APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.

[151] Mr. Henry Lane Stone for appellant.

Mr. Lewis McQuown and Mr. Clarence U. McElroy for appellees.

By leave of court, Mr. L.A. Shaver, in behalf of The Interstate Commerce Commission, submitted a brief as amicus curioe.

MR. JUSTICE MOODY, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

Two questions of law were raised by the demurrer to the bill, were brought here by appeal, and have been argued before us. They are, first, whether that part of the act of Congress of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 584), which forbids the giving of free passes or the collection of any different compensation for transportation of passengers than that specified in the tariff filed, makes it unlawful to perform a contract for transportation of persons, who in good faith, before the passage of the act, had accepted such contract in satisfaction of a valid cause of action against the railroad; and, second, whether the statute, if it should be construed to render such a contract unlawful, is in [152] violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. We do not deem it necessary, however, to consider either of these questions, because, in our opinion, the court below was without jurisdiction of the cause. Neither party has questioned that jurisdiction, but it is the duty of this court to see to it that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, which is defined and limited by statute, is not exceeded. This duty we have frequently performed of our own motion. Mansfield, &c.; Railway Company v. Swan, 111 U.S. 379, 382; King Bridge Company v. Otoe County, 120 U.S. 225; Blacklock v. Small, 127 U.S. 96, 105; Cameron v. Hodges, 127 U.S. 322, 326; Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U.S. 586, 587; Continental National Bank v. Buford, 191 U.S. 119.

There was no diversity of citizenship and it is not and cannot be suggested that there was any ground of jurisdiction, except that the case was a "suit . . . arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States." Act of August 13, 1888, c. 866, 25 Stat. 433, 434. It is the settled interpretation of these words, as used in this statute, conferring jurisdiction, that a suit arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States only when the plaintiff's statement of his own cause of action shows that it is based upon those laws or that Constitution. It is not enough that the plaintiff alleges some anticipated defense to his cause of action and asserts that the defense is invalidated by some provision of the Constitution of the United States. Although such allegations show that very likely, in the course of the litigation, a question under the Constitution would arise, they do not show that the suit, that is, the plaintiff's original cause of action, arises under the Constitution. In Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U.S. 454, the plaintiff, the State of Tennessee, brought suit in the Circuit Court of the United States to recover from the defendant certain taxes alleged to be due under the laws of the State. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant claimed an immunity from the taxation by virtue of its charter, and that therefore the tax was void, because in violation of the provision of the Constitution of the United [153] States, which forbids any State from passing a law impairing the obligation of contracts. The cause was held to be beyond the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, the court saying, by Mr. Justice Gray (p. 464), "a suggestion of one party, that the other will or may set up a claim under the Constitution or laws of the United States, does not make the suit one arising under that Constitution or those laws." Again, in Boston & Montana Consolidated Copper & Silver Mining Company v. Montana Ore Purchasing Company, 188 U.S. 632, the plaintiff brought suit in the Circuit Court of the United States for the conversion of copper ore and for an injunction against its continuance. The plaintiff then alleged, for the purpose of showing jurisdiction, in substance, that the defendant would set up in defense certain laws of the United States. The cause was held to be beyond the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, the court saying, by Mr. Justice Peckham (pp. 638, 639).

"It would be wholly unnecessary and improper in order to prove complainant's cause of action to go into any matters of defence which the defendants might possibly set up and then attempt to reply to such defence, and thus, if possible, to show that a Federal question might or probably would arise in the course of the trial of the case. To allege such defence and then make an answer to it before the defendant has the opportunity to itself plead or prove its own defence is inconsistent with any known rule of pleading so far as we are aware, and is improper.

"The rule is a reasonable and just one that the complainant in the first instance shall be confined to a statement of its cause of action, leaving to the defendant to set up in his answer what his defence is and, if anything more than a denial of complainant's cause of action, imposing upon the defendant the burden of proving such defence.

"Conforming itself to that rule the complainant would not, in the assertion or proof of its cause of action, bring up a single Federal question. The presentation of its cause of action would not show that it was one arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States.

[154] "The only way in which it might be claimed that a Federal question was presented would be in the complainant's statement of what the defence of defendants would be and complainant's answer to such defence. Under these circumstances the case is brought within the rule laid down in Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U.S. 454. That case has been cited and approved many times since, . . ."

The interpretation of the act which we have stated was first announced in Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U.S. 586, and has since been repeated and applied in Colorado Central Consolidated Mining Company v. Turck, 150 U.S. 138, 142; Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U.S. 454, 459; Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U.S. 102, 107; Postal Telegraph Cable Company v. Alabama, 155 U.S. 482, 487; Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern Railway Company v. Skottowe, 162 U.S. 490, 494; Walker v. Collins, 167 U.S. 57, 59; Muse v. Arlington Hotel Company, 168 U.S. 430, 436; Galveston &c.; Railway v. Texas, 170 U.S. 226, 236; Third Street & Suburban Railway Company v. Lewis, 173 U.S. 457, 460; Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company v. Bell, 176 U.S. 321, 327; Houston & Texas Central Railroad Company v. Texas, 177 U.S. 66, 78; Arkansas v. Kansas & Texas Coal Company & San Francisco Railroad, 183 U.S. 185, 188; Vicksburg Waterworks Company v. Vicksburg, 185 U.S. 65, 68; Boston & Montana Consolidated Copper & Silver Mining Company v. Montana Ore Purchasing Company, 188 U.S. 632, 639; Minnesota v. Northern Securities Company, 194 U.S. 48, 63; Joy v. City of St. Louis, 201 U.S. 332, 340; Devine v. Los Angeles, 202 U.S. 313, 334. The application of this rule to the case at bar is decisive against the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

It is ordered that the

Judgment be reversed and the case remitted to the Circuit Court with instructions to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI.

[181] Mr. William Marshall Bullitt for appellant.

Mr. Frank Hagerman for appellant.

Mr. Charles E. Hughes for Federal Land Bank of Wichita, Kansas, appellee.

Mr. W.W. Willoughby filed a separate brief on behalf of the Federal Land Bank of Wichita, Kansas, appellee.

Mr. George W. Wickersham, with whom Mr. W.G. McAdoo was on the briefs, for First Joint Stock Land Bank of Chicago, appellee.

Mr. Justin D. Bowersock filed a brief on behalf of Kansas City Title & Trust Company, appellee.

The Solicitor General, Mr. W.G. McAdoo, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, and Mr. J.P. Cotton, by leave of court, filed a brief on behalf of the United States as amici curiae.^[1]

Restored to docket for reargument April 26, 1920.

[195] MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court.

A bill was filed in the United States District Court for the Western Division of the Western District of Missouri by a shareholder in the Kansas City Title & Trust Company to enjoin the Company, its officers, agents and employees from investing the funds of the Company in farm loan bonds issued by Federal Land Banks or Joint Stock Land Banks under authority of the Federal Farm Loan Act of July 17, 1916, c. 245, 39 Stat. 360, as amended January 18, 1918, c. 9, 40 Stat. 431.

The relief was sought on the ground that these acts were beyond the constitutional power of Congress. The bill avers that the Board of Directors of the Company are [196] about to invest its funds in the bonds to the amount of $10,000 in each of the classes described, and will do so unless enjoined by the court in this action. The bill avers the formation of twelve Federal Land Banks, and twenty-one Joint Stock Land Banks under the provisions of the act.

As to the Federal Land Banks, it is averred that each of them has loaned upon farm lands large amounts secured by mortgage, and, after depositing the same with the Farm Loan Registrar, has executed and issued collateral trust obligations called Farm Loan Bonds, secured by the depositing of an equivalent amount of farm mortgages and notes; and that each of said Federal Land Banks has sold, and is continuing to offer for sale, large amounts of said Farm Loan Bonds. The bill also avers that various persons in different parts of the United States have organized twenty-one Joint Stock Land Banks, the capital stock of which is subscribed for and owned by private persons; that the Joint Stock Land Banks have deposited notes and mortgages with the Farm Loan Registrar, and issued an equivalent amount of collateral trust obligations called Farm Loan Bonds, which have been sold and will be continued to be offered for sale to investors in large amounts in the markets of the country. A statement is given of the amount of deposits by the Secretary of the Treasury with the Federal Land Banks, for which the banks have issued their certificates of indebtedness bearing interest at 2% per annum. It is averred that on September 30, 1919, Federal Land Banks owned United States bonds of the par value of $4,230,805; and the Joint Stock Land Banks owned like bonds of the par value of $3,287,503 on August 31, 1919; that pursuant to the provisions of the act the Secretary of the Treasury has invested $8,892,130 of the public funds in the capital stock of the Federal Land Banks, and that on July 1, 1919, the Secretary of the Treasury on behalf of the United States held $8,265,809 of the capital stock of the Federal Land Banks; [197] that pursuant to the provisions of § 32 of the act, as amended, the Secretary of the Treasury has purchased Farm Loan Bonds issued by the Federal Land Banks of the par value of $149,775,000; that up to September 30, 1919, bonds have been issued under the act by the Federal Land Banks to the amount of $285,600,000, of which about $135,000,000 are held in the Treasury of the United States, purchased under the authority of the amendment of January 18, 1918; that up to September 30, 1919, twenty-seven Joint Stock Land Banks have been incorporated under the act, having an aggregate capital of $8,000,000, all of which has been subscribed and $7,450,000 paid in; that bonds have been issued by Joint Stock Land Banks to the amount of $41,000,000, which are now in the hands of the public; that the Secretary of the Treasury up to the time of the filing of the bill has not designated any of the Federal Land Banks nor the Joint Stock Land Banks as depositaries of public money, nor, except as stated later in the bill, has he employed them or any of them as financial agents of the Government, nor have they or any of them performed any duties as depositaries of public money, nor have they or any of them accepted any deposits or engaged in any banking business. The bill avers that during the summer of 1918 the Federal Land Banks at Wichita, St. Paul and Spokane were designated as financial agents of the Government for making seed grain loans to farmers in drought-stricken sections, the President having at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture set aside $5,000,000 for that purpose out of the $100,000,000 war funds. The three banks mentioned made upwards of 15,000 loans of that character, aggregating a sum upwards of $4,500,000, and are now engaged in collecting these loans, all of which are secured by crop liens; that these banks act in that capacity without compensation, receiving only the actual expenses incurred.

Section 27 of the act provides that Farm Loan Bonds [198] issued under the provisions of the act by Federal Land Banks or Joint Stock Land Banks shall be a lawful investment for all fiduciary and trust funds, and may be accepted as security for all public deposits. The bill avers that the defendant Trust Company is authorized to buy, invest in and sell government, state and municipal and other bonds, but it cannot buy, invest in or sell any such bonds, papers, stocks or securities which are not authorized to be issued by a valid law or which are not investment securities, but that nevertheless it is about to invest in Farm Loan Bonds; that the Trust Company has been induced to direct its officers to make the investment by reason of its reliance upon the provisions of the Farm Loan Acts, especially §§ 21, 26 and 27, by which the Farm Loan Bonds are declared to be instrumentalities of the Government of the United States, and as such with the income derived therefrom, are declared to be exempt from federal, state, municipal and local taxation, and are further declared to be lawful investments for all fiduciary and trust funds. The bill further avers that the acts by which it is attempted to authorize the bonds are wholly illegal, void and unconstitutional and of no effect because unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States.

The bill prays that the acts of Congress authorizing the creation of the banks, especially §§ 21, 26 and 27 thereof, shall be adjudged and decreed to be unconstitutional, void and of no effect, and that the issuance of the Farm Loan Bonds, and the taxation exemption feature thereof, shall be adjudged and decreed to be invalid.

The First Joint Stock Land Bank of Chicago and the Federal Land Bank of Wichita, Kansas, were allowed to intervene and became parties defendant to the suit. The Kansas City Title & Trust Company filed a motion to dismiss in the nature of a general demurrer, and upon hearing the District Court entered a decree dismissing the bill. From this decree appeal was taken to this court.

[199] No objection is made to the federal jurisdiction, either original or appellate, by the parties to this suit, but that question will be first examined. The Company is authorized to invest its funds in legal securities only. The attack upon the proposed investment in the bonds described is because of the alleged unconstitutionality of the acts of Congress undertaking to organize the banks and authorize the issue of the bonds. No other reason is set forth in the bill as a ground of objection to the proposed investment by the Board of Directors acting in the Company's behalf. As diversity of citizenship is lacking, the jurisdiction of the District Court depends upon whether the cause of action set forth arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States. Judicial Code, § 24.

The general rule is that where it appears from the bill or statement of the plaintiff that the right to relief depends upon the construction or application of the Constitution or laws of the United States, and that such federal claim is not merely colorable, and rests upon a reasonable foundation, the District Court has jurisdiction under this provision.

At an early date, considering the grant of constitutional power to confer jurisdiction upon the federal courts, Chief Justice Marshall said: "A case in law or equity consists of the right of the one party, as well as of the other, and may truly be said to arise under the Constitution or a law of the United States, whenever its correct decision depends on the construction of either," Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 379; and again, when "the title or right set up by the party may be defeated by one construction of the Constitution or law of the United States, and sustained by the opposite construction." Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 822. These definitions were quoted and approved in Patton v. Brady, 184 U.S. 608, 611, citing Gold-Washing Co. v. Keyes, 96 U.S. 199, 201; Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U.S. 257; White v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 307; Railroad Company v. Mississippi, 102 U.S. 135, 139.

[200] This characterization of a suit arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States has been followed in many decisions of this and other federal courts. See Macon Grocery Co. v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R. Co., 215 U.S. 501 506, 507; Shulthis v. McDougal, 225 U.S. 561, 569, paragraph 3. The principle was applied in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1, in which a shareholder filed a bill to enjoin the defendant corporation from complying with the income tax provisions of the Tariff Act of October 3, 1913. In that case while there was diversity of citizenship, a direct appeal to this court was sustained because of the constitutional questions raised in the bill, which had been dismissed by the court below. The repugnancy of the statute to the Constitution of the United States, as well as grounds of equitable jurisdiction, were set forth in the bill, and the right to come here on direct appeal was sustained because of the averments based upon constitutional objections to the act. Reference was made to Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, where a similar shareholder's right to sue was maintained, and a direct appeal to this court from a decree of the Circuit Court was held to be authorized.

