explaining that jurisdiction “is not defeated ... by the possibility that the averments might fail to state a cause of action on which petitioners could actually recover,” and therefore “dismissal of the case would be on the merits, not for want of jurisdiction” (internal quotation marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that jurisdiction “is not defeated ... by the possibility that the averments might fail to state a cause of action on which petitioners could actually recover,” and therefore “dismissal of the case would be on the merits, not for want of jurisdiction” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- stating that “the federal courts are without power to 10 entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are so attenuated and unsubstantial as to 11 be absolutely devoid of merit, wholly insubstantial, obviously frivolous, plainly unsubstantial, or 12 no longer open to discussion”
- stating that “the federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are so attenuated and 25 unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit, wholly insubstantial, obviously frivolous, plainly unsubstantial, or no longer open to discussion”
- explaining that under the substantiality doctrine, federal courts may dis- miss claims that “are so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit, . . . wholly insubstantial, . . . obviously frivolous, . . . plainly unsubstantial, . . . or no longer open to discussion”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.
I join the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Rehnquist because I believe he expresses the correct view of the appropriate result when a claim over which a district court has no independent jurisdiction is appended to a constitutional claim that has no hope of success on the merits. A wise exercise of discretion lies at the heart of the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. E. g., Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 403 (1970); Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 726-727 (1966). Compelling a district court to decide an ancillary claim where the premise for its jurisdiction is a meritless constitutional claim does not impress me as an efficacious performance of a discretionary responsibility.
*551 I write briefly to emphasize my view that the majority has misread the import of the Gibbs opinion, supra, particularly in the manner in which it links Gibbs to Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 (1909), and like cases. Gibbs involved a state claim that arose out of the same transaction as the federal law claim that conferred federal jurisdiction. The majority apparently reads Gibbs and Siler together as mandating decision of the state law claim without regard to the frailty of the federal claim on which federal jurisdiction rests. See ante, at 547, 549-550. In other words, the majority opinion appears to be saying that a federal constitutional claim as marginal as the one at issue here is capable of supporting pendent federal jurisdiction over a state claim and, indeed, that the state claim is to be decided to the exclusion of the federal issue. As I view it, that is a particularly erroneous interpretation of the pendent jurisdiction doctrine. That reading would broaden federal question jurisdiction to encompass matters of state law whenever an imaginative litigant can think up a federal claim, no matter how insubstantial, that is related to the transaction giving rise to the state claim.
This extension of Gibbs is quite unnecessary, since we are not confronted with a case where the pendent claim is a matter of state law. The Court’s dictum could nevertheless prompt other courts to follow it. In view of this potential mischief, I repeat a quotation from Gibbs relied on by my Brother Rehnquist which indicates how far the Court has departed from the rationale of that 1966 precedent:
“[R]ecognition of a federal court’s wide latitude to decide ancillary questions of state law does not imply that it must tolerate a litigant’s effort to impose upon it what is in effect only a state law case. *552 Once it appears that a state claim constitutes the real body of a case, to which the federal claim is only an appendage, the state claim may fairly be dismissed.” 383 U. S., at 727 .
The correct reading of Gibbs , as a matter of common sense and in light of deeply rooted notions of federalism, is that the federal claim must have more than a glimmer of merit and must continue to do so at least until substantial judicial resources have been committed to the lawsuit. If either of those conditions is not met, a district court has no business deciding issues of state law. District courts are not expositors of state law when jurisdiction is not based on diversity of citizenship.