in the petition no later than thirty days from the day on which the first defendant was served. Id. at 1262-63 (internal citations omitted). As a general premise, under the “first-served rule,” defendants who are properly served within thirty days of the first defendant’s service must join in the removal petition. The “failure to do so renders the petition defective.” Id. at 1262. Under the facts of Getty, however, the application of the first-served rule did not produce an inequitable result. Nonetheless, recognizing the potential for harsh results, other decisions provide that exceptional circumstances may sometimes require relief from strict application of the rule in order to achieve equitable results. See Milstead Supply Co. v. Cas. Ins. Co., 797 F.Supp. 569, 573 (W.D.Tex.1992) (<HOLDING>); Brown v. Demco, Inc., 792 F.2d 478, 482 (5th
holding that all properly served defendants must join in petition for removal except for nominal unknown or fraudulently joined parties holding that the defendants filing of a notice of removal before being served by plaintiffs did not render removal defective holding that dismissal of some but not all of the defendants who had been served with complaint is not a final order holding that joinder in or consent to the removal petition must be accomplished by only those defendants 1 who have been served and 2 whom the removing defendants actually knew or should have known had been served holding that the defendants consent to search was voluntary although he had been served with a subpoena