In the Brushaber Case the Chief Justice, speaking for the court, said:

"The right to prevent the corporation from returning and paying the tax was based upon many averments as to the repugnancy of the statute to the Constitution of the United States, of the peculiar relation of the corporation to the stockholders and their particular interests resulting from many of the administrative provisions of the assailed act, of the confusion, wrong and multiplicity of suits and the absence of all means of redress which would result if the corporation paid the tax and complied with the act in other respects without protest, as it was alleged it was its intention to do. To put out of the way a question of jurisdiction we at once say that in view of these averments and [201] the ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, sustaining the right of a stockholder to sue to restrain a corporation under proper averments from voluntarily paying a tax charged to be unconstitutional on the ground that to permit such a suit did not violate the prohibitions of § 3224, Rev. Stat., against enjoining the enforcement of taxes, we are of opinion that the contention here made that there was no jurisdiction of the cause since to entertain it would violate the provisions of the Revised Statutes referred to is without merit. . . .

"Aside from averments as to citizenship and residence, recitals as to the provisions of the statute and statements as to the business of the corporation contained in the first ten paragraphs of the bill advanced to sustain jurisdiction, the bill alleged twenty-one constitutional objections specified in that number of paragraphs or subdivisions. As all the grounds assert a violation of the Constitution, it follows that in a wide sense they all charge a repugnancy of the statute to the Sixteenth Amendment under the more immediate sanction of which the statute was adopted."

The jurisdiction of this court is to be determined upon the principles laid down in the cases referred to. In the instant case the averments of the bill show that the directors were proceeding to make the investments in view of the act authorizing the bonds about to be purchased, maintaining that the act authorizing them was constitutional and the bonds valid and desirable investments. The objecting shareholder avers in the bill that the securities were issued under an unconstitutional law, and hence of no validity. It is, therefore, apparent that the controversy concerns the constitutional validity of an act of Congress which is directly drawn in question. The decision depends upon the determination of this issue.

The general allegations as to the interest of the shareholder, and his right to have an injunction to prevent the purchase of the alleged unconstitutional securities by misapplication [202] of the funds of the corporation, give jurisdiction under the principles settled in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., and Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., supra. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the District Court had jurisdiction under the averments of the bill, and that a direct appeal to this court upon constitutional grounds is authorized.

We come to examine the questions presented by the attack upon the constitutionality of the legislation in question. The Federal Farm Loan Act is too lengthy to set out in full. It is entitled: "An Act To provide capital for agricultural development, to create standard forms of investment based upon farm mortgage, to equalize rates of interest upon farm loans, to furnish a market for United States bonds, to create Government depositaries and financial agents for the United States, and for other purposes."

The administration of the act is placed under the direction and control of a Federal Farm Loan Bureau established at the seat of Government in the Treasury Department, under the general supervision of the Federal Farm Loan Board, consisting of the Secretary of the Treasury and four members appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The United States is divided into twelve districts for the purpose of establishing Federal Land Banks. Each of the banks must have a subscribed capital of not less than $750,000, divided into shares of $5.00 each, which may be subscribed for by any individual, firm or corporation, or by the government of any State, or of the United States. No dividends shall be paid on the stock owned by the United States, but all other stock shall share in dividend distributions without preference. The Federal Farm Loan Board is to designate five directors who shall temporarily manage the affairs of each Federal Land Bank, and who shall prepare an organization certificate which, when approved by the Federal Farm Loan Board and filed with the Farm Loan Commissioner, [203] shall operate to create the bank a body corporate. The Federal Farm Loan Board is required to open books of subscription for the capital stock of each Federal Land Bank, and, if within thirty days thereafter any part of the minimum capitalization of $750,000 of any such bank shall remain unsubscribed, it is made the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to subscribe the balance on behalf of the United States.

The amendment of January 18, 1918, authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase bonds issued by Federal Land Banks, and provides that the temporary organization of any such bank shall be continued so long as any Farm Loan Bonds shall be held by the Treasury, and until the subscription to stock in such bank by National Farm Loan Associations shall equal the amount of the stock held by the United States Government. When these conditions are complied with a permanent organization is to take over the management of the bank consisting of a Board of Directors composed of nine members, three of whom shall be known as district directors and shall be appointed by the Farm Loan Board, who shall represent the public interest, six of whom to be known as local directors, shall be chosen by, and be representative of National Farm Loan Associations.

Federal Land Banks are empowered to invest their funds in the purchase of qualified first mortgages on farm lands situated within the Federal Land Bank District within which they are organized or acting. Loans on farm mortgages are to be made to cooperative borrowers through the organization of corporations known as National Farm Loan Associations, by persons desiring to borrow money on farm mortgage security under the terms of the act. Ten or more natural persons who are the owners of or are about to become the owners of farm land qualified as security for mortgage loans, and who desire to borrow money on farm mortgage security, may unite to form a National Farm [204] Loan Association. The manner of forming these associations, and the qualifications for membership, are set out in the act.

A loan desired by each such person must be for not more than $10,000 nor less than $100, and the aggregate of the desired loans not less than $20,000. The application for loan must be accompanied by subscriptions to stock of a Federal Land Bank equal to 5% of the aggregate sum desired on the mortgage loan. Provision is made for appraisal of the land, and report to the Federal Farm Loan Board. No persons but borrowers on farm loan mortgages shall be members or shareholders of National Farm Loan Associations.

Shareholders in Farm Loan Associations are made individually responsible for the debts of the Association to the extent of the amount of the stock owned by them respectively, in addition to the amount paid in and represented by their shares.

When any National Farm Loan Association shall desire to secure for any member a loan on first mortgage from the Federal Land Bank in its district, it must subscribe to the capital stock of the Federal Land Bank to an amount of 5% of such loan, which capital stock shall be held by the Federal Land Bank as collateral security for the payment of the loan, the Association shall be paid any dividends accruing and payable on the capital stock while it is outstanding. Such stock may, in the discretion of the directors and with the approval of the Federal Farm Loan Board, be paid off at par and retired, and shall be so retired upon the full payment of the mortgage loan. In such event, the National Farm Loan Association must pay off at par and retire the corresponding shares of its stock which were issued when the Land Bank stock so retired was issued; but it is further provided that the capital stock of the Land Bank shall not be reduced to less than 5% of the principal of the outstanding Farm [205] Loan Bonds issued by it. The shares in National Farm Loan Associations shall be of the par value of $5.00 each.

At least 25% of that part of the capital of any Federal Land Bank for which stock is outstanding in the name of National Farm Loan Associations must be held in quick assets. Not less than 5% of such capital must be invested in United States Government Bonds.

The loans which Federal Land Banks may make upon first mortgages on farm lands are provided for in § 12 of the act. By § 13 these banks are empowered, subject to the provisions of the act, to issue and sell Farm Loan Bonds of the kind described in the act, and to invest funds in their possession in qualified first mortgages on farm lands, to receive and to deposit in trust with the Farm Loan Registrar, to be held by him as collateral security for Farm Loan Bonds, first mortgages upon farm lands, and, with the approval of the Farm Loan Board, to issue and to sell their bonds secured by the deposit of first mortgages on qualified farm lands as collateral, in conformity with the provisions of § 18 of the act. By the amendment of January 18, 1918, the Secretary of the Treasury was empowered during the years 1918 and 1919, to purchase Farm Loan Bonds issued by Federal Land Banks to an amount not exceeding $100,000,000 each year, and any Federal Land Bank was authorized at any time to repurchase at par and accrued interest, for the purpose of redemption or resale, any of the bonds so purchased from it and held in the United States Treasury.

It is also provided that the bonds of any Federal Land Bank so purchased and held in the Treasury one year after the termination of the pending war shall, upon thirty days' notice from the Secretary of the Treasury, be redeemed and repurchased by such bank at par and accrued interest. By § 15 it is provided that whenever, after the act shall have been in effect for one year, it shall appear to the Federal Farm Loan Board that National Farm Loan [206] Associations have not been formed and are not likely to be formed, in any locality, because of peculiar local conditions, the Board may in its discretion authorize Federal Land Banks to make loans on farm lands through agents approved by the Board, on the terms and conditions and subject to the restrictions prescribed in that section.

The act also authorizes the incorporation of Joint Stock Land Banks, with capital provided by private subscription. They are organized by not less than ten natural persons, and are subject to the requirements of the provisions of § 4 of the act so far as applicable. The board of directors shall consist of not less than five members. Each shareholder shall have the same voting privileges as the holders of shares in National Banking Associations, and shall be held individually responsible, equally and ratably, and not one for another, for all contracts, debts, and engagements of such bank to the extent of the amount of stock owned by them at the par value thereof, in addition to the amount paid in and represented by their shares. The Joint Stock Land Bank is authorized to do business when capital stock to the amount of $250,000 has been subscribed, and one-half paid in cash, the balance remaining subject to call by the board of directors, the charter to be issued by the Federal Farm Loan Board. No bonds shall be issued until the capital stock is entirely paid up. Except as otherwise provided, Joint Stock Land Banks shall have the powers of and be subject to all the restrictions and conditions imposed on Federal Land Banks by the act, so far as such conditions or restrictions are applicable.

Federal Land Banks may issue Farm Loan Bonds up to twenty times their capital and surplus. Joint Stock Land Banks are limited to the issue of Farm Loan Bonds not in excess of fifteen times the amount of their capital and surplus. Joint Stock Land Banks can only loan on first mortgages upon land in the State where located, or in a State [207] contiguous thereto. No loan on mortgage may be made by any bank at a rate exceeding 6% per annum exclusive of amortization payments. Joint Stock Land Banks shall in no case charge a rate of interest on farm loans which shall exceed by more than 1% the rate established by the last series of Farm Loan Bonds issued by them, which rate shall not exceed 5% per annum.

Provisions for the issue of Farm Loan Bonds secured by first mortgages on farm lands or United States bonds, as collateral, are made for Federal Land Banks and Joint Stock Land Banks; in each case the issue is made subject to the approval of the Federal Farm Loan Board. The farm loan mortgages, or United States bonds, which constitute the collateral security for the bonds, must be deposited with the Farm Loan Registrar.

Section 26 of the act provides as follows: "That every Federal land bank and every national farm loan association, including the capital and reserve or surplus therein and the income derived therefrom, shall be exempt from Federal, State, municipal, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate held, purchased, or taken by said bank or association under the provisions of section eleven and section thirteen of this Act. First mortgages executed to Federal land banks, or to joint stock land banks, and farm loan bonds issued under the provisions of this Act, shall be deemed and held to be instrumentalities of the Government of the United States, and as such they and the income derived therefrom shall be exempt from Federal, State, municipal, and local taxation.

"Nothing herein shall prevent the shares in any joint stock land bank from being included in the valuation of the personal property of the owner or holder of such shares, in assessing taxes imposed by authority of the State within which the bank is located; but such assessment and taxation shall be in manner and subject to the conditions and limitations contained in section fifty-two [208] hundred and nineteen of the Revised Statutes with reference to the shares of national banking associations.

"Nothing herein shall be construed to exempt the real property of Federal and joint stock land banks and national farm loan associations from either State, county, or municipal taxes, to the same extent, according to its value, as other real property is taxed."

Since the decision of the great cases of McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, and Osborn v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, it is no longer an open question that Congress may establish banks for national purposes, only a small part of the capital of which is held by the Government, and a majority of the ownership in which is represented by shares of capital stock privately owned and held; the principal business of such banks being private banking conducted with the usual methods of such business. While the express power to create a bank or incorporate one is not found in the Constitution, the court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, found authority so to do in the broad general powers conferred by the Constitution upon the Congress to levy and collect taxes, to borrow money, to regulate commerce, to pay the public debts, to declare and conduct war, to raise and support armies, and to provide and maintain a navy, etc. Congress it was held had authority to use such means as were deemed appropriate to exercise the great powers of the Government by virtue of Article I, § 8, cl. 18, of the Constitution granting to Congress the right to make all laws necessary and proper to make the grant effectual. In First National Bank v. Union Trust Co., 244 U.S. 416, 419, the Chief Justice, speaking for the court, after reviewing McCulloch v. Maryland, and Osborn v. Bank, and considering the power given to Congress to pass laws to make the specific powers granted effectual, said:

"In terms it was pointed out that this broad authority [209] was not stereotyped as of any particular time but endured, thus furnishing a perpetual and living sanction to the legislative authority within the limits of a just discretion enabling it to take into consideration the changing wants and demands of society and to adopt provisions appropriate to meet every situation which it was deemed required to be provided for."

That the formation of the bank was required in the judgment of the Congress for the fiscal operations of the Government, was a principal consideration upon which Chief Justice Marshall rested the authority to create the bank; and for that purpose being an appropriate measure in the judgment of the Congress, it was held not to be within the authority of the court to question the conclusion reached by the legislative branch of the Government.

Upon the authority of McCulloch v. Maryland, and Osborn v. Bank, the national banking system was established, and upon them this court has rested the constitutionality of the legislation establishing such banks. Farmers' & Mechanics' National Bank v. Dearing, 91 U.S. 29, 33, 34.

Congress has seen fit in § 6 of the act to make both classes of banks, when designated for that purpose by the Secretary of the Treasury, depositaries of public money, except receipts from customs, under regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and has authorized their employment as financial agents of the Government, and the banks are required to perform such reasonable duties, as depositaries of public moneys and financial agents as may be required of them. The Secretary of the Treasury shall require of the Federal Land Banks and the Joint Stock Land Banks, thus designated, satisfactory security, by the deposit of United States bonds or otherwise, for the safe-keeping and prompt payment of the public money deposited with them, and [210] for the faithful performance of their duties as the financial agents of the Government.

Section 6 also provides that no government funds deposited under the provisions of the section shall be invested in mortgage loans or Farm Loan Bonds.

It is said that the power to designate these banks as such depositaries has not been exercised by the Government, and that the Federal Land Banks have acted as federal agents only in the case of loans of money for seed purposes made in the summer of 1918, to which we have already referred. But the existence of the power under the Constitution is not determined by the extent of the exercise of the authority conferred under it. Congress declared it necessary to create these fiscal agencies, and to make them authorized depositaries of public money. Its power to do so is no longer open to question.

But, it is urged, the attempt to create these federal agencies, and to make these banks fiscal agents and public depositaries of the Government, is but a pretext. But nothing is better settled by the decisions of this court than that when Congress acts within the limits of its constitutional authority, it is not the province of the judicial branch of the Government to question its motives. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 541; McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27; Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U.S. 107, 147, 153, 156, and cases cited.

