Home Depot Case Brings Forum Shopping to Supreme Court

Home Depot Inc. will try to convince the U.S. Supreme Court at oral argument Jan. 15 that consumers game the system to keep class actions out of federal court.

The company’s position as a third-party counterclaim defendant in a class action over misleading sales tactics shouldn’t prevent it from exercising the removal rights extended to typical defendants, it says.

“When all you are is a defendant, you should be treated as a defendant,” Home Depot counsel Sarah Harrington of Goldstein & Russell P.C. in Washington told Bloomberg Law.

But the consumer here argues that Congress didn’t intend “defendant” in the ...