In a case arising out of exposure to DBCP brought in California, a case which had been removed initially on Federal Question grounds, (and remanded), was removed a second time, under CAFA, based on answers to contention interrogatories. The court held that CAFA did not shift the burden to the plaintiffs to establish that there is no removal jurisdiction, and that Dow, the defendant, did not meet its burden. At the same time, the court took the opportunity to discuss the ambiguities in the “mass action” provisions of CAFA. “‘The term “mass action” means any civil action… in which monetary relief claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve common questions of law or fact, except that jurisdiction shall exist only over those plaintiffs whose claims in a mass action satisfy the jurisdictional amount requirements under 1332(a).’ Is the proviso part of the definition of ‘mass action’ or an independent provision? The mystery deepens when considering how the individual jurisdictional requirement relates to 1332(d)(2)-(10): What happens if individual remands under the 1332(a) proviso bring the aggregate amount in controversy below $5,000,000, or the number of plaintiffs below 100, or destroys minimal diversity? The text of the statute does not specify whether each of these requirements looks to ‘plaintiffs in a mass action’ or to ‘plaintiffs in a mass action over whom the district court has jurisdiction.’ Finally, Congress’s use of the word ‘removable’ in the text of 1332, a statute establishing original jurisdiction, blurs what had previously been a clear distinction between jurisdiction and removal statutes, and thus obscures the reach of jurisdiction over mass actions. Because Congress did not refer to original jurisdiction in either the mass action provision itself, or in 1453, the text does not answer the important question of when there is original federal jurisdiction over mass actions, and what the scope of that original jurisdiction might be. This gap casts into doubt the interaction between the mass action provision and a host of other statutes that assume original jurisdiction as a starting point.” Declining to resolve the statutory construction issue, the court concluded that “any decision regarding jurisdictional discovery is a discretionary one, and is governed by existing principles regarding post-removal jurisdictional discovery, including the disinclination to entertain ‘substantial, burdensome discovery on jurisdictional issues.’ Applying those established principles, the district court’s refusal to accept the proposal that 1,160 plaintiffs located in and around Panama answer contention interrogatories while the case is otherwise put on hold was not an abuse of discretion.” See Abrego v. The Dow Chemical Company, 443 F.3d 676 (9th Cir. 2006).