That Congress has seen fit, in making these banks fiscal agencies and depositaries of public moneys, to grant to them banking powers of a limited character, in nowise detracts from the authority of Congress to use them for the governmental purposes named, if it sees fit to do so. A bank may be organized with or without the authority to issue currency. It may be authorized to receive deposits in only a limited way. Speaking generally, a bank is a moneyed institution to facilitate the borrowing, lending and caring for money. But whether [211] technically banks, or not, these organizations may serve the governmental purposes declared by Congress in their creation. Furthermore, these institutions are organized to serve as a market for United States bonds. Not less than 5% of the capital of the Federal Land Banks, for which stock is outstanding to Farm Loan Associations, is required to be invested in United States bonds. Both kinds of banks are empowered to buy and sell United States bonds.

In First National Bank v. Union Trust Co., supra, this court sustained the power of Congress to enable a national bank to transact business, which, by itself considered, might be beyond the power of Congress to authorize. In that case it was held to be within the authority of Congress to permit national banks to exercise, by permission of the Federal Reserve Board, when not in contravention of local law, the office of trustee, executor, administrator or registrar of stocks or bonds.

We, therefore, conclude that the creation of these banks, and the grant of authority to them to act for the Government as depositaries of public moneys and purchasers of Government bonds, brings them within the creative power of Congress although they may be intended, in connection with other privileges and duties, to facilitate the making of loans upon farm security at low rates of interest. This does not destroy the validity of these enactments any more than the general banking powers destroyed the authority of Congress to create the United States Bank, or the authority given to national banks to carry on additional activities, destroyed the authority of Congress to create those institutions.

In the brief filed upon reargument counsel for the appellant seem to admit the power of Congress to appropriate money for the direct purposes named, and in that brief they say: "Tax exemption is the real issue sought to be settled here." Deciding, as we do, that these institutions [212] have been created by Congress within the exercise of its legitimate authority, we think the power to make the securities here involved tax exempt necessarily follows. This principle was settled in McCulloch v. Maryland, and Osborn v. Bank, supra.

That the Federal Government can, if it sees fit to do so, exempt such securities from taxation, seems obvious upon the clearest principles. But, it is said to be an invasion of state authority to extend the tax exemption so as to restrain the power of the State. Of a similar contention made in McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice Marshall uttered his often quoted statement: "That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance in conferring on one government a power to control the constitutional measures of another, which other, with respect to those very measures, is declared to be supreme over that which exerts the control, are propositions not to be denied." 4 Wheat. 431.

The same principle has been recognized in the National Bank Cases declaring the power of the States to tax the property and franchises of national banks only to the extent authorized by the laws of Congress. Owensboro National Bank v. Owensboro, 173 U.S. 664, involved the validity of a franchise tax in Kentucky on national banks. In that case this court declared (pp. 668, 669) that the States were wholly without power to levy any tax directly or indirectly upon national banks, their property, assets or franchises, except so far as the permissive legislation of Congress allowed such taxation; and the court declared that the right granted to tax the real estate of such banks, and the shares in the names of the shareholders, constituted the extent of the permission given by Congress, and any tax beyond these was declared to be void.

[213] In Farmers & Mechanics Savings Bank v. Minnesota, 232 U.S. 516, this court held that a State may not tax bonds issued by the municipality of a territory; that to tax such bonds as property in the hands of the holder is, in the last analysis, an imposition upon the right of a municipality to issue them.

The exercise of such taxing power by the States might be so used as to hamper and destroy the exercise of authority conferred by Congress, and this justifies the exemption. If the States can tax these bonds they may destroy the means provided for obtaining the necessary funds for the future operation of the banks. With the wisdom and policy of this legislation we have nothing to do. Ours is only the function of ascertaining whether Congress in the creation of the banks, and in exempting these securities from taxation, federal and state, has acted within the limits of its constitutional authority. For the reasons stated, we think the contention of the Government, and of the appellees, that these banks are constitutionally organized and the securities here involved legally exempted from taxation, must be sustained.

It follows that the decree of the District Court is

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES, dissenting.

No doubt it is desirable that the question raised in this case should be set at rest, but that can be done by the Courts of the United States only within the limits of the jurisdiction conferred upon them by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. As this suit was brought by a citizen of Missouri against a Missouri corporation the [214] single ground upon which the jurisdiction of the District Court can be maintained is that the suit "arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States" within the meaning of § 24 of the Judicial Code. I am of opinion that this case does not arise in that way and therefore that the bill should have been dismissed.

It is evident that the cause of action arises not under any law of the United States but wholly under Missouri law. The defendant is a Missouri corporation and the right claimed is that of a stockholder to prevent the directors from doing an act, that is, making an investment, alleged to be contrary to their duty. But the scope of their duty depends upon the charter of their corporation and other laws of Missouri. If those laws had authorized the investment in terms the plaintiff would have had no case, and this seems to me to make manifest what I am unable to deem even debatable, that, as I have said, the cause of action arises wholly under Missouri law. If the Missouri law authorizes or forbids the investment according to the determination of this Court upon a point under the Constitution or acts of Congress, still that point is material only because the Missouri law saw fit to make it so. The whole foundation of the duty is Missouri law, which at its sole will incorporated the other law as it might incorporate a document. The other law or document depends for its relevance and effect not on its own force but upon the law that took it up, so I repeat once more the cause of action arises wholly from the law of the State.

But it seems to me that a suit cannot be said to arise under any other law than that which creates the cause of action. It may be enough that the law relied upon creates a part of the cause of action although not the whole, as held in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 819-823, which perhaps is all that is meant by the less guarded expressions in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 379. I am content to assume this to be so, although the Osborn Case [215] has been criticized and regretted. But the law must create at least a part of the cause of action by its own force, for it is the suit, not a question in the suit, that must arise under the law of the United States. The mere adoption by a state law of a United States law as a criterion or test, when the law of the United States has no force proprio vigore, does not cause a case under the state law to be also a case under the law of the United States, and so it has been decided by this Court again and again. Miller v. Swann, 150 U.S. 132, 136, 137; Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 237 U.S. 300, 303. See also Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U.S. 505, 508, 509.

I find nothing contrary to my views in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1, 10. It seems to me plain that the objection that I am considering was not before the mind of the Court or the subject of any of its observations, if open. I am confirmed in my view of that case by the fact that in the next volume of reports is a decision, reached not without discussion and with but a single dissent, that "a suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action." That was the ratio decidendi of American Well Works Co. v. Layne & Bowler Co., 241 U.S. 257, 260. I know of no decisions to the contrary and see no reason for overruling it now.

MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS concurs in this dissent. In view of our opinion that this Court has no jurisdiction we express no judgment on the merits.

[1] At the first hearing Mr. Solicitor General King and Mr. W.G. McAdoo, by leave of court, filed a brief on behalf of the United States as amici curiae.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT.

[717] Willard P. Owens argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were E. H. Rayson and R. R. Kramer.

Clarence Walker argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was William Ables, Jr.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent Paul Gibbs was awarded compensatory and punitive damages in this action against petitioner United Mine Workers of America (UMW) for alleged violations of § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 158, as amended,^[1] and of the common law of [718] Tennessee. The case grew out of the rivalry between the United Mine Workers and the Southern Labor Union over representation of workers in the southern Appalachian coal fields. Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company, not a party here, laid off 100 miners of the UMW's Local 5881 when it closed one of its mines in southern Tennessee during the spring of 1960. Late that summer, Grundy Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated, hired respondent as mine superintendent to attempt to open a new mine on Consolidated's property at nearby Gray's Creek through use of members of the Southern Labor Union. As part of the arrangement, Grundy also gave respondent a contract to haul the mine's coal to the nearest railroad loading point.

On August 15 and 16, 1960, armed members of Local 5881 forcibly prevented the opening of the mine, threatening respondent and beating an organizer for the rival union.^[2] The members of the local believed Consolidated [719] had promised them the jobs at the new mine; they insisted that if anyone would do the work, they would. At this time, no representative of the UMW, their international union, was present. George Gilbert, the UMW's field representative for the area including Local 5881, was away at Middlesboro, Kentucky, attending an Executive Board meeting when the members of the local discovered Grundy's plan;^[3] he did not return to the area until late in the day of August 16. There was uncontradicted testimony that he first learned of the violence while at the meeting, and returned with explicit instructions from his international union superiors to establish a limited picket line, to prevent any further violence, and to see to it that the strike did not spread to neighboring mines. There was no further violence at the mine site; a picket line was maintained there for nine months; and no further attempts were made to open the mine during that period.^[4]

[720] Respondent lost his job as superintendent, and never entered into performance of his haulage contract. He testified that he soon began to lose other trucking contracts and mine leases he held in nearby areas. Claiming these effects to be the result of a concerted union plan against him, he sought recovery not against Local 5881 or its members, but only against petitioner, the international union. The suit was brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and jurisdiction was premised on allegations of secondary boycotts under § 303. The state law claim, for which jurisdiction was based upon the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, asserted "an unlawful conspiracy and an unlawful boycott aimed at him and [Grundy] to maliciously, wantonly and willfully interfere with his contract of employment and with his contract of haulage."^[5]

The trial judge refused to submit to the jury the claims of pressure intended to cause mining firms other than Grundy to cease doing business with Gibbs; he found those claims unsupported by the evidence. The jury's verdict was that the UMW had violated both § 303 and state law. Gibbs was awarded $60,000 as damages under the employment contract and $14,500 under the haulage contract; he was also awarded $100,000 punitive damages. On motion, the trial court set aside the award of damages with respect to the haulage contract on the ground that damage was unproved. It also held that union pressure on Grundy to discharge respondent as supervisor would constitute only a primary dispute with Grundy, as respondent's employer, and hence was not cognizable as a claim under § 303. Interference with the [721] employment relationship was cognizable as a state claim, however, and a remitted award was sustained on the state law claim.^[6] 220 F. Supp. 871. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 343 F. 2d 609. We granted certiorari. 382 U. S. 809. We reverse.

I.

A threshold question is whether the District Court properly entertained jurisdiction of the claim based on Tennessee law. There was no need to decide a like question in Teamsters Union v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, since the pertinent state claim there was based on peaceful secondary activities and we held that state law based on such activities had been pre-empted by § 303. But here respondent's claim is based in part on proofs of violence and intimidation. "[W]e have allowed the States to grant compensation for the consequences, as defined by the traditional law of torts, of conduct marked by violence and imminent threats to the public order. United Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634; United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Corp., 347 U. S. 656. . . . State jurisdiction has prevailed in these situations because the compelling state interest, in the scheme of our federalism, in the maintenance of domestic peace is not overridden in the absence of clearly expressed congressional direction." San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 247.

[722] The fact that state remedies were not entirely pre-empted does not, however, answer the question whether the state claim was properly adjudicated in the District Court absent diversity jurisdiction. The Court held in Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238, that state law claims are appropriate for federal court determination if they form a separate but parallel ground for relief also sought in a substantial claim based on federal law. The Court distinguished permissible from nonpermissible exercises of federal judicial power over state law claims by contrasting "a case where two distinct grounds in support of a single cause of action are alleged, one only of which presents a federal question, and a case where two separate and distinct causes of action are alleged, one only of which is federal in character. In the former, where the federal question averred is not plainly wanting in substance, the federal court, even though the federal ground be not established, may nevertheless retain and dispose of the case upon the non-federal ground; in the latter it may not do so upon the non-federal cause of action." 289 U. S., at 246. The question is into which category the present action fell.

Hurn was decided in 1933, before the unification of law and equity by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. At the time, the meaning of "cause of action" was a subject of serious dispute;^[7] the phrase might "mean one thing for one purpose and something different for another." [723] United States v. Memphis Cotton Oil Co., 288 U. S. 62, 67-68.^[8] The Court in Hurn identified what it meant by the term by citation of Baltimore S. S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U. S. 316, a case in which "cause of action" had been used to identify the operative scope of the doctrine of res judicata. In that case the Court had noted that " `the whole tendency of our decisions is to require a plaintiff to try his whole cause of action and his whole case at one time.' " 274 U. S., at 320. It stated its holding in the following language, quoted in part in the Hurn opinion:

"Upon principle, it is perfectly plain that the respondent [a seaman suing for an injury sustained while working aboard ship] suffered but one actionable wrong and was entitled to but one recovery, whether his injury was due to one or the other of several distinct acts of alleged negligence or to a combination of some or all of them. In either view, there would be but a single wrongful invasion of a single primary right of the plaintiff, namely, the right of bodily safety, whether the acts constituting such invasion were one or many, simple or complex.

"A cause of action does not consist of facts, but of the unlawful violation of a right which the facts show. The number and variety of the facts alleged do not establish more than one cause of action so long as their result, whether they be considered severally or in combination, is the violation of but one right by a single legal wrong. The mere multiplication of grounds of negligence alleged as causing the same injury does not result in multiplying the causes of action. `The facts are merely the means, [724] and not the end. They do not constitute the cause of action, but they show its existence by making the wrong appear.' " Id., at 321.

Had the Court found a jurisdictional bar to reaching the state claim in Hurn, we assume that the doctrine of res judicata would not have been applicable in any subsequent state suit. But the citation of Baltimore S. S. Co. shows that the Court found that the weighty policies of judicial economy and fairness to parties reflected in res judicata doctrine were in themselves strong counsel for the adoption of a rule which would permit federal courts to dispose of the state as well as the federal claims.

With the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the unified form of action, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 2, much of the controversy over "cause of action" abated. The phrase remained as the keystone of the Hurn test, however, and, as commentators have noted,^[9] has been the source of considerable confusion. Under the Rules, the impulse is toward entertaining the broadest possible scope of action consistent with fairness to the parties; joinder of claims, parties and remedies is strongly encouraged.^[10] Yet because the Hurn question involves issues of jurisdiction as well as convenience, there has been some tendency to limit its application to cases in which the state and federal claims are, as in Hurn, "little more than the equivalent of different epithets to characterize the same group of circumstances." 289 U. S., at 246.^[11]

[725] This limited approach is unnecessarily grudging Pendent jurisdiction, in the sense of judicial power, exists whenever there is a claim "arising under [the] Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority . . . ," U. S. Const., Art. III, § 2, and the relationship between that claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional "case."^[12] The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, 289 U. S. 103. The state and federal claims must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact. But if, considered without regard to their federal or state character, a plaintiff's claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then, assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole.^[13]

[726] That power need not be exercised in every case in which it is found to exist. It has consistently been recognized that pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff's right.^[14] Its justification lies in considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants; if these are not present a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims, even though bound to apply state law to them, Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64. Needless decisions of state law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the parties, by procuring for them a surer-footed reading of applicable law.^[15] Certainly, if the federal claims are dismissed before trial, even though not insubstantial in a jurisdictional sense, the state claims should be dismissed as well.^[16] Similarly, if it appears that the state issues substantially predominate, whether in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the remedy sought, the state claims may be dismissed without prejudice and [727] left for resolution to state tribunals. There may, on the other hand, be situations in which the state claim is so closely tied to questions of federal policy that the argument for exercise of pendent jurisdiction is particularly strong. In the present case, for example, the allowable scope of the state claim implicates the federal doctrine of pre-emption; while this interrelationship does not create statutory federal question jurisdiction, Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149, its existence is relevant to the exercise of discretion. Finally, there may be reasons independent of jurisdictional considerations, such as the likelihood of jury confusion in treating divergent legal theories of relief, that would justify separating state and federal claims for trial, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 42 (b). If so, jurisdiction should ordinarily be refused.

