Cite as: 526 U. S. 344 (1999)
Syllabus
complaint names as defendant. See Omni Capital Int'l, Ltd. v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 484 U. S. 97, 104. Accordingly, one becomes a party officially, and is required to take action in that capacity, only upon service of a summons or other authority-asserting measure stating the time within which the party served must appear and defend. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 4(a) and 12(a)(1)(A). Unless a named defendant agrees to waive service, the summons continues to function as the sine qua non directing an individual or entity to participate in a civil action or forgo procedural or substantive rights. Pp. 350-351.
(b) In enacting § 1446(b), Congress did not endeavor to break away from the traditional understanding. Prior to 1948, a defendant could remove a case any time before the expiration of the time to respond to the complaint under state law. Because that time limit varied from State to State, however, the removal period correspondingly varied. To reduce the disparity, Congress in 1948 enacted the original version of § 1446(b), which required that the removal petition in a civil action be filed within 20 days after commencement of the action or service of process, whichever was later. However, as first framed, § 1446(b) did not give adequate time or operate uniformly in States such as New York, where service of the summons commenced the action and could precede the filing of the complaint, so that the removal period could have expired before the defendant obtained access to the complaint. To ensure such access before commencement of the removal period, Congress in 1949 enacted the current version of § 1446(b). Nothing in the 1949 amendment's legislative history so much as hints that Congress, in making changes to accommodate atypical state commencement and complaint filing procedures, intended to dispense with the historic function of service of process as the official trigger for responsive action by a named defendant. Pp. 351-353.
(c) Relying on the "plain meaning" of § 1446(b) that the panel perceived, the Eleventh Circuit was of the view that "[receipt] through service or otherwise" opens a universe of means besides service for putting the defendant in possession of the complaint. However, the Eleventh Circuit did not delineate the dimensions of that universe. Nor can one tenably maintain that the words "or otherwise" provide a clue. Cf., e. g., Potter v. McCauley, 186 F. Supp. 146, 149. The interpretation of § 1446(b) adopted here adheres to tradition, makes sense of the phrase "or otherwise," and assures defendants adequate time to decide whether to remove an action to federal court. The various state provisions for service of the summons and the filing or service of the complaint fit into one or another of four main categories. See ibid. In each of those categories, the defendant's removal period will be no less than 30 days
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