CONFIRMED · court filings + Tenth Circuit law
The racketeering suit the franchisor brought against the YouTuber Ben Schneider began in Utah state court, where the plaintiffs obtained the order restraining his speech. Schneider then removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Utah on diversity jurisdiction, which took it out of the state judge’s hands. The plaintiffs now want it back, and the route they are reported to be taking is to add a new defendant, a Utah resident the BBQ Counselor identifies as Tyler, whose presence would destroy the complete diversity that federal jurisdiction depends on. The question that follows is a narrow one of federal procedure: can naming or adding defendants defeat diversity and force the case back to state court?
The short answer is that fictitious “John Doe” defendants cannot do it by themselves, and that adding the real person behind a Doe can, but only if the federal judge permits it, and only after a three-part test that turns on timing and good faith. It is discretionary, not automatic.
The BBQ Counselor is a civil litigator who breaks the case down from the public filings. His read of the odds is his own analysis, not a court ruling.
When a case is removed on diversity, the citizenship of any defendant sued under a fictitious name is disregarded by statute (28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(1)). The Tenth Circuit, whose decisions bind the District of Utah, has held that naming Doe defendants creates no impediment to a diversity removal (Australian Gold, Inc. v. Hatfield, 436 F.3d 1228 (10th Cir. 2006)). Unserved Does also sit outside the rule that every defendant must consent to removal (§ 1446(b)(2)(A)); only defendants who have been properly joined and served must consent (Parsons v. National Interstate Insurance Co., 544 F.Supp.3d 1202 (D. Utah 2021)). So the “John Doe” placeholders in this caption, standing alone, do nothing to the federal court’s jurisdiction.
The lever that actually exists is 28 U.S.C. § 1447(e). It provides that if, after removal, the plaintiff seeks to join a defendant whose joinder would destroy subject-matter jurisdiction, the court may deny the joinder, or may permit it and remand the case to state court. There is no absolute right to add the party. The Tenth Circuit has held that this framework applies in the same way when a complaint is amended to replace a Doe with a named, real defendant (McPhail v. Deere & Co., 529 F.3d 947 (10th Cir. 2008)), and the District of Utah has remanded on exactly that basis (Navarro v. Tufesa USA LLC, 2019 WL 763798 (D. Utah 2019)). Identifying the real person behind a Doe is the thing that matters, not the placeholder name.
Under McPhail, a District of Utah judge runs a three-step test before letting the new defendant in:
1. Rule 15 (leave to amend). After removal the plaintiff has no automatic right to amend. The court keeps its section 1447(e) discretion even when the change could otherwise be made as of right (Hendriks v. Auto-Owners Insurance Co., 2018 WL 5017761 (D. Utah 2018)).
2. Rule 19 (is the party indispensable). If the new defendant is truly indispensable, the court must either join the party and remand, or, rarely, dismiss. A party is not indispensable merely because it has an interest, so long as complete relief can still be fashioned without it (Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. v. AT&T Corp., 320 F.3d 1081 (10th Cir. 2003)).
3. Rule 20 (permissive joinder). If the party is not indispensable, the judge weighs undue prejudice, undue delay, and good faith. Where none of those cut against the plaintiff, the District of Utah has allowed the amendment and remanded (Hendriks). This is the step where timing decides the case.
Threshold: do the John Doe defendants change anything?
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b)(1) and Australian Gold v. Hatfield, the citizenship of defendants sued under fictitious names is disregarded at removal, so the Does alone could never have blocked the move to federal court. The only citizenships that counted at removal were the named parties: the Utah plaintiffs against Schneider and Mansell. This factor confirms only that naming Does bought nothing; what can defeat diversity is joining a real Utah person in a Doe’s place, which shifts the question to the discretionary § 1447(e) gate.
Diversity mechanics: the effect of adding a Utah defendant
Complete diversity requires that no plaintiff share a state with any defendant. Seating a Utah resident opposite the Utah plaintiffs would break diversity on its face and trigger the § 1447(e) deny-or-remand choice. The lever is mechanically sound, and the fact of a diversity removal implies Schneider and Mansell are non-Utah, but the destruction is not self-executing: it counts only once a court actually permits the joinder, and the citizenship facts here are inferred, not recorded. If the real actor were sued through a Utah-member LLC, Siloam Springs would reach the same result through every member’s domicile.
Rule 19: is the new defendant a required party?
On the public filings the new defendant reads as an additional alleged participant, not a required party. Under Salt Lake Tribune a mere interest does not make a party indispensable where complete relief can be fashioned among those present, and joint and several liability among alleged co-actors makes a co-participant permissive rather than necessary. This is the single most contested branch: if discovery showed the added defendant to be the operative source of the enjoined speech, the “complete relief” prong could bite harder on the injunctive claim than on damages, and a required-party finding would make remand mandatory and bypass the timing analysis entirely.