The question of power will ordinarily be resolved on the pleadings. But the issue whether pendent jurisdiction has been properly assumed is one which remains open throughout the litigation. Pretrial procedures or even the trial itself may reveal a substantial hegemony of state law claims, or likelihood of jury confusion, which could not have been anticipated at the pleading stage. Although it will of course be appropriate to take account in this circumstance of the already completed course of the litigation, dismissal of the state claim might even then be merited. For example, it may appear that the plaintiff was well aware of the nature of his proofs and the relative importance of his claims; recognition 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. 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.

[728] We are not prepared to say that in the present case the District Court exceeded its discretion in proceeding to judgment on the state claim. We may assume for purposes of decision that the District Court was correct in its holding that the claim of pressure on Grundy to terminate the employment contract was outside the purview of § 303. Even so, the § 303 claims based on secondary pressures on Grundy relative to the haulage contract and on other coal operators generally were substantial. Although § 303 limited recovery to compensatory damages based on secondary pressures, Teamsters Union v. Morton, supra, and state law allowed both compensatory and punitive damages, and allowed such damages as to both secondary and primary activity, the state and federal claims arose from the same nucleus of operative fact and reflected alternative remedies. Indeed, the verdict sheet sent in to the jury authorized only one award of damages, so that recovery could not be given separately on the federal and state claims.

It is true that the § 303 claims ultimately failed and that the only recovery allowed respondent was on the state claim. We cannot confidently say, however, that the federal issues were so remote or played such a minor role at the trial that in effect the state claim only was tried. Although the District Court dismissed as unproved the § 303 claims that petitioner's secondary activities included attempts to induce coal operators other than Grundy to cease doing business with respondent, the court submitted the § 303 claims relating to Grundy to the jury. The jury returned verdicts against petitioner on those § 303 claims, and it was only on petitioner's motion for a directed verdict and a judgment n. o. v. that the verdicts on those claims were set aside. The District Judge considered the claim as to the haulage [729] contract proved as to liability, and held it failed only for lack of proof of damages. Although there was some risk of confusing the jury in joining the state and federal claims—especially since, as will be developed, differing standards of proof of UMW involvement applied— the possibility of confusion could be lessened by employing a special verdict form, as the District Court did. Moreover, the question whether the permissible scope of the state claim was limited by the doctrine of pre-emption afforded a special reason for the exercise of pendent jurisdiction; the federal courts are particularly appropriate bodies for the application of pre-emption principles. We thus conclude that although it may be that the District Court might, in its sound discretion, have dismissed the state claim, the circumstances show no error in refusing to do so.

II.

This Court has consistently recognized the right of States to deal with violence and threats of violence appearing in labor disputes, sustaining a variety of remedial measures against the contention that state law was pre-empted by the passage of federal labor legislation. Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Board, 315 U. S. 740; United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 347 U. S. 656; United Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin Board, 351 U. S. 266; Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131; United Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634. Petitioner concedes the principle, but argues that the permissible scope of state remedies in this area is strictly confined to the direct consequences of such conduct, and does not include consequences resulting from associated peaceful picketing or other union activity. We agree.

Our opinions on this subject, frequently announced over weighty arguments in dissent that state remedies [730] were being given too broad scope, have approved only remedies carefully limited to the protection of the compelling state interest in the maintenance of domestic peace. Thus, in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, we read our prior decisions as only allowing "the States to grant compensation for the consequences, as defined by the traditional law of torts, of conduct marked by violence and imminent threats to the public order," id., at 247, and noted that in Laburnum

"damages were restricted to the `damages directly and proximately caused by wrongful conduct chargeable to the defendants . . .' as defined by the traditional law of torts. . . . Thus there is nothing in the measure of damages to indicate that state power was exerted to compensate for anything more than the direct consequences of the violent conduct." Id., 248, n. 6. at 249.

In Russell, we specifically observed that the jury had been charged that to award damages it must find a proximate relation between the violence and threats of force and violence complained of, on the one hand, and the loss of wages allegedly suffered, on the other. 356 U. S., at 638, n. 3. In the two Wisconsin Board cases it was noted that the State's administrative-injunctive relief was limited to prohibition against continuation of the unlawful picketing, not all picketing. 315 U. S., at 748; 351 U. S., at 269-270, n. 3. And in Youngdahl, the Court held that a state court injunction which would have prohibited all picketing must be modified to permit peaceful picketing of the premises. We said, "[t]hough the state court was within its discretionary power in enjoining future acts of violence, intimidation and threats of violence by the strikers and the union, yet it is equally clear that such court entered the pre-empted domain [731] of the National Labor Relations Board insofar as it enjoined peaceful picketing . . . ." 355 U. S., at 139.^[17]

It is true that in Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U. S. 287, the Court approved sweeping state injunctive relief barring any future picketing in a labor dispute, whether peaceful or not. That case, however, was decided only on a constitutional claim of freedom of speech. We did not consider the impact of federal labor policy on state regulatory power. Moreover, as we recognized in Youngdahl, supra, at 139, the case was decided in the context of a strike marked by extreme and repeated acts of violence—"a pattern of violence . . . which would inevitably reappear in the event picketing were later resumed." The Court in Meadowmoor had stated the question presented as "whether a state can choose to authorize its courts to enjoin acts of picketing in themselves peaceful when they are enmeshed with contemporaneously violent conduct which is concededly outlawed," 312 U. S., at 292, and had reasoned that

"acts which in isolation are peaceful may be part of a coercive thrust when entangled with acts of violence. The picketing in this case was set in a background of violence. In such a setting it could justifiably be concluded that the momentum of fear generated by past violence would survive even though future picketing might be wholly peaceful." Id., at 294.

Such special facts, if they appeared in an action for damages after picketing marred by violence had occurred, [732] might support the conclusion that all damages resulting from the picketing were proximately caused by its violent component or by the fear which that violence engendered.^[18] Where the consequences of peaceful and violent conduct are separable, however, it is clear that recovery may be had only for the latter.

In the present case, petitioner concedes that violence which would justify application of state tort law within these narrow bounds occurred during the first two days of the strike. It is a separate issue, however, whether the pleadings, the arguments of counsel to the jury, or the instructions to the jury adequately defined the compass within which damages could be awarded under state law. The tort claimed was, in essence, a "conspiracy" to interfere with Gibbs' contractual relations. The tort of "conspiracy" is poorly defined, and highly susceptible to judicial expansion; its relatively brief history is colored by use as a weapon against the developing labor movement.^[19] Indeed, a reading of the record in this case gives the impression that the notion of "conspiracy" was employed here to expand the application of state law substantially [733] beyond the limits to be observed in showing direct union involvement in violence.

Thus, respondent's complaint alleged "an unlawful conspiracy and an unlawful boycott . . . to maliciously, wantonly and willfully interfere with his contract of employment and with his contract of haulage." No limitation to interference by violence appears. Similarly, counsel in arguing to the jury asserted, not that the conspiracy in which the union had allegedly participated and from which its liability could be inferred was a conspiracy of violence but that it was a conspiracy to impose the UMW and the UMW's standard contract on the coal fields of Tennessee.^[20] Under the state law, it would not have been relevant that the union had not actually authorized, participated in or ratified the particular violence involved or even the general use of violence. It would only be necessary to show a conspiracy in which the union had a part, and to show also that those who engaged in the violence were members of the conspiracy and their acts were related to the conspiracy's purpose.^[21]

The instructions to the jury also appear not to have kept the conspiracy concept within any proper bounds. The charge instructed the jury separately on the § 303 and conspiracy claims, characterizing each as predicated on an assertion that there had been "unlawful" picketing action, and distinguishing one from the other on the basis that in the conspiracy claim "the lawfulness of the means rather than the lawfulness of the object or the purpose [734] of the picketing . . . is controlling." But in charging the conspiracy claim, the court stressed that the "unlawfulness" of the picketing, rather than violence as such, would be controlling. Thus, in characterizing respondent's claim of a conspiracy intentionally to interfere with his contractual relations with Grundy, the trial judge said respondent asserted the interference to be "wrongful in that it was accomplished by unlawful means, including violence and threats of violence." Turning to the question of the international union's responsibility, he said this depended on a showing that it "was a party to a conspiracy pursuant to which the interference was committed." He defined conspiracy as

"an agreement between two or more . . . to do an unlawful thing, or to do a lawful thing by unlawful means. . . . It is not essential to the existence of a conspiracy that the agreement between the conspirators be formally made between the parties at any one time, if, for example, two persons agreed to pursue an unlawful purpose or pursue a lawful purpose by unlawful means, then later a third person with knowledge of the existence of the conspiracy assents to it either impliedly or expressly and participates in it, then all three are conspirators in the same conspiracy. . . . [A]ll that is required is that each party to the conspiracy know of the existence of the conspiracy and that each agrees to assist in some manner in the furtherance of the unlawful purpose . . . or any unlawful means of accomplishing an unlawful purpose."

The trial judge then charged, in accordance with the Tennessee common law on conspiracy,^[22] that the union, if a member of a conspiracy, would be liable for all acts "done in concert . . . with the common purpose, and to effect [735] a common design," whether or not it had authorized, participated in, or ratified the particular acts. The jury was told it might award "only such damages as . . . he has sustained as a proximate and direct result of the action of the defendant," and that "[n]o award of damages can be made . . . on the basis of losses sustained . . . as a result of lawful activity upon the part of the defendant or its agents." Such instructions do not focus the jury's attention upon violence or threats of violence as the essential predicate of any recovery it might award.

III.

Even assuming the conspiracy concept could be and was kept within limits proper to the application of state tort law under the pre-emption doctrine, reversal is nevertheless required here for failure to meet the special proof requirements imposed by § 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act:^[23]

"No officer or member of any association or organization, and no association or organization participating or interested in a labor dispute, shall be held responsible or liable in any court of the United States for the unlawful acts of individual officers, members, or agents, except upon clear proof of actual participation in, or actual authorization of, such acts, or of ratification of such acts after actual knowledge thereof."

Petitioner vigorously contends that § 6 applied to the state claims in this case; that, on this record, it cannot be charged with having participated in or authorized the violence of August 15-16; and that its acts once it learned of the violence fell short of what would be necessary to show either ratification of the violence or any intent to build its picketing campaign upon the fears the violence engendered. We agree.

[736] We held in Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 403, that

"whether § 6 should be called a rule of evidence or one that changes the substantive law of agency . . . its purpose and effect was to relieve organizations. . . and members of those organizations from liability for damages or imputation of guilt for lawless acts done in labor disputes by some individual officers or members of the organization, without clear proof that the organization or member charged with responsibility for the offense actually participated, gave prior authorization, or ratified such acts after actual knowledge of their perpetration."

Shortly thereafter, Congress passed the Labor Management Relations Act, which expressly provides that for the purposes of that statute, including § 303, the responsibility of a union for the acts of its members and officers is to be measured by reference to ordinary doctrines of agency, rather than the more stringent standards of § 6.^[24] Yet although the legislative history indicates that Congress was well aware of the Carpenters decision,^[25] it did not repeal § 6 outright, but left it applicable to cases not arising under the new Act. This selectivity is not surprising, for on state claims, though not on § 303 claims, punitive damages may be recovered. The driving force behind § 6^[26] and the opposition to § 303, even in its limited form,^[27] was the fear that unions might be destroyed [737] if they could be held liable for damage done by acts beyond their practical control. Plainly, § 6 applies to federal court adjudications of state tort claims arising out of labor disputes, whether or not they are associated with claims under § 303 to which the section does not apply.^[28]

Although the statute does not define "clear proof," its history and rationale suggest that Congress meant at least to signify a meaning like that commonly accorded such similar phrases as "clear, unequivocal, and convincing proof." Under this standard, the plaintiff in a civil case is not required to satisfy the criminal standard of reasonable doubt on the issue of participation, authorization or ratification; neither may he prevail by meeting the ordinary civil burden of persuasion. He is required to persuade by a substantial margin, to come forward with "more than a bare preponderance of the evidence to prevail." Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 125. In our view, that burden was not met.^[29]

[738] At the outset, it is clear that the requisite showing was not made as to possible union authorization of or participation in the violence of August 15 and 16. Although it is undoubtedly true that the officers and members of Local 5881 were present in force at the mine site on those days, neither the Local nor they are parties to this suit. Mr. Gilbert, the UMW representative, had left the area for a business meeting before the series of events culminating in the violence, and immediately upon his return, the violence subsided. The Sixth Circuit conceded that "[t]he proofs were sketchy as to defendant's responsibility for the [first two days' violence]." This view accurately reflects the state of the record. Petitioner was not even aware of Grundy's plan to open the Gray's Creek mine until after the violence had occurred.

The remaining issue is whether there was clear proof that the union ratified the violence which had occurred. Preliminarily, we note that it would be inconsistent with the fabric of national labor policy to infer ratification from the mere fact that petitioner involved itself in the dispute after the violence had occurred, or from the fact that it carried on some normal union functions, such as provision of strike relief. A union would ordinarily [739] undertake these tasks during the course of a lawful strike. National labor policy requires that national unions be encouraged to exercise a restraining influence on explosive strike situations; and when they seek to do so, they should not for these activities be made to risk liability for such harm as may already have been done. The fact that ripples of the earlier violence may still be felt should not be permitted, and under § 6 is not permitted, to impose such liability. Because the dispute which sparked the violence will often continue, the union will feel a responsibility to take up the dispute as well as to curb its excesses. There can be no rigid requirement that a union affirmatively disavow such unlawful acts as may previously have occurred. Cf. ILGWU v. Labor Board, 237 F. 2d 545. What is required is proof, either that the union approved the violence which occurred, or that it participated actively or by knowing tolerance in further acts which were in themselves actionable under state law or intentionally drew upon the previous violence for their force.

