finding supplemental jurisdiction improper where “plaintiffs … identified no links between [the core statutory claim and challenges to other sections of the statute] so close as to bring their attacks on the latter squarely within the ‘same case or controversy,’” and there was “no doubt” that plaintiffs’ “avalanche of [ancillary] claims 6 predominates over the” claims subject to review by a three-judge court
How later courts described this case
- finding supplemental jurisdiction improper where “plaintiffs … identified no links between [the core statutory claim and challenges to other sections of the statute] so close as to bring their attacks on the latter squarely within the ‘same case or controversy,’” and there was “no doubt” that plaintiffs’ “avalanche of [ancillary] claims 6 predominates over the” claims subject to review by a three-judge court
- assuming without deciding that § 1367 applies to three-judge courts, but expressing uncertainty
- describing § 1367(a) as a threshold inquiry but applying § 1367(c)(2) despite doubts regarding the relatedness of state to federal claims
- noting that § 1367 incorporated Gibbs test
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JACKSON, District Judge, dissenting.
I regret that I am unable to concur in Circuit Judge Williams’ opinion of December 23, 1992, limiting the jurisdiction of the three-judge district court to Sections 4 and 5 of the Cable Act of 1992.
The Supreme Court has instructed that “the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself,” and, “absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, 447 U.S. 102, 109 , 100 S.Ct. 2051, 2056 , 64 L.Ed.2d 766 (1980).
Section 23 of the Cable Act of 1992 states that “any civil action challenging the constitutionality of section [4] or [5] of this Act ... shall be heard by a district court of three judges____” These cases are all civil actions challenging, albeit inter alia, the constitutionality of sections 4 and 5 of the Act. If Congress had intended to limit the jurisdiction of the three-judge court (and the concomitant direct appeal of right to the Supreme Court) to only claims challenging the constitutionality of those sections, it could have done so in several ways. 1 It did not, and I do not find in Judge Williams’ generalized judicial obser *1316 vations as to the wastefulness of three-judge courts, the burden imposed upon the Supreme Court by direct appeals of right, and the intricacies of supplemental jurisdiction, any evidence of a “clearly expressed” congressional intention to repudiate the language of the statute as they wrote it. Consequently, I conclude that the three-judge court is statutorily required to hear these cases in their entirety, and I respectfully dissent.
. E.g., "No interlocutory or final judgment, decree or order holding section [4] or [5] to be unconstitutional shall be entered by a district court of less than three judges ..or “[a]ny claim challenging the constitutionality of section [4] or [5] in any civil action filed under this Act shall be severed for hearing by a district court of three judges ...”