous claims, including unlawful retaliation, in
violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, D.C. Code § 32-1311, and D.C. Code § 32-1542, as well as unlawful
retaliation, discrimination, “coercion or retaliation,” and “aiding and abetting discrimination,
retaliation, and coercion,” in violation of the DC Human Rights Act. Compl. ¶¶ 99–295. In
addition, Plaintiff brings state law false light and defamation by implication claims. First Am.
Compl. ¶¶ 20–40. He seeks damages as well as declaratory, injunctive, and other equitable relief.
Compl. ¶¶ 296–308
II. LEGAL STANDARD
A. Leave to Amend
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) provides that “a party may amend its pleading
only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave [and] [t]he court should freely
give leave when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). Courts should therefore grant leave
to amend “[i]n the absence of any-apparent or declared reason—such as undue delay, bad faith or
dilatory motive on the part of the movant, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments
previously allowed, undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the
amendment, futility of amendment, etc.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962). Permitting
amendment is “particularly appropriate” where a party proceeds pro se. Moore v. Agency for Int’l
Dev., 994 F.2d 874, 877 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (cleaned up). “Because amendments are to be liberally
granted, the non-movant bears the burden of showing why an amendment should not be allowed.”
Abdullah v. Washington, 530 F. Supp. 2d 112, 115 (D.D.C. 2008).
B. Removal Jurisdiction
Federal courts “are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Royal Canin U. S. A., Inc. v.
Wullschleger, 604 U.S. 22, 26 (2025) (quoting Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511
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U.S. 375, 377 (1994)). Thus, “[a] civil action filed in state court may only be removed to a United
States district court if the case could originally have been brought in federal court.” Nat’l
Consumers League v. Flowers Bakeries, LLC., 36 F. Supp. 3d 26, 30 (D.D.C. 2014) (citing 28
U.S.C. § 1441(a)). Upon a motion to remand a removed case to state court, the party opposing the
motion “bears the burden of establishing that subject matter jurisdiction exists in federal court.”
RWN Dev. Grp., LLC v. Travelers Indem. Co., 540 F. Supp. 2d 83, 86 (D.D.C. 2008) (quoting Int’l
Union of Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers v. Ins. Co. of the W., 366 F. Supp. 2d 33, 36 (D.D.C.
2005)). “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction,” the case must be remanded to state court. 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).
III. ANALYSIS
A. Leave to Amend
Defendants contend that Plaintiff’s request for leave to amend should be denied on the
ground that amendment would be futile “for the reasons identified throughout Defendants’ Motion
to Dismiss.” Defs.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Amend at 3. Yet the concerns regarding the futility of a
proposed amendment are largely inapplicable where, as here, a Plaintiff seeks only to eliminate a
cause of action, not add new ones. See Wilson v. ABN Amro Mortg. Grp., No. 05-cv-0108, 2005
WL 3508658, at *3 (D.D.C. Dec. 21, 2005) (“An amendment is futile if the new claims would not
survive a motion to dismiss.” (cleaned up and emphasis added)). Indeed, in such instances, the
appropriate vehicle to attack existing claims is precisely what Defendants have done in filing their
Motion to Dismiss. See Banner Health v. Burwell, 55 F. Supp. 3d 1, 8 (D.D.C. 2014) (“Review
for futility is practically ‘identical to review of a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal based on the allegations
in the amended complaint.’” (quoting In re Interbank Funding Corp. Secs. Litig., 629 F.3d 213,
215–16 (D.C. Cir. 2010)).
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Moreover, in his Proposed Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff seeks to eliminate his
singular federal claim asserted under 42 U.S.C § 1981, thereby stripping the only federal question
supporting removal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C § 1441(a). See Mot. for Leave to Amend at 1–4;
Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 115–312. And, as the Supreme Court recently explained,
When a plaintiff amends [their] complaint following [their] suit’s removal, a federal court’s
jurisdiction depends on what the new complaint says. If (as here) the plaintiff eliminates
the federal-law claims that enabled removal, leaving only state-law claims behind, the
court’s power to decide the dispute dissolves. With the loss of federal-question
jurisdiction, the court loses as well its supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims.
Royal Canin, 604 U.S. at 30. In such instances, district courts should remand the case to state
court rather than reach the merits of any pending motions to dismiss. See id. at 43–44.
Defendants’ argument regarding the futility of Plaintiff’s proposed amendment essentially
asks this court to delve into an analysis of their Motion to Dismiss as applied to the purely state
law claims asserted in Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint before the court can ascertain the
scope of its jurisdiction based on that amendment. The difficulty with doing so, as explained in
further detail below, is that the amendment Defendants oppose strips this court of its jurisdiction
to reach the very claims they suggest would not survive their pending motion to dismiss. See Royal
Canin, 604 U.S. at 30. And because federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, they retain
“‘an independent responsibility to ensure that they have subject matter jurisdiction before
proceeding to the merits of a case.’” DRC, Inc. v. Rep. of Hond., 71 F. Supp. 3d 201, 207 (D.D.C.
2014) (emphasis added) (quoting Carson v. U.S. MSPB, 534 F. Supp. 2d 96, 97–98 (D.D.C. 2008)).
In other words, if the court were to proceed with the analysis Defendants seek, it would have to do
so under the guise of hypothetical jurisdiction, which, as the Supreme Court has instructed,
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“produces nothing more than a hypothetical judgment—which comes to the same thing as an
advisory opinion.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 101 (1998). 2
“Though [a] [c]ourt ‘may deny a motion to amend a complaint as futile if the proposed
claim would not survive a motion to dismiss,’ it is not required to.” Hardrick v. Gov’t of D.C.,
No. 23-cv-2151, 2026 WL 686041, at *4 (D.D.C. Mar. 11, 2026) (emphasis in original) (quoting
Hettinga v. United States, 677 F.3d 471, 480 (D.C. Cir. 2012)). Because Defendants offer no other
basis for rejecting Plaintiff’s request beyond asking the court to render a decision on purely state
law claims over which the court, in theory, lacks jurisdiction, the court exercises its discretion to
grant Plaintiff leave to amend, and Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint will be the operative
pleading for resolving the Motion to Remand.
B. Motion to Remand
As noted above, Defendants only invoked federal question jurisdiction as the basis of
removal. See Removal Notice ¶ 7, 11, 14. In his Second Amended Complaint, however, Plaintiff
removed his sole federal claim, leaving only issues under D.C. law and dissolving “the court’s
power to decide the dispute.” Royal Canin, 604 U.S. at 30. When that occurs, a case must be
remanded to state court. Id. at 44; see also Rep. of Venez. v. Philip Morris Inc., 287 F.3d 192, 196
(D.C. Cir. 2002) (“When it appears that a district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a case
that has been removed from a state court, the district court must remand the case.”).
Defendants attempt to avoid this result by raising diversity jurisdiction as an alternative
basis for the court’s jurisdiction. See Defs.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Remand at 4. While some Circuits
2
Even assuming the court could reach the merits of Plaintiff’s state law claims, such a determination also runs counter to the well-established principle that “[n]eedless decisions of state law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the parties.” United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966).
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may permit such an approach, see, e.g, Williams v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 471 F.3d 975, 976–
77 (9th Cir. 2006) (per curiam), it “has been criticized as contrary to well-settled practice,” Wood
v. Crane Co., 764 F.3d 316, 326 (4th Cir. 2014), “including the practice of the D.C. Circuit, where
‘[d]iversity jurisdiction must be pleaded by the party claiming it,’” Henok v. JPMorgan Chase
Bank, N.A., 106 F. Supp. 3d 1, 6 (D.D.C. 2015) (quoting Loughlin v. United States, 393 F.3d 155,
172 (D.C. Cir. 2004); accord Ervast v. Flexible Products Co., 346 F.3d 1007, 1012 n.4 (11th Cir.
2003) (declining to exercise diversity jurisdiction because removing party “had the burden to plead
this basis in its notice of removal, and it did not”); Hinojosa v. Perez, 214 F. Supp. 2d 703, 707
(S.D. Tex. 2002) (“It would be a substantial injustice to allow Defendants to remove a case on one
ground and then, when faced with a serious challenge to that ground, attempt to justify removal on
an entirely different, and untimely, ground.”); Phillips v. BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc., 591 F. Supp.
2d 822, 825–26 (E.D. Va. 2008) (holding that a “belated allegation” for removal did not provide a
basis for federal jurisdiction because it was not raised until defendant’s response to plaintiff’s
motion to remand, “well beyond the thirty-day time limit for removal” (emphasis omitted)).
Even assuming that Defendants could invoke diversity jurisdiction as the basis for removal
jurisdiction after failing to include it in their Notice of Removal, they have failed to meet their
burden in demonstrating it exists. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), district courts have original
jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of
$75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between citizens of different states. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 1332(a). While Defendants assert that each individual Defendant is a “resident” of Maryland,
and Plaintiff lives in D.C., Defs.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Remand at 4, diversity jurisdiction turns on
domicile, which is legally distinct, see Novak v. Cap. Mgmt. & Dev. Corp., 452 F.3d 902, 906
(D.C. Cir. 2006) (“[A]n allegation of residence alone is insufficient to establish the citizenship
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necessary for diversity jurisdiction.” (quoting Naartex Consulting Corp. v. Watt, 722 F.2d 779,
792 n.20 (D.C. Cir. 1983)); see also Johnson-Brown v. 2200 M St. LLC, 257 F. Supp. 2d 175, 177
(D.D.C. 2003) (explaining that “the court must resolve any ambiguities concerning the propriety
of removal in favor of remand”).
Because Defendants have not met their burden for demonstrating this court’s jurisdiction,
remand is both appropriate and necessary. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c)
IV. CONCLUSION
In light of the foregoing, the court GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Amend and
Motion to Remand. Because the case will be remanded, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is
DENIED as moot. A separate order will follow.
Date: August 26, 2026
Tanya S. Chutkan
TANYA S. CHUTKAN
United States District Judge
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