The record here is persuasive that the petitioner did what it could to stop or curtail the violence. There was repeated and uncontradicted testimony that when news of the violence reached the meeting that Gilbert was attending, he was given firm instructions to return to the scene, to assume control of the strike, to suppress violence, to limit the size of the picket line, and to assure that no other area mines were affected.^[30] He [740] succeeded. Although the day after his return two Consolidated officers were harassed by a large and unruly mob in a nearby town, this incident was unrelated to respondent, and was not repeated. There was no further violence at the mine site, and the number of pickets was reduced to a very few. Other mines in the immediate area, including two worked on lease by Gibbs, continued to operate, although strenuous effort was required to accomplish this; one union official testified, "I thought I was going to get whipped two or three times [by members of the Local who opposed this policy]."^[31]

To be sure, there was testimony that Gilbert and, through him, the international union were not pleased with respondent's role in the abortive venture to open the Gray's Creek mines with members of the Southern Labor Union. A company officer testified that when the mines finally opened respondent was not hired, because "Had I hired Mr. Paul Gibbs none of these mines would be open today." Respondent testified that Gilbert had told him, shortly after assuming control of the strike, "I want you to keep your damn hands off of that Gray's Creek area over there, and tell that Southern Labor Union that we don't intend for you to work that mine." To another, Gilbert is alleged to have said, "Hell, we can't let that [741] go on . . . Paul was trying to bring this other union in there, and [Gilbert said] he ain't going to get by with it." A third witness reported remarks of a similar tenor. Respondent testified that fear for his own safety caused him not to visit his mine leases after the events of August 15 and 16. His foreman testified to minor acts of violence at the mine site, never connected to any person or persons.

The relevant question, however, is whether Gilbert or other UMW representatives were clearly shown to have endorsed violence or threats of violence as a means of settling the dispute. The Sixth Circuit's answer was that they had. Its view of the record gave it

"the impression that the threat of violence remained throughout the succeeding days and months. The night and day picketing that followed its spectacular beginning was but a guaranty and warning that like treatment would be accorded further attempts to open the Gray's Creek area. The aura of violence remained to enhance the effectiveness of the picketing. Certainly there is a threat of violence when the man who has just knocked me down my front steps continues to stand guard at my front door." 343 F. 2d, at 616.

An "impression" is too ephemeral a product to be the result of "clear proof." As we have said, the mere fact of continued picketing at the mine site is not properly relied upon to show ratification. But even accepting the passage as a holding that "clear proof" of UMW involvement is present, we do not so read the record.

If there was a remaining threat of violence here, it was a threat which arose from the context of the dispute, and not from the manner in which the international union was shown to have handled it. This dispute began when unemployed miners in the Appalachian hills discovered [742] that jobs they believed had been promised to them were being given to others behind their backs. In considering the vicarious liability of the international union, accommodation must be made for that fact. The record here clearly bears the construction that the international union exerted pressure to assure that respondent would lose his present jobs and obtain no more. But the record fails to rebut petitioner's contention that it had been unwilling to see its ends accomplished through violence, and indeed had sought to control the excesses which had occurred. Since the record establishes only peaceful activities in this regard on the part of petitioner, respondent was limited to his § 303 remedy. Teamsters Union v. Morton, supra. Although our result would undoubtedly be firmer if the petitioner had assured respondent that, having assumed control of the strike, it would prevent further violence, in the circumstances of this case the crucial fact of petitioner's participation in or ratification of the violence that occurred was not proved to the degree of certainty required by § 6.

Reversed

THE CHIEF JUSTICE took no part in the decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE CLARK joins, concurring.

I agree with and join in Part I of the Court's opinion relating to pendent jurisdiction. As to Part II, I refrain from joining the Court's speculations about the uses to which it may put the pre-emption doctrine in similar future cases. The holding in Part III that the Norris-LaGuardia Act requires reversal here seems to me correct, but my interpretation of the statute is different and somewhat narrower than that of the Court.

The statutory requirement for union liability in this case is "clear proof of actual participation in, or actual [743] authorization of . . . [the unlawful acts], or of ratification of such acts after actual knowledge thereof."^[32] The Court construes this provision as fixing a new test of the quantum of proof, somewhere between ordinary civil and criminal standards. I do not think the admittedly vague legislative history imports this reading, and I believe it introduces a revealing inconsistency since the new test could not be applied to criminal cases, concededly governed by the same statutory language, without standing the statute on its head by having it reduce present quantum-of-proof requirements in criminal cases, that is, proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." The best reading I can give the statute, absent more light than has been shed upon it in this case, is one directing it against a particular type of inferential proof of authority or ratification unacceptable to those who framed the law. For me, the gist of the statute is that in the usual instance a union's carrying on of its normal strike functions and its failure to take affirmative action to dispel misconduct are not in themselves proof of authorization or ratification of the wrongdoing.^[33]

[744] In the present case, apart from a few quite ambiguous episodes, there was nothing to bring the violence home to the union except, as the Sixth Circuit stressed (see p. 741, ante), that the union continued through its picketing the threat that the earlier violence would be renewed and did not repudiate the violence or promise to oppose its renewal. Whatever arguments could be made for imposing liability in such a situation, I think it approximates what the statute was designed to forbid. On this basis, I concur in the reversal.

[1] Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 provides:

"(a) It shall be unlawful, for the purpose of this section only, in an industry or activity affecting commerce, for any labor organization to engage in any activity or conduct defined as an unfair labor practice in section 158 (b) (4) of this title.

"(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by reason [of] any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the limitations and provisions of section 185 of this title without respect to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdiction of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained and the cost of the suit." 29 U. S. C. § 187 (1964 ed.).

Section 158 (b) (4) of Title 29 U. S. C. (1964 ed.), § 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 73 Stat. 542, provides, in relevant part, that:

"(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—

.....

"(4) (i) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise, handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is—

.....

"(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person, or forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 159 of this title: Provided, That nothing contained in this clause (B) shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing . . . ."

[2] These events were also the subject of two proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board. In one, the Board found that Consolidated had unlawfully assisted the Southern Labor Union in violation of § 8 (a) (2) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 49 Stat. 452, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a) (2) (1964 ed.), Tennessee Consolidated Coal Co., 131 N. L. R. B. 536, enforcement denied sub nom. Labor Board v. Tennessee Consolidated Coal Co., 307 F. 2d 374 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1962). In the other, it found that Local 5881 had engaged in coercive picketing in violation of § 8 (b) (1) (A), 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (1) (A) (1964 ed.), Local 5881, UMWA, 130 N. L. R. B. 1181. The International itself was not charged in this proceeding, and the Board's consideration focused entirely on the events of August 16.

[3] The only testimony suggesting that Gilbert might have been at the mine site on August 15-16 was Gibbs' statement that "Well, everything happened so fast there, I'm thinking that I seen Mr. Gilbert drive up there, but where he went, I don't know." Whether such testimony could ever be sufficient to establish presence we need not decide, since respondent effectively conceded in the Sixth Circuit and here that Gilbert was in Middlesboro when the violence occurred.

[4] Immediately after the Board's order in the proceedings against it, note 2, supra, Consolidated reopened the mine it had closed during the spring of 1960, and hired the men of Local 5881. Later, and while this litigation was awaiting trial, that mine was closed as the result of an accident. At this point, the fall of 1962, the Gray's Creek mine was opened using members of Local 5881.

[5] See Dukes v. Brotherhood of Painters, Local No. 437, 191 Tenn. 495, 235 S. W. 2d 7 (1950); Brumley v. Chattanooga Speedway & Motordrome Co., 138 Tenn. 534, 198 S. W. 775 (1917); Dale v. Temple Co., 186 Tenn. 69, 208 S. W. 2d 344 (1948).

[6] The questions had been submitted to the jury on a special verdict form. The suggested remittitur from $60,000 to $30,000 for damages on the employment contract and from $100,000 to $45,000 punitive damages was accepted by respondent. In view of our disposition, we do not reach petitioner's contentions that the verdict must be set aside in toto for prejudicial summation by respondent's counsel, or because the actual damages awarded substantially exceeded the proof, and the punitive damage award may have rested in part on the award of actual damages for interference with the haulage contract, which was vacated as unproved.

[7] See Clark on Code Pleading 75 et seq. (1928); Clark, The Code Cause of Action, 33 Yale L. J. 817 (1924); McCaskill, Actions and Causes of Actions, 34 Yale L. J. 614 (1925); McCaskill, One Form of Civil Action, But What Procedure, for the Federal Courts, 30 Ill. L. Rev. 415 (1935); Gavit, A "Pragmatic Definition" of the "Cause of Action"? 82 U. Pa. L. Rev. 129 (1933); Clark, The Cause of Action, id., at 354 (1934); Gavit, The Cause of Action—a Reply, id., at 695 (1934).

[8] See also American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U. S. 6, 12; Musher Foundation, Inc. v. Alba Trading Co., 127 F. 2d 9, 12 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1942) (dissenting opinion of Clark, J.).

[9] Shulman & Jaegerman, Some Jurisdictional Limitations on Federal Procedure, 45 Yale L. J. 393, 397-410 (1936); Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of the Judicial Code, 13 Law & Contemp. Prob. 216, 232 (1948); Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure § 23 (1965 Supp.).

[10] See, e. g., Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 2, 18-20, 42.

[11] E. g., Musher Foundation v. Alba Trading Co., supra; Note, The Evolution and Scope of the Doctrine of Pendent Jurisdiction in the Federal Courts, 62 Col. L. Rev. 1018, 1029-1030 (1962).

[12] The question whether joined state and federal claims constitute one "case" for jurisdictional purposes is to be distinguished from the often equally difficult inquiry whether any "case" at all is presented, Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109, although the issue whether a claim for relief qualifies as a case "arising under . . . the Laws of the United States" and the issue whether federal and state claims constitute one "case" for pendent jurisdiction purposes may often appear together, see Dann v. Studebaker-Packard Corp., 288 F. 2d 201, 211-215 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1961); Borak v. J. I. Case Co., 317 F. 2d 838, 847-848 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1963), aff'd on other grounds, 377 U. S. 426.

[13] Cf. Armstrong Co. v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 305 U. S. 315, 325. Note, Problems of Parallel State and Federal Remedies, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 513, 514 (1958). While it is commonplace that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not expand the jurisdiction of federal courts, they do embody "the whole tendency of our decisions. . . to require a plaintiff to try his . . . whole case at one time," Baltimore S. S. Co. v. Phillips, supra, and to that extent emphasize the basis of pendent jurisdiction.

[14] Massachusetts Universalist Convention v. Hildreth & Rogers Co., 183 F. 2d 497 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1950); Moynahan v. Pari-Mutuel Employees Guild, 317 F. 2d 209, 211-212 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963); op. cit. supra, notes 9 and 11.

[15] Some have seen this consideration as the principal argument against exercise of pendent jurisdiction. Thus, before Erie, it was remarked that "the limitations [on pendent jurisdiction] are in the wise discretion of the courts to be fixed in individual cases by the exercise of that statesmanship which is required of any arbiter of the relations of states to nation in a federal system." Shulman & Jaegerman, supra, note 9, at 408. In his oft-cited concurrence in Strachman v. Palmer, 177 F. 2d 427, 431 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1949), Judge Magruder counseled that "[f]ederal courts should not be overeager to hold on to the determination of issues that might be more appropriately left to settlement in state court litigation," at 433. See also Wechsler, supra, note 9, at 232-233; Note, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1660, 1661 (1961); Note, supra, note 11, at 1043-1044.

[16] Note, supra, note 11, at 1025-1026; Wham-O-Mfg. Co. v. Paradise Mfg. Co., 327 F. 2d 748, 752-754 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1964).

[17] In Teamsters Union v. Morton, supra, a similar analysis was applied to permit recovery under § 303 of damages suffered during a strike characterized by proscribed secondary activity only to the extent that the damages claimed were the proximate result of such activity; damages for associated primary strike activity could not be recovered.

[18] It would of course be relevant if the Board had already intervened and as here, note 2, supra, issued an order which permitted the continuance of peaceful picketing activity.

[19] On the flexibility of "conspiracy" as a tort, see Original Ballet Russe, Ltd. v. Ballet Theatre, Inc., 133 F. 2d 187, 189 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1943); Riley v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 195 F. 2d 812 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1952); Charlesworth, Conspiracy as a Ground of Liability in Tort, 36 L. Q. Rev. 38 (1920); Burdick, Conspiracy as a Crime, and as a Tort, 7 Col. L. Rev. 229 (1907); Burdick, The Tort of Conspiracy, 8 Col. L. Rev. 117 (1908). The anti-labor uses of the doctrine are well illustrated in Sayre, Labor and the Courts, 39 Yale L. J. 682, 684-687 (1930). Similar dangers are presented by the tort of malicious interference with contract, id., at 691-695, a doctrine equally young which in its origins required a showing of interference by force, threats, or fraud, but does so no more, Sayre, Inducing Breach of Contract, 36 Harv. L. Rev. 663 (1923); Comment, 56 Nw. U. L. Rev. 391 (1961).

[20] Respondent's attorney argued in summation:

". . . and here is the conspiracy. Mr. Pass [an official of petitioner's] testified, we want that contract all over this nation. That contract or better. I don't guess at that, there is his testimony. There is no deviation from that contract, Mr. Turnblazer so says, unless it is approved in Washington. They impose a nationwide contract all over this nation, all over. I don't care whether it is in Canada or West Virginia or California or Tennessee."

[21] Note 5, supra.

[22] Ibid.

[23] 47 Stat. 71, 29 U. S. C. § 106 (1964 ed.).

[24] National Labor Relations Act, as amended, § 2 (13), 61 Stat. 139, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (13) (1964 ed.); Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, §§ 301 (e), 303 (b), 61 Stat. 157, 159, 29 U. S. C. §§ 185 (e), 187 (b) (1964 ed.).

[25] See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 21.

[26] The fullest statement of the basis for § 6 appears in S. Rep. No. 163, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 19-21.