Rule 20 undue delay: the load-bearing factor
This is the factor the civil litigator The BBQ Counselor dwells on, and the analysis here follows the public filings, not a court ruling. The pleading sequence (Does at the outset, then a move to add a Utah resident only after Schneider removed) lets a court infer the timing was aimed at undoing the removal. But McPhail asks whether the request was “unduly AND inexplicably” delayed, and the decisive measurement, the actual interval between removal and the motion, is unknown on this record. “They waited too long” remains a reasoned prediction, not an established outcome.
Rule 20 good faith and purpose
A court could infer a forum-driven motive: the plaintiffs chose state court, obtained an ex parte order there, lost that forum on removal, and now seek to add a defendant whose joinder mechanically destroys diversity. But good faith is presumed, the heavy Dutcher burden runs against the party resisting joinder, and even a “glimmer of hope” of a colorable claim defeats a sham theory. Wanting one’s chosen forum is not, by itself, bad faith. The adverse inference is available, not established.
Rule 20 undue prejudice
This tilts weakly toward the federal forum. Denying joinder does not erase the plaintiffs’ claim; if it has any viability they can pursue it in a separate Utah action, so their harm is two forums rather than a lost claim. The mirror harm is that remand would return Schneider to the very forum and judge whose ex parte order he removed away from, and forfeit federal procedural protections. The factor is not decisive on its own.
Fraudulent-joinder lens (glimmer of hope)
This helps the plaintiffs, but only defensively. Under Dutcher and Black Iron, the party resisting joinder bears a burden more exacting than Rule 12(b)(6) to show no possible claim, and a single glimmer of hope defeats it. Against a broad RICO and tort theory, clearing a glimmer is plausible, so a court would likely reject the “no viable claim” attack. But post-removal this lens only informs § 1447(e); it never reaches the undue-delay question on which the prediction turns, so it removes one defense talking point without delivering remand.
Hain Celestial (2026): protection for the diligent state-court joiner
The 2026 Supreme Court decision rewards a plaintiff who properly joined the nondiverse party IN STATE COURT and diligently sought remand. Neither premise is squarely satisfied on the known facts: these plaintiffs pleaded Does, complete diversity in fact existed at removal, and the nondiverse party is one they seek to add afterward. Hain is also a Rule 21 dismissal case about not curing a defect, not an add-a-party case, so it informs the § 1447(e) discretion rather than controlling it, and its diligence premise cuts toward retaining federal jurisdiction.
Stakes and finality: a § 1447(e) remand is unappealable
Under Elite Oil Field v. Reed, the § 1447(d) bar reaches a remand entered after post-removal joinder, so the asymmetry is the point: a grant of joinder-and-remand is final and unreviewable, while a denial that keeps the case in federal court remains reviewable on later appeal. That makes the single round of § 1447(e) briefing do-or-die for the defense and one-sided in finality for the plaintiffs. It is a stakes fact, not a merits factor.
On the public filings, the better prediction is that a District of Utah court would likely deny joinder and keep the case in federal court, because the load-bearing undue-delay and good-faith factors, as the civil litigator The BBQ Counselor reads them, favor the existing defendants, and joint-tortfeasor doctrine cuts against treating the new defendant as indispensable. This is analysis applied to allegations, not a court ruling.
The fair counterpoint. The plaintiffs have a real path, and the residual risk is genuine. Almost every decisive fact is unresolved: the new defendant’s exact role, whether the claim is colorable, and above all the true length of any delay. If the case is young with no discovery and the actor’s role surfaced only after removal, the delay is neither undue nor inexplicable and Hendriks would point toward joinder and remand. The heavy fraudulent-joinder burden runs against the defense, and the ex parte speech injunction gives the strongest honest Rule 19 argument: complete relief on an order silencing ongoing speech is harder to fashion against a subset of speakers, and a required-party finding would make remand mandatory and unappealable. The central tendency favors the federal forum, but a single adverse fact or Rule 19 ruling can flip it. This is graded analysis of public allegations, not adjudication.
Sources: The BBQ Counselor, “BAM’s Desperate Move: Can Naming ‘John Does’ Stop Federal Court?” and “Reckless Ben Flips the Board” (channel @bbq_counselor); 28 U.S.C. § 1441, § 1446 and § 1447; the Tenth Circuit and District of Utah decisions named above. How removal changes the anti-SLAPP posture is walked in The law; the parties and the connection map are in the map.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; the criminal charges referenced are unadjudicated and every defendant is presumed innocent. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam