Carnegie-Mellon University v. Cohill

*358 Justice White,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Sc alia join, dissenting.

The Court today discovers an inherent power in the federal judiciary to remand properly removed cases to state court for reasons of “economy, convenience, fairness, and comity.” Ante, at 351. Because I continue to believe that cases may be remanded only for reasons authorized by statute, see Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U. S. 336, 342 (1976), I dissent.

I

Respondents William and Carrie Boyle brought suit in Pennsylvania state court against William Boyle’s former employer and supervisor, petitioners Carnegie-Mellon University and William Kordesich, stating claims under both state law and the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U. S. C. § 626 (c)(1). The case was removed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1441 on the basis of the federal ADEA claim. The Boyles did not contest the removal or move to remand at that time.

After some six months of discovery, the Boyles moved to delete their age discrimination claim and to remand the case to state court, explaining that their age discrimination claim had proved to be “not tenable.” Apparently, the Boyles had only then discovered that their failure to file a timely age discrimination charge with a federal or state agency precluded them from asserting a claim under the ADEA. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 626 (d), 633(b). Counsel for the Boyles explained before this Court that his principal reason for seeking the remand was to avoid a prompt trial on the state claims. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29. He perceived that the opportunities for extracting a favorable settlement from Carnegie-Mellon would be greater if the case were remanded, because the state court dockets in Allegheny County were considerably more congested than the federal court dockets in the Western District of Pennsylvania.

*359 The Federal District Court granted the Boyles’ motions to amend and to remand. The court recognized that neither 28 U. S. C. § 1447 (c) nor 28 U. S. C. § 1441 (c), the two statutory provisions authorizing remand, was applicable in this case. The court nonetheless held that, because it could dismiss an action from which all federal claims had been deleted, see Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725-727 (1966), it could also remand such an action to state court.

Carnegie-Mellon then petitioned for a writ of mandamus from the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. A divided panel granted the petition and directed the District Court to vacate its remand order. The panel concluded that the District Court was foreclosed by this Court’s decision in Therm-tron from remanding cases to state courts for reasons not specified in a federal statute.

The Court of Appeals reheard the matter en banc. An equally divided court denied Carnegie-Mellon’s petition for a writ of mandamus.

II

This Court has now affirmed. The Court holds that the pendent jurisdiction doctrine set forth in Gibbs allows federal judges to remand a properly removed case to state court whenever all federal claims have been deleted. There is no statutory basis for this holding. But the Court discovers an inherent authority to remand whenever a federal judge decides that “the values of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity” would thereby be served. This result is inconsistent with Congress’ understanding of the federal courts’ remand authority as well as with the precedents of this Court.

Congress has enacted two statutory provisions governing remands from federal court to state court: 28 U. S. C. § 1447 (c), which requires the remand of cases removed “improvidently and without jurisdiction,” and 28 U. S. C. § 1441 (c), which permits the remand of “separate and independent” claims that are “not otherwise within [the district court’s] original jurisdiction.” The latter provision does not apply to *360 pendent claims such as those asserted here. There would have been little reason for Congress to have enacted either § 1447(c) or § 1441(c) had Congress perceived the federal courts to possess an inherent authority to remand claims that might better be decided by the state courts. The Court thus renders § 1441(c) wholly superfluous in contravention of the prevailing rule that courts “should not and do not suppose that Congress intended to enact unnecessary statutes.” Jackson v. Kelly, 557 F. 2d 735, 740 (CA10 1977) (en banc); see also United States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538-539 (1955); Sutton v. United States, 819 F. 2d 1289, 1295 (CA5 1987) (citing United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534 (1940)); Ziegler Coal Co. v. Kleppe, 175 U. S. App. D. C. 371, 379, 536 F. 2d 398, 406 (1976).

The Court rejects the foregoing argument on the ground that Congress has provided no express statutory authority for the dismissal of pendent claims. See ante, at 354. This ignores the very different origins of the power to dismiss and the power to remand. Courts have historically possessed an inherent power to dismiss suits for discretionary reasons such as failure to prosecute. See, e. g., Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 629-631 (1962). The courts have not heretofore been recognized to possess any inherent power to remand. 1

In Thermtron, we held that a Federal District Judge had exceeded his authority in remanding a properly removed diversity action “on grounds not permitted by the controlling statute,” 423 U. S., at 345 , namely, that the case would be adjudicated more quickly in state court than in federal court. In support of this holding, we observed that “[ljower federal courts have uniformly held that cases properly removed from *361 state to federal court within the federal court’s jurisdiction may not be remanded for discretionary reasons not authorized by the controlling statute.” Id., at 345 , n. 9 (citing Romero v. ITE Imperial Corp., 332 F. Supp. 523, 526 (PR 1971); Isbrandtsen Co. v. District 2, Marine Engineers Beneficial Assn., 256 F. Supp. 68, 77 (EDNY 1966); Davis v. Joyner, 240 F. Supp. 689, 690 (EDNC 1964); Vann v. Jackson, 165 F. Supp. 377, 381 (EDNC 1958)). Moreover, in holding that a remand on grounds not specified in the statute was reviewable on mandamus notwithstanding the prohibition on appellate review of remand orders contained in 28 U. S. C. § 1447 (d), we expressed skepticism that “Congress ever intended to extend carte blanche authority to the district courts to revise the federal statutes governing removal by remanding cases on grounds that seem justifiable to them but which are not recognized by the controlling statute.” 423 U. S., at 351 . Nevertheless, the Court itself grants the district courts virtual carte blanche to remand pendent claims for the amorphous reasons of “economy, convenience, fairness, and comity” that may seem justifiable to the majority but that have not been recognized by Congress. This action cannot be reconciled with the holding in Thermtron that cases cannot be remanded for nonstatutory reasons.