[27] The present § 303 was introduced on the floor of the Senate by Senator Taft, in response to a more severe proposal which would have permitted injunctive relief as well as damages against secondary activity. 93 Cong. Rec. 4769-4770, 4833-4847, 4858-4875 (1947). The tenor of the opposition may be seen in those pages, and also at 93 Cong. Rec. 4765-4766 (remarks of Senator Thomas); 93 Cong. Rec. 6451-6452 (remarks of Senator Morse); 93 Cong. Rec. 6520-6521 (remarks of Senator Pepper).

[28] The argument might be made that if there were "clear proof" that the local union was responsible, the responsibility of the international union vis-a-vis its local would be governed by a less demanding standard than that applicable for determining the responsibility of a labor organization or its officers on the basis of the acts of "individual officers, members, or agents" of the organization. Since the local was not a party here, we have no occasion to assess this issue. Liability of the international union is premised on the acts of Gilbert and the UMW's other agents, or not at all.

[29] In charging the jury, the trial judge first instructed the jury at length that the plaintiff's burden was to prove his case by a preponderance of the evidence, and that "if the plaintiff carries the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, however slight that preponderance might be, he has done all that is required of him and is entitled to a verdict." In connection with substantive discussion of the state claim, he then remarked:

"Before the defendant may be held responsible for the acts of its agents in entering into a conspiracy during the course of a labor dispute, there must be clear proof that the particular conspiracy charged or the act generally of that nature had been expressly authorized or necessarily followed from a granted authority by the defendant, or that such conspiracy was subsequently ratified by the defendant after actual knowledge thereof."

The phrase "clear proof," referred to just this once, was never explained. The possibility is strong that the jury either did not understand the phrase or completely overlooked it in the context of the lengthy charge given. No challenge is directly made to the charge, however, and it does not appear whether an objection was entered. Accordingly, we do not rest judgment on this point.

[30] Other international union personnel were also later sent, perhaps in part because the union wanted to put its best foot forward in the NLRB proceedings, note 2, supra,which ensued. One such person testified,

". . . I explained to them that the labor board was there investigating and that certainly any mass picketing would only cause them a great deal of trouble, and instructed them that they should limit the number of their pickets and under no circumstances have any violence or any threats of violence to any person coming into or near that area."

[31] About six days after the violence, an earthmoving equipment salesman driving by the entrance to the mine site stopped to ask how he might get to another mine. Gilbert was present among the picketers, and gave him instructions. Gilbert told the salesman that he "couldn't get through" the road chosen, and should approach by another route; he said the salesman should tell any union men he met that he had spoken to Gilbert. A sinister cast can be put on this incident, but it shows clearly only that Gilbert was in control of the strike and that operations unrelated to Gray's Creek were not being interfered with. It is significant that the salesman did not claim to have been stopped by force or threatened in any way; it appears he did no more than seek directions, and received no more in return.

[32] Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 6, 47 Stat. 71, 29 U. S. C. § 106 (1964 ed.). The section is quoted in full at p. 735, ante.

[33] The principal legislative document, S. Rep. No. 163, 72 Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 19-21, is not very illuminating but it does at the end of its discussion of the section make reference to Frankfurter & Greene, The Labor Injunction 74-75 (1930). At these pages, to illustrate rulings on union responsibility that are deemed improper, that book states: " `Authorization' has been found as a fact where the unlawful acts `have been on such a large scale, and in point of time and place so connected with the admitted conduct of the strike, that it is impossible on the record here to view them in any other light than as done in furtherance of a common purpose and as part of a common plan'; where the union has failed to discipline the wrong-doer; where the union has granted strike benefits." (Footnotes omitted.) See also id., at 220-221, n. 42; United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 418-419 and n. 2 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

[548] Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for petitioner in No. 04-70. With him on the briefs was Virginia A. Seitz. Donald B. Ayer argued the cause for petitioners in No. 04-79. With him on the briefs were Michael S. Fried, [549] Christian G. Vergonis, Freddie Perez-Gonzalez, and Robert H. Klonoff.

Eugene E. Stearns argued the cause for respondents in No. 04-70. With him on the briefs were Mark P. Dikeman, Mona E. Markus, Matthew W. Buttrick, and David C. Pollack. Robert A. Long, Jr., argued the cause for respondent in No. 04-79. With him on the brief were Jeremy D. Kernodle, Scott T. Rickman, and David J. Herman.^[2]

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.

These consolidated cases present the question whether a federal court in a diversity action may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional plaintiffs whose claims do not satisfy the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement, provided the claims are part of the same case or controversy as the claims of plaintiffs who do allege a sufficient amount in controversy. Our decision turns on the correct interpretation of 28 U. S. C. § 1367. The question has divided the Courts of Appeals, and we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 543 U. S. 924 (2004).

We hold that, where the other elements of jurisdiction are present and at least one named plaintiff in the action satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, § 1367 does authorize supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of other plaintiffs in the same Article III case or controversy, even if those claims are for less than the jurisdictional amount specified in the statute setting forth the requirements for diversity jurisdiction. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in No. 04-70, and we reverse [550] the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in No. 04-79.

I

In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon dealers filed a class-action suit against the Exxon Corporation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The dealers alleged an intentional and systematic scheme by Exxon under which they were overcharged for fuel purchased from Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District Court's § 1332(a) diversity jurisdiction. After a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the District Court certified the case for interlocutory review, asking whether it had properly exercised § 1367 supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class members who did not meet the jurisdictional minimum amount in controversy.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court's extension of supplemental jurisdiction to these class members. Allapattah Services, Inc. v. Exxon Corp., 333 F. 3d 1248 (2003). "[W]e find," the court held, "that § 1367 clearly and unambiguously provides district courts with the authority in diversity class actions to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class members who do not meet the minimum amount in controversy as long as the district court has original jurisdiction over the claims of at least one of the class representatives." Id., at 1256. This decision accords with the views of the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits. See Rosmer v. Pfizer, Inc., 263 F. 3d 110 (CA4 2001); Olden v. LaFarge Corp., 383 F. 3d 495 (CA6 2004); Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928 (CA7 1996); In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litigation, 123 F. 3d 599 (CA7 1997). The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, adopting a similar analysis of the statute, have held that in a diversity class action the unnamed class members need not meet the amount-in-controversy requirement, provided the named class members [551] do. These decisions, however, are unclear on whether all the named plaintiffs must satisfy this requirement. In re Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d 524 (CA5 1995); Gibson v. Chrysler Corp., 261 F. 3d 927 (CA9 2001).

In the other case now before us the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit took a different position on the meaning of § 1367(a). 370 F. 3d 124 (2004). In that case, a 9-year-old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, seeking damages for unusually severe injuries she received when she sliced her finger on a tuna can. Her family joined in the suit, seeking damages for emotional distress and certain medical expenses. The District Court granted summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that none of the plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however, ruled that the injured girl, but not her family members, had made allegations of damages in the requisite amount.

The Court of Appeals then addressed whether, in light of the fact that one plaintiff met the requirements for original jurisdiction, supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining plaintiffs' claims was proper under § 1367. The court held that § 1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction only when the district court has original jurisdiction over the action, and that in a diversity case original jurisdiction is lacking if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Although the Court of Appeals claimed to "express no view" on whether the result would be the same in a class action, id., at 143, n. 19, its analysis is inconsistent with that of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit's view of § 1367 is, however, shared by the Courts of Appeals for the Third, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, and the latter two Courts of Appeals have expressly applied this rule to class actions. See Meritcare, Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co., 166 F. 3d 214 (CA3 1999); Trimble v. Asarco, Inc., 232 F. 3d 946 (CA8 [552] 2000); Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co., 160 F. 3d 631 (CA10 1998).

II

A

The district courts of the United States, as we have said many times, are "courts of limited jurisdiction. They possess only that power authorized by Constitution and statute," Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America, 511 U. S. 375, 377 (1994). In order to provide a federal forum for plaintiffs who seek to vindicate federal rights, Congress has conferred on the district courts original jurisdiction in federal-question cases—civil actions that arise under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. 28 U. S. C. § 1331. In order to provide a neutral forum for what have come to be known as diversity cases, Congress also has granted district courts original jurisdiction in civil actions between citizens of different States, between U. S. citizens and foreign citizens, or by foreign states against U. S. citizens. § 1332. To ensure that diversity jurisdiction does not flood the federal courts with minor disputes, § 1332(a) requires that the matter in controversy in a diversity case exceed a specified amount, currently $75,000.

Although the district courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis, it is well established—in certain classes of cases—that, once a court has original jurisdiction over some claims in the action, it may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims that are part of the same case or controversy. The leading modern case for this principle is Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966). In Gibbs, the plaintiff alleged the defendant's conduct violated both federal and state law. The District Court, Gibbs held, had original jurisdiction over the action based on the federal claims. Gibbs confirmed that the District Court had the additional power (though not the obligation) to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over related state claims that arose from [553] the same Article III case or controversy. Id., at 725 ("The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. . . . [A]ssuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole").

As we later noted, the decision allowing jurisdiction over pendent state claims in Gibbs did not mention, let alone come to grips with, the text of the jurisdictional statutes and the bedrock principle that federal courts have no jurisdiction without statutory authorization. Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545, 548 (1989). In Finley, we nonetheless reaffirmed and rationalized Gibbs and its progeny by inferring from it the interpretive principle that, in cases involving supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims between parties properly in federal court, the jurisdictional statutes should be read broadly, on the assumption that in this context Congress intended to authorize courts to exercise their full Article III power to dispose of an "`entire action before the court [which] comprises but one constitutional "case."'" 490 U. S., at 549 (quoting Gibbs, supra, at 725).

We have not, however, applied Gibbs' expansive interpretive approach to other aspects of the jurisdictional statutes. For instance, we have consistently interpreted § 1332 as requiring complete diversity: In a case with multiple plaintiffs and multiple defendants, the presence in the action of a single plaintiff from the same State as a single defendant deprives the district court of original diversity jurisdiction over the entire action. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 375 (1978). The complete diversity requirement is not mandated by the Constitution, State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 530-531 (1967), or by the plain text of § 1332(a). The Court, nonetheless, has adhered to the complete diversity rule in light of the purpose of the diversity requirement, which is to provide a federal forum for important disputes where state courts might favor, or be [554] perceived as favoring, home-state litigants. The presence of parties from the same State on both sides of a case dispels this concern, eliminating a principal reason for conferring § 1332 jurisdiction over any of the claims in the action. See Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 389 (1998); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 829 (1989). The specific purpose of the complete diversity rule explains both why we have not adopted Gibbs' expansive interpretive approach to this aspect of the jurisdictional statute and why Gibbs does not undermine the complete diversity rule. In order for a federal court to invoke supplemental jurisdiction under Gibbs, it must first have original jurisdiction over at least one claim in the action. Incomplete diversity destroys original jurisdiction with respect to all claims, so there is nothing to which supplemental jurisdiction can adhere.

In contrast to the diversity requirement, most of the other statutory prerequisites for federal jurisdiction, including the federal-question and amount-in-controversy requirements, can be analyzed claim by claim. True, it does not follow by necessity from this that a district court has authority to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over all claims provided there is original jurisdiction over just one. Before the enactment of § 1367, the Court declined in contexts other than the pendent-claim instance to follow Gibbs' expansive approach to interpretation of the jurisdictional statutes. The Court took a more restrictive view of the proper interpretation of these statutes in so-called pendent-party cases involving supplemental jurisdiction over claims involving additional parties—plaintiffs or defendants—where the district courts would lack original jurisdiction over claims by each of the parties standing alone.

Thus, with respect to plaintiff-specific jurisdictional requirements, the Court held in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583 (1939), that every plaintiff must separately satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Though Clark was [555] a federal-question case, at that time federal-question jurisdiction had an amount-in-controversy requirement analogous to the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity cases. "Proper practice," Clark held, "requires that where each of several plaintiffs is bound to establish the jurisdictional amount with respect to his own claim, the suit should be dismissed as to those who fail to show that the requisite amount is involved." Id., at 590. The Court reaffirmed this rule, in the context of a class action brought invoking § 1332(a) diversity jurisdiction, in Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). It follows "inescapably" from Clark, the Court held in Zahn, that "any plaintiff without the jurisdictional amount must be dismissed from the case, even though others allege jurisdictionally sufficient claims." 414 U. S., at 300.

The Court took a similar approach with respect to supplemental jurisdiction over claims against additional defendants that fall outside the district courts' original jurisdiction. In Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the plaintiff brought a Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, action against county officials in District Court pursuant to the statutory grant of jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. § 1343(3) (1976 ed.). The plaintiff further alleged the court had supplemental jurisdiction over her related state-law claims against the county, even though the county was not suable under § 1983 and so was not subject to § 1343(3)'s original jurisdiction. The Court held that supplemental jurisdiction could not be exercised because Congress, in enacting § 1343(3), had declined (albeit implicitly) to extend federal jurisdiction over any party who could not be sued under the federal civil rights statutes. 427 U. S., at 16-19. "Before it can be concluded that [supplemental] jurisdiction [over additional parties] exists," Aldinger held, "a federal court must satisfy itself not only that Art[icle] III permits it, but that Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has not expressly or by implication negated its existence." Id., at 18.

[556] In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989), we confronted a similar issue in a different statutory context. The plaintiff in Finley brought a Federal Tort Claims Act negligence suit against the Federal Aviation Administration in District Court, which had original jurisdiction under § 1346(b). The plaintiff tried to add related claims against other defendants, invoking the District Court's supplemental jurisdiction over so-called pendent parties. We held that the District Court lacked a sufficient statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. Relying primarily on Zahn, Aldinger, and Kroger, we held in Finley that "a grant of jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different parties." 490 U. S., at 556. While Finley did not "limit or impair" Gibbs' liberal approach to interpreting the jurisdictional statutes in the context of supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving the same parties, 490 U. S., at 556, Finley nevertheless declined to extend that interpretive assumption to claims involving additional parties. Finley held that in the context of parties, in contrast to claims, "we will not assume that the full constitutional power has been congressionally authorized, and will not read jurisdictional statutes broadly." Id., at 549.

As the jurisdictional statutes existed in 1989, then, here is how matters stood: First, the diversity requirement in § 1332(a) required complete diversity; absent complete diversity, the district court lacked original jurisdiction over all of the claims in the action. Strawbridge, 3 Cranch, at 267-268; Kroger, 437 U. S., at 373-374. Second, if the district court had original jurisdiction over at least one claim, the jurisdictional statutes implicitly authorized supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims between the same parties arising out of the same Article III case or controversy. Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Third, even when the district court had original [557] jurisdiction over one or more claims between particular parties, the jurisdictional statutes did not authorize supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving other parties. Clark, 306 U. S., at 590; Zahn, supra, at 300-301; Finley, supra, at 556.

