Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
On August 17, 2026, Paul Butakov, captioned as Ambassador Paul Butakov, filed a notice of removal in the Central District of California. He sought to remove an unlawful detainer action brought against him in Riverside County Superior Court. The notice did not attach a civil cover sheet, a notice of interested parties, or the state court complaint. Butakov alleged that the eviction case was a bad-faith retaliatory proxy action meant to penalize and disrupt his separate pending federal civil rights litigation. Those are his allegations, and the court made no finding that they were true. He invoked supplemental and protective jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. sections 1331 and 1367, civil rights removal under section 1443(1), and the All Writs Act, section 1651.
On August 25, 2026, the Clerk issued a notice of discrepancies because the full $405 filing fee had not been paid, and allowed thirty days to respond. The same day, the Clerk issued a notice of deficiencies for the missing cover sheet and notice of interested parties. On August 27, a further notice flagged the missing state complaint. The court recorded that the thirty days elapsed with no response and no cure of any deficiency. On October 8, 2026, the court ordered Butakov to show cause in writing, by October 22, why the case should not be remanded to Riverside County Superior Court. He did not respond.
The Court’s Holding
In a short in-chambers civil minute order dated October 23, 2026, Judge Christina A. Snyder remanded the case to Riverside County Superior Court. The case was marked JS-6 and terminated on the federal docket. The stated reasons were Butakov's failure to cure the Clerk's deficiencies, his failure to answer the order to show cause, and the court's view that it appeared to lack subject matter jurisdiction.
On jurisdiction, the court explained that unlawful detainer actions are strictly within the province of state court. It described the claim as purely a matter of state law, citing two district court decisions. Citing McAtee v. Capital One, F.S.B., 479 F.3d 1143 (9th Cir. 2007), it added that a defendant's attempt to create federal subject matter jurisdiction by adding claims or defenses to a notice of removal must fail.
The order did not separately analyze each of the three jurisdictional theories Butakov listed. It did not decide the merits of the eviction or of his retaliation allegations, and it did not impose fees or sanctions. What remains open is the unlawful detainer case itself, which now proceeds in state court. The order says nothing about the separate federal action Butakov described.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant who removes a state unlawful detainer case faces a steep barrier, because the court treated such actions as purely state-law matters strictly within the province of state court.
- Adding federal claims or defenses to a notice of removal does not create federal subject matter jurisdiction, as McAtee instructs.
- A removing party who ignores Clerk deficiency notices and an order to show cause risks remand without further briefing or a hearing.
- Allegations that an eviction is retaliation for separate federal litigation were treated only as allegations, and the order found them neither true nor false.
- This is an unpublished in-chambers minute order that returns the case to state court, and it does not adjudicate the underlying eviction dispute.
Why It Matters
This is a routine minute order with no precedential weight of its own. It shows how a federal district court may handle a removed eviction case where the removing party is unresponsive. The order rests on both procedural default and the court's view that jurisdiction appears to be lacking. Because the court said only that it appeared to lack jurisdiction, and because the remand followed the failure to respond to the show-cause order, the decision is not a detailed ruling on any of the removal statutes Butakov cited.
For practitioners, the lesson is that a related federal lawsuit, or a claim of retaliatory motive, does not by itself make a state eviction action removable. Parties who remove should pay the filing fee, attach the state complaint and required forms, and answer any show-cause order, since a default leaves the court free to remand promptly. Remand also returns the dispute to the state court, where the parties can still raise their defenses.