The decision today is also difficult to reconcile with St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283 (1938), which held that a properly removed diversity action should not have been remanded to state court when the damages at issue later appeared to be less than the jurisdictional amount. In concluding that the status of the case at the time of removal was controlling, the Court reasoned:

“If the plaintiff could, no matter how bona fide his original claim in the state court, reduce the amount of his demand to defeat federal jurisdiction the defendant’s supposed statutory right of removal would be subject to *362 the plaintiff’s caprice. The claim, whether well or ill founded in fact, fixes the right of the defendant to remove, and the plaintiff ought not to be able to defeat that right and bring the cause back to the state court at his election.” Id., at 294 .

To permit a plaintiff to “bring the cause back to the state court at his election” by voluntarily dismissing his federal claims, as the Court does today, will likewise subject “the defendant’s supposed statutory right of removal ... to the plaintiff’s caprice.” The Court has thereby provided a new tactical weapon to plaintiffs like the Boyles who may be less interested in securing a prompt trial on the merits than in causing the litigation to become so burdensome to the defendants that they will accede to a favorable settlement.

Nothing in Gibbs justifies the result reached today. The majority acknowledges that no “direc[t]” authority for today’s holding can be found in Gibbs , which involved an action that had been filed initially in federal court. See ante, at 351. The Gibbs opinion did not even suggest any inherent power in the federal courts to remand pendent claims rather than to retain such claims or to dismiss them without prejudice. And no case here either before or after Gibbs provides any stronger support for today’s holding.

The Court’s decision has the peculiar result of treating plaintiffs who bring suit in federal court less favorably than plaintiffs who bring suit in state court. If the Boyles had commenced this suit in federal court and their federal claims were later dismissed, the Federal District Judge could only have dismissed the remaining pendent claims or decided those claims himself. Because the Boyles instead commenced this suit in state court, however, the District Judge had the additional option of ordering a remand. The principal advantage to plaintiffs of this third option is that their state claims are less likely to be dismissed as time barred. *363 Accordingly, plaintiffs with claims arising under both federal and state law now will be encouraged to bring suit in state court, even when the state courts are as overburdened as those in Allegheny County are alleged to be, rather than in the federal courts that have been described as the “primary guardians” of federal rights. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 463 (1974). In addition, defendants who are able to afford the costs and delays associated with a one-way trip to federal court but not the additional costs and delays associated with a round trip may now be discouraged from exercising their statutory right to removal in cases involving both federal and state claims. 2

There is some incongruity in the Court’s invocation of federal-state “comity” in support of a holding whose principal effect will be to relieve plaintiffs from state statutes of limitations. See ante, at 352. It seems unnecessary for this Court to protect plaintiffs whose federal claims prove “not tenable” from the operation of state statutes of limitations when the States have shown themselves capable of achieving the same result through saving clauses similar to that enacted by Pennsylvania. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5535 (a) (1982). 3 Neither the parties nor the courts below have suggested that the Boyles would not have been protected by the *364 Pennsylvania saving clause had their federal claims been dismissed involuntarily rather than at their own behest. 4

In sum, because I believe that any authority to remand properly removed pendent claims must come from Congress, I respectfully dissent.

A federal court might logically be assumed to have greater inherent authority to transfer a case to another federal court than to a state court. Yet, Congress has also delineated by statute or rule the circumstances in which a case may be transferred from one federal court to another. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. §§ 1404 (a), 1406(a), 2241; Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 21.

While the majority contends that the use of remands rather than dismissals will save time and money for the state courts, the record contains no support for this assertion. I would think that the costs to the state courts of processing a new case are not appreciably different from the costs of processing a remanded case. Furthermore, to the extent that the federal courts will now remand pendent claims that they previously would have retained, today’s holding may result in increased costs for the state courts.

Section 5535(a) provides, in pertinent part, that “[i]f a civil action or proceeding is timely commenced and is terminated, a party . . . may . . . commence a new action or proceeding upon the same cause of action within one year after the termination.” This provision is inapplicable to proceedings terminated by “a voluntary nonsuit, a discontinuance, a dismissal for neglect to prosecute the action or proceeding, or a final judgment upon the merits.”

The majority largely ignores the availability of state saving clauses in seeking to justify today’s result on the ground that plaintiffs like the Boyles would otherwise protect themselves against “the combination of removal, dismissal under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine, and the expiration of a statute of limitations” by forgoing their federal-law claims. Ante, at 352, n. 9.