B

In Finley we emphasized that "[w]hatever we say regarding the scope of jurisdiction conferred by a particular statute can of course be changed by Congress." 490 U. S., at 556. In 1990, Congress accepted the invitation. It passed the Judicial Improvements Act, 104 Stat. 5089, which enacted § 1367, the provision which controls these cases.

Section 1367 provides, in relevant part:

"(a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution. Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include claims that involve the joinder or intervention of additional parties.

"(b) In any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this title, the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332."

[558] All parties to this litigation and all courts to consider the question agree that § 1367 overturned the result in Finley. There is no warrant, however, for assuming that § 1367 did no more than to overrule Finley and otherwise to codify the existing state of the law of supplemental jurisdiction. We must not give jurisdictional statutes a more expansive interpretation than their text warrants, 490 U. S., at 549, 556; but it is just as important not to adopt an artificial construction that is narrower than what the text provides. No sound canon of interpretation requires Congress to speak with extraordinary clarity in order to modify the rules of federal jurisdiction within appropriate constitutional bounds. Ordinary principles of statutory construction apply. In order to determine the scope of supplemental jurisdiction authorized by § 1367, then, we must examine the statute's text in light of context, structure, and related statutory provisions.

Section 1367(a) is a broad grant of supplemental jurisdiction over other claims within the same case or controversy, as long as the action is one in which the district courts would have original jurisdiction. The last sentence of § 1367(a) makes it clear that the grant of supplemental jurisdiction extends to claims involving joinder or intervention of additional parties. The single question before us, therefore, is whether a diversity case in which the claims of some plaintiffs satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, but the claims of other plaintiffs do not, presents a "civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction." If the answer is yes, § 1367(a) confers supplemental jurisdiction over all claims, including those that do not independently satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, if the claims are part of the same Article III case or controversy. If the answer is no, § 1367(a) is inapplicable and, in light of our holdings in Clark and Zahn, the district court has no statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the additional claims.

[559] We now conclude the answer must be yes. When the well-pleaded complaint contains at least one claim that satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, and there are no other relevant jurisdictional defects, the district court, beyond all question, has original jurisdiction over that claim. The presence of other claims in the complaint, over which the district court may lack original jurisdiction, is of no moment. If the court has original jurisdiction over a single claim in the complaint, it has original jurisdiction over a "civil action" within the meaning of § 1367(a), even if the civil action over which it has jurisdiction comprises fewer claims than were included in the complaint. Once the court determines it has original jurisdiction over the civil action, it can turn to the question whether it has a constitutional and statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the other claims in the action.

Section 1367(a) commences with the direction that §§ 1367(b) and (c), or other relevant statutes, may provide specific exceptions, but otherwise § 1367(a) is a broad jurisdictional grant, with no distinction drawn between pendent-claim and pendent-party cases. In fact, the last sentence of § 1367(a) makes clear that the provision grants supplemental jurisdiction over claims involving joinder or intervention of additional parties. The terms of § 1367 do not acknowledge any distinction between pendent jurisdiction and the doctrine of so-called ancillary jurisdiction. Though the doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction developed separately as a historical matter, the Court has recognized that the doctrines are "two species of the same generic problem," Kroger, 437 U. S., at 370. Nothing in § 1367 indicates a congressional intent to recognize, preserve, or create some meaningful, substantive distinction between the jurisdictional categories we have historically labeled pendent and ancillary.

If § 1367(a) were the sum total of the relevant statutory language, our holding would rest on that language alone. [560] The statute, of course, instructs us to examine § 1367(b) to determine if any of its exceptions apply, so we proceed to that section. While § 1367(b) qualifies the broad rule of § 1367(a), it does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of the additional parties at issue here. The specific exceptions to § 1367(a) contained in § 1367(b), moreover, provide additional support for our conclusion that § 1367(a) confers supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. Section 1367(b), which applies only to diversity cases, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of plaintiffs proposed to be joined as indispensable parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, or who seek to intervene pursuant to Rule 24. Nothing in the text of § 1367(b), however, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20 (like the additional plaintiffs in No. 04-79) or certified as class-action members pursuant to Rule 23 (like the additional plaintiffs in No. 04-70). The natural, indeed the necessary, inference is that § 1367 confers supplemental jurisdiction over claims by Rule 20 and Rule 23 plaintiffs. This inference, at least with respect to Rule 20 plaintiffs, is strengthened by the fact that § 1367(b) explicitly excludes supplemental jurisdiction over claims against defendants joined under Rule 20.

We cannot accept the view, urged by some of the parties, commentators, and Courts of Appeals, that a district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil action unless the court has original jurisdiction over every claim in the complaint. As we understand this position, it requires assuming either that all claims in the complaint must stand or fall as a single, indivisible "civil action" as a matter of definitional necessity —what we will refer to as the "indivisibility theory"—or else that the inclusion of a claim or party falling outside the district court's original jurisdiction somehow contaminates every other claim in the complaint, depriving the court of original jurisdiction over any of these claims—what we will refer to as the "contamination theory."

[561] The indivisibility theory is easily dismissed, as it is inconsistent with the whole notion of supplemental jurisdiction. If a district court must have original jurisdiction over every claim in the complaint in order to have "original jurisdiction" over a "civil action," then in Gibbs there was no civil action of which the district court could assume original jurisdiction under § 1331, and so no basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over any of the claims. The indivisibility theory is further belied by our practice—in both federal-question and diversity cases—of allowing federal courts to cure jurisdictional defects by dismissing the offending parties rather than dismissing the entire action. Clark, for example, makes clear that claims that are jurisdictionally defective as to amount in controversy do not destroy original jurisdiction over other claims. 306 U. S., at 590 (dismissing parties who failed to meet the amount-in-controversy requirement but retaining jurisdiction over the remaining party). If the presence of jurisdictionally problematic claims in the complaint meant the district court was without original jurisdiction over the single, indivisible civil action before it, then the district court would have to dismiss the whole action rather than particular parties.

We also find it unconvincing to say that the definitional indivisibility theory applies in the context of diversity cases but not in the context of federal-question cases. The broad and general language of the statute does not permit this result. The contention is premised on the notion that the phrase "original jurisdiction of all civil actions" means different things in §§ 1331 and 1332. It is implausible, however, to say that the identical phrase means one thing (original jurisdiction in all actions where at least one claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in § 1331 and something else (original jurisdiction in all actions where every claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in § 1332.

[562] The contamination theory, as we have noted, can make some sense in the special context of the complete diversity requirement because the presence of nondiverse parties on both sides of a lawsuit eliminates the justification for providing a federal forum. The theory, however, makes little sense with respect to the amount-in-controversy requirement, which is meant to ensure that a dispute is sufficiently important to warrant federal-court attention. The presence of a single nondiverse party may eliminate the fear of bias with respect to all claims, but the presence of a claim that falls short of the minimum amount in controversy does nothing to reduce the importance of the claims that do meet this requirement.

It is fallacious to suppose, simply from the proposition that § 1332 imposes both the diversity requirement and the amount-in-controversy requirement, that the contamination theory germane to the former is also relevant to the latter. There is no inherent logical connection between the amount-in-controversy requirement and § 1332 diversity jurisdiction. After all, federal-question jurisdiction once had an amount-in-controversy requirement as well. If such a requirement were revived under § 1331, it is clear beyond peradventure that § 1367(a) provides supplemental jurisdiction over federal-question cases where some, but not all, of the federal-law claims involve a sufficient amount in controversy. In other words, § 1367(a) unambiguously overrules the holding and the result in Clark. If that is so, however, it would be quite extraordinary to say that § 1367 did not also overrule Zahn, a case that was premised in substantial part on the holding in Clark.

In addition to the theoretical difficulties with the argument that a district court has original jurisdiction over a civil action only if it has original jurisdiction over each individual claim in the complaint, we have already considered and rejected a virtually identical argument in the closely analogous context of removal jurisdiction. In Chicago v. International [563] College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), the plaintiff brought federal- and state-law claims in state court. The defendant removed to federal court. The plaintiff objected to removal, citing the text of the removal statute, § 1441(a). That statutory provision, which bears a striking similarity to the relevant portion of § 1367, authorizes removal of "any civil action . . . of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction . . . ." The College of Surgeons plaintiff urged that, because its state-law claims were not within the District Court's original jurisdiction, § 1441(a) did not authorize removal. We disagreed. The federal-law claims, we held, "suffice to make the actions `civil actions' within the `original jurisdiction' of the district courts . . . . Nothing in the jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence of related state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the plaintiff's] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were `civil actions' within the federal courts' `original jurisdiction.'" Id., at 166. Once the case was removed, the District Court had original jurisdiction over the federal-law claims and supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(a) over the state-law claims. Id., at 165.

The dissent in College of Surgeons argued that because the plaintiff sought on-the-record review of a local administrative agency decision, the review it sought was outside the scope of the District Court's jurisdiction. Id., at 177 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.). We rejected both the suggestion that state-law claims involving administrative appeals are beyond the scope of § 1367 supplemental jurisdiction, id., at 168-172 (opinion of the Court), and the claim that the administrative review posture of the case deprived the District Court of original jurisdiction over the federal-law claims in the case, id., at 163-168. More importantly for present purposes, College of Surgeons stressed that a district court has original jurisdiction of a civil action for purposes of § 1441(a) as long as it has original jurisdiction over a subset of the claims constituting the action. Even the College of Surgeons dissent, [564] which took issue with the Court's interpretation of § 1367, did not appear to contest this view of § 1441(a).

Although College of Surgeons involved additional claims between the same parties, its interpretation of § 1441(a) applies equally to cases involving additional parties whose claims fall short of the jurisdictional amount. If we were to adopt the contrary view that the presence of additional parties means there is no "civil action . . . of which the district courts . . . have original jurisdiction," those cases simply would not be removable. To our knowledge, no court has issued a reasoned opinion adopting this view of the removal statute. It is settled, of course, that absent complete diversity a case is not removable because the district court would lack original jurisdiction. Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 73 (1996). This, however, is altogether consistent with our view of § 1441(a). A failure of complete diversity, unlike the failure of some claims to meet the requisite amount in controversy, contaminates every claim in the action.

We also reject the argument, similar to the attempted distinction of College of Surgeons discussed above, that while the presence of additional claims over which the district court lacks jurisdiction does not mean the civil action is outside the purview of § 1367(a), the presence of additional parties does. The basis for this distinction is not altogether clear, and it is in considerable tension with statutory text. Section 1367(a) applies by its terms to any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, and the last sentence of § 1367(a) expressly contemplates that the court may have supplemental jurisdiction over additional parties. So it cannot be the case that the presence of those parties destroys the court's original jurisdiction, within the meaning of § 1367(a), over a civil action otherwise properly before it. Also, § 1367(b) expressly withholds supplemental jurisdiction in diversity cases over claims by plaintiffs joined as indispensable parties under Rule 19. If joinder of such [565] parties were sufficient to deprive the district court of original jurisdiction over the civil action within the meaning of § 1367(a), this specific limitation on supplemental jurisdiction in § 1367(b) would be superfluous. The argument that the presence of additional parties removes the civil action from the scope of § 1367(a) also would mean that § 1367 left the Finley result undisturbed. Finley, after all, involved a Federal Tort Claims Act suit against a federal defendant and state-law claims against additional defendants not otherwise subject to federal jurisdiction. Yet all concede that one purpose of § 1367 was to change the result reached in Finley.

Finally, it is suggested that our interpretation of § 1367(a) creates an anomaly regarding the exceptions listed in § 1367(b): It is not immediately obvious why Congress would withhold supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs joined as parties "needed for just adjudication" under Rule 19 but would allow supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20. The omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of exceptions in § 1367(b) may have been an "unintentional drafting gap," Meritcare, 166 F. 3d, at 221, and n. 6. If that is the case, it is up to Congress rather than the courts to fix it. The omission may seem odd, but it is not absurd. An alternative explanation for the different treatment of Rules 19 and 20 is that Congress was concerned that extending supplemental jurisdiction to Rule 19 plaintiffs would allow circumvention of the complete diversity rule: A nondiverse plaintiff might be omitted intentionally from the original action, but joined later under Rule 19 as a necessary party. See Stromberg Metal Works, 77 F. 3d, at 932. The contamination theory described above, if applicable, means this ruse would fail, but Congress may have wanted to make assurance double sure. More generally, Congress may have concluded that federal jurisdiction is only appropriate if the district court would have original jurisdiction over the claims of all those plaintiffs who are so essential to the action that they could be joined under Rule 19.

[566] To the extent that the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of § 1367(b) exceptions is anomalous, moreover, it is no more anomalous than the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in that list would be if the alternative view of § 1367(a) were to prevail. If the district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil diversity action where any plaintiff's claims fail to comply with all the requirements of § 1332, there is no need for a special § 1367(b) exception for Rule 19 plaintiffs who do not meet these requirements. Though the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from § 1367(b) presents something of a puzzle on our view of the statute, the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in this section is at least as difficult to explain under the alternative view.

And so we circle back to the original question. When the well-pleaded complaint in district court includes multiple claims, all part of the same case or controversy, and some, but not all, of the claims are within the court's original jurisdiction, does the court have before it "any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction"? It does. Under § 1367, the court has original jurisdiction over the civil action comprising the claims for which there is no jurisdictional defect. No other reading of § 1367 is plausible in light of the text and structure of the jurisdictional statute. Though the special nature and purpose of the diversity requirement mean that a single nondiverse party can contaminate every other claim in the lawsuit, the contamination does not occur with respect to jurisdictional defects that go only to the substantive importance of individual claims.

It follows from this conclusion that the threshold requirement of § 1367(a) is satisfied in cases, like those now before us, where some, but not all, of the plaintiffs in a diversity action allege a sufficient amount in controversy. We hold that § 1367 by its plain text overruled Clark and Zahn and authorized supplemental jurisdiction over all claims by diverse parties arising out of the same Article III case or controversy, [567] subject only to enumerated exceptions not applicable in the cases now before us.

