CAFA was passed in response to a perception that some state courts were certifying weak nationwide classes too readily and approving settlements that paid lawyers well while delivering little to class members. It gives federal courts jurisdiction over most class actions where the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million in the aggregate and at least one class member is diverse from at least one defendant — a much lower bar than ordinary diversity jurisdiction, which requires complete diversity.

Because CAFA only requires minimal diversity, defendants can remove many class actions that previously would have stayed in state court, as long as the case is not one of CAFA's exceptions, such as the home-state or local-controversy carve-outs for disputes that are genuinely local in nature. CAFA also imposes extra scrutiny on coupon settlements and requires notice to state and federal officials before a class settlement is approved.

In a Juricratic simulation, CAFA removal eligibility is a structural fact the user sets going in, not a dial — it changes which court decides certification and which body of procedural law governs, and both of those inputs feed directly into how the certification and settlement-value branches of the matter play out.

Defense counsel evaluating a newly filed state-court class action check CAFA eligibility first, since removing to federal court can change the certification standard, the judge, and the leverage dynamics of the whole case; plaintiffs' counsel often draft complaints specifically to fit within a CAFA exception and avoid removal.