C

The proponents of the alternative view of § 1367 insist that the statute is at least ambiguous and that we should look to other interpretive tools, including the legislative history of § 1367, which supposedly demonstrate Congress did not intend § 1367 to overrule Zahn. We can reject this argument at the very outset simply because § 1367 is not ambiguous. For the reasons elaborated above, interpreting § 1367 to foreclose supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs in diversity cases who do not meet the minimum amount in controversy is inconsistent with the text, read in light of other statutory provisions and our established jurisprudence. Even if we were to stipulate, however, that the reading these proponents urge upon us is textually plausible, the legislative history cited to support it would not alter our view as to the best interpretation of § 1367.

Those who urge that the legislative history refutes our interpretation rely primarily on the House Judiciary Committee Report on the Judicial Improvements Act. H. R. Rep. No. 101-734 (1990) (House Report or Report). This Report explained that § 1367 would "authorize jurisdiction in a case like Finley, as well as essentially restore the pre-Finley understandings of the authorization for and limits on other forms of supplemental jurisdiction." Id., at 28. The Report stated that § 1367(a) "generally authorizes the district court to exercise jurisdiction over a supplemental claim whenever it forms part of the same constitutional case or controversy as the claim or claims that provide the basis of the district court's original jurisdiction," and in so doing codifies Gibbs and fills the statutory gap recognized in Finley. House Report, at 28-29, and n. 15. The Report then remarked that § 1367(b) "is not intended to affect the jurisdictional requirements of [§ 1332] in diversity-only class [568] actions, as those requirements were interpreted prior to Finley," citing, without further elaboration, Zahn and Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356 (1921). House Report, at 29, and n. 17. The Report noted that the "net effect" of § 1367(b) was to implement the "principal rationale" of Kroger, House Report, at 29, and n. 16, effecting only "one small change" in pre-Finley practice with respect to diversity actions: § 1367(b) would exclude "Rule 23(a) plaintiff-intervenors to the same extent as those sought to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19." House Report, at 29. (It is evident that the report here meant to refer to Rule 24, not Rule 23.)

As we have repeatedly held, the authoritative statement is the statutory text, not the legislative history or any other extrinsic material. Extrinsic materials have a role in statutory interpretation only to the extent they shed a reliable light on the enacting Legislature's understanding of otherwise ambiguous terms. Not all extrinsic materials are reliable sources of insight into legislative understandings, however, and legislative history in particular is vulnerable to two serious criticisms. First, legislative history is itself often murky, ambiguous, and contradictory. Judicial investigation of legislative history has a tendency to become, to borrow Judge Leventhal's memorable phrase, an exercise in "`looking over a crowd and picking out your friends.'" See Wald, Some Observations on the Use of Legislative History in the 1981 Supreme Court Term, 68 Iowa L. Rev. 195, 214 (1983). Second, judicial reliance on legislative materials like committee reports, which are not themselves subject to the requirements of Article I, may give unrepresentative committee members—or, worse yet, unelected staffers and lobbyists— both the power and the incentive to attempt strategic manipulations of legislative history to secure results they were unable to achieve through the statutory text. We need not comment here on whether these problems are sufficiently prevalent to render legislative history inherently unreliable [569] in all circumstances, a point on which Members of this Court have disagreed. It is clear, however, that in this instance both criticisms are right on the mark.

First of all, the legislative history of § 1367 is far murkier than selective quotation from the House Report would suggest. The text of § 1367 is based substantially on a draft proposal contained in a Federal Court Study Committee working paper, which was drafted by a Subcommittee chaired by Judge Posner. Report of the Subcommittee on the Role of the Federal Courts and Their Relationship to the States 567-568 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in 1 Judicial Conference of the United States, Federal Courts Study Committee, Working Papers and Subcommittee Reports (July 1, 1990) (Subcommittee Working Paper). See also Judicial Conference of the United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee 47-48 (Apr. 2, 1990) (Study Committee Report) (echoing, in brief summary form, the Subcommittee Working Paper proposal and noting that the Subcommittee Working Paper "contains additional material on this subject"); House Report, at 27 ("[Section 1367] implements a recommendation of the Federal Courts Study Committee found on pages 47 and 48 of its Report"). While the Subcommittee explained, in language echoed by the House Report, that its proposal "basically restores the law as it existed prior to Finley," Subcommittee Working Paper, at 561, it observed in a footnote that its proposal would overrule Zahn and that this would be a good idea, Subcommittee Working Paper, at 561, n. 33. Although the Federal Courts Study Committee did not expressly adopt the Subcommittee's specific reference to Zahn, it neither explicitly disagreed with the Subcommittee's conclusion that this was the best reading of the proposed text nor substantially modified the proposal to avoid this result. Study Committee Report, at 47-48. Therefore, even if the House Report could fairly be read to reflect an understanding that the text of § 1367 did not overrule Zahn, the Subcommittee Working Paper on [570] which § 1367 was based reflected the opposite understanding. The House Report is no more authoritative than the Subcommittee Working Paper. The utility of either can extend no further than the light it sheds on how the enacting Legislature understood the statutory text. Trying to figure out how to square the Subcommittee Working Paper's understanding with the House Report's understanding, or which is more reflective of the understanding of the enacting legislators, is a hopeless task.

Second, the worst fears of critics who argue legislative history will be used to circumvent the Article I process were realized in this case. The telltale evidence is the statement, by three law professors who participated in drafting § 1367, see House Report, at 27, n. 13, that § 1367 "on its face" permits "supplemental jurisdiction over claims of class members that do not satisfy section 1332's jurisdictional amount requirement, which would overrule [Zahn]. [There is] a disclaimer of intent to accomplish this result in the legislative history. . . . It would have been better had the statute dealt explicitly with this problem, and the legislative history was an attempt to correct the oversight." Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler, Compounding or Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply to Professor Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90 (1991). The professors were frank to concede that if one refuses to consider the legislative history, one has no choice but to "conclude that section 1367 has wiped Zahn off the books." Ibid. So there exists an acknowledgment, by parties who have detailed, specific knowledge of the statute and the drafting process, both that the plain text of § 1367 overruled Zahn and that language to the contrary in the House Report was a post hoc attempt to alter that result. One need not subscribe to the wholesale condemnation of legislative history to refuse to give any effect to such a deliberate effort to amend a statute through a committee report.

[571] In sum, even if we believed resort to legislative history were appropriate in these cases—a point we do not concede—we would not give significant weight to the House Report. The distinguished jurists who drafted the Subcommittee Working Paper, along with three of the participants in the drafting of § 1367, agree that this provision, on its face, overrules Zahn. This accords with the best reading of the statute's text, and nothing in the legislative history indicates directly and explicitly that Congress understood the phrase "civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction" to exclude cases in which some but not all of the diversity plaintiffs meet the amount-in-controversy requirement.

No credence, moreover, can be given to the claim that, if Congress understood § 1367 to overrule Zahn, the proposal would have been more controversial. We have little sense whether any Member of Congress would have been particularly upset by this result. This is not a case where one can plausibly say that concerned legislators might not have realized the possible effect of the text they were adopting. Certainly, any competent legislative aide who studied the matter would have flagged this issue if it were a matter of importance to his or her boss, especially in light of the Subcommittee Working Paper. There are any number of reasons why legislators did not spend more time arguing over § 1367, none of which are relevant to our interpretation of what the words of the statute mean.

D

Finally, we note that the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Pub. L. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4, enacted this year, has no bearing on our analysis of these cases. Subject to certain limitations, the CAFA confers federal diversity jurisdiction over class actions where the aggregate amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. It abrogates the rule against aggregating claims, a rule this Court recognized in Ben-Hur and reaffirmed in Zahn. The CAFA, however, is not retroactive, [572] and the views of the 2005 Congress are not relevant to our interpretation of a text enacted by Congress in 1990. The CAFA, moreover, does not moot the significance of our interpretation of § 1367, as many proposed exercises of supplemental jurisdiction, even in the class-action context, might not fall within the CAFA's ambit. The CAFA, then, has no impact, one way or the other, on our interpretation of § 1367.

* * *

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is affirmed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins, dissenting.

JUSTICE GINSBURG's carefully reasoned opinion, post, at 577 (dissenting opinion), demonstrates the error in the Court's rather ambitious reading of this opaque jurisdictional statute. She also has demonstrated that "ambiguity" is a term that may have different meanings for different judges, for the Court has made the remarkable declaration that its reading of the statute is so obviously correct—and JUSTICE GINSBURG'S so obviously wrong—that the text does not even qualify as "ambiguous." See ante, at 567. Because ambiguity is apparently in the eye of the beholder, I remain convinced that it is unwise to treat the ambiguity vel non of a statute as determinative of whether legislative history is consulted. Indeed, I believe that we as judges are more, rather than less, constrained when we make ourselves accountable to all reliable evidence of legislative intent. See Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc. v. Nigh, 543 U. S. 50, 65-66, and n. 1 (2004) (Stevens, J., concurring).

[573] The legislative history of 28 U. S. C. § 1367 provides powerful confirmation of JUSTICE GINSBURG'S interpretation of that statute. It is helpful to consider in full the relevant portion of the House Report, which was also adopted by the Senate:

"This section would authorize jurisdiction in a case like Finley [v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989)], as well as essentially restore the pre-Finley understandings of the authorization for and limits on other forms of supplemental jurisdiction. In federal question cases, it broadly authorizes the district courts to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims, including claims involving the joinder of additional parties. In diversity cases, the district courts may exercise supplemental jurisdiction, except when doing so would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of the diversity statute.

. . . . .

"Subsection 114(b) [§ 1367(b)] prohibits a district court in a case over which it has jurisdiction founded solely on the general diversity provision, 28 U. S. C. § 1332, from exercising supplemental jurisdiction in specified circumstances. [Footnote 16: `The net effect of subsection (b) is to implement the principal rationale of Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 (1978)'.] In diversity-only actions the district courts may not hear plaintiffs' supplemental claims when exercising supplemental jurisdiction would encourage plaintiffs to evade the jurisdictional requirement of 28 U. S. C. § 1332 by the simple expedient of naming initially only those defendants whose joinder satisfies section 1332's requirements and later adding claims not within original federal jurisdiction against other defendants who have intervened or been joined on a supplemental basis. In accord with case law, the subsection [574] also prohibits the joinder or intervention of persons or plaintiffs if adding them is inconsistent with section 1332's requirements. The section is not intended to affect the jurisdictional requirements of 28 U. S. C. § 1332 in diversity-only class actions, as those requirements were interpreted prior to Finley. [Footnote 17: `See Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356 (1921); Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973)'.]

"Subsection (b) makes one small change in pre-Finley practice. Anomalously, under current practice, the same party might intervene as of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and take advantage of supplemental jurisdiction, but not come within supplemental jurisdiction if parties already in the action sought to effect the joinder under Rule 19. Subsection (b) would eliminate this anomaly, excluding Rule 23(a) plaintiff-intervenors to the same extent as those sought to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19." H. R. Rep. No. 101-734, pp. 28-29 (1990) (footnote omitted) (hereinafter House Report or Report).^[3]

Not only does the House Report specifically say that § 1367 was not intended to upset Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973), but its entire explanation of the statute demonstrates that Congress had in mind a very specific and relatively modest task—undoing this Court's 5-to-4 decision in Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989). In addition to overturning that unfortunate and much-criticized decision,^[4] the statute, according to the Report, codifies and preserves "the pre-Finley understandings of the authorization [575] for and limits on other forms of supplemental jurisdiction," House Report, at 28, with the exception of making "one small change in pre-Finley practice," id., at 29, which is not relevant here.

The sweeping purpose that the Court's decision imputes to Congress bears no resemblance to the House Report's description of the statute. But this does not seem to trouble the Court, for its decision today treats statutory interpretation as a pedantic exercise, divorced from any serious attempt at ascertaining congressional intent. Of course, there are situations in which we do not honor Congress' apparent intent unless that intent is made "clear" in the text of a statute—in this way, we can be certain that Congress considered the issue and intended a disfavored outcome, see, e. g., Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244 (1994) (requiring clear statement for retroactive civil legislation). But that principle provides no basis for discounting the House Report, given that our cases have never recognized a presumption in favor of expansive diversity jurisdiction.

The Court's reasons for ignoring this virtual billboard of congressional intent are unpersuasive. That a subcommittee of the Federal Courts Study Committee believed that an earlier, substantially similar version of the statute overruled Zahn, see ante, at 569, only highlights the fact that the statute is ambiguous. What is determinative is that the House Report explicitly rejected that broad reading of the statutory text. Such a report has special significance as an indicator of legislative intent. In Congress, committee reports are normally considered the authoritative explication of a statute's text and purposes, and busy legislators and their assistants rely on that explication in casting their votes. Cf. Garcia v. United States, 469 U. S. 70, 76 (1984) ("In surveying legislative history we have repeatedly stated that the authoritative source for finding the Legislature's intent lies in the Committee Reports on the bill, which `represen[t] the considered and collective understanding of those Congressmen [576] involved in drafting and studying proposed legislation'" (quoting Zuber v. Allen, 396 U. S. 168, 186 (1969); brackets in original)).

The Court's second reason—its comment on the three law professors who participated in drafting § 1367, see ante, at 570—is similarly off the mark. In the law review article that the Court refers to, the professors were merely saying that the text of the statute was susceptible to an overly broad (and simplistic) reading, and that clarification in the House Report was therefore appropriate. See Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler, Compounding or Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply to Professor Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90 (1991).^[5] Significantly, the reference to Zahn in the House Report does not at all appear to be tacked on or out of place; indeed, it is wholly consistent with the Report's broader explanation of Congress' goal of overruling Finley and preserving pre-Finley law. To suggest that these professors participated in a "deliberate effort to amend a statute through a committee report," ante, at 570, reveals an unrealistic view of the legislative process, not to mention disrespect for three law professors who acted in the role of public servants. To be sure, legislative history can be manipulated. But, in the situation [577] before us, there is little reason to fear that an unholy conspiracy of "unrepresentative committee members," ante, at 568, law professors, and "unelected staffers and lobbyists," ibid., endeavored to torpedo Congress' attempt to overrule (without discussion) two longstanding features of this Court's diversity jurisprudence.

After nearly 20 pages of complicated analysis, which explores subtle doctrinal nuances and coins various neologisms, the Court announces that § 1367 could not reasonably be read another way. See ante, at 567. That conclusion is difficult to accept. Given JUSTICE GINSBURG'S persuasive account of the statutory text and its jurisprudential backdrop, and given the uncommonly clear legislative history, I am confident that the majority's interpretation of § 1367 is mistaken. I respectfully dissent.

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE O'CONNOR, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.

These cases present the question whether Congress, by enacting 28 U. S. C. § 1367, overruled this Court's decisions in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583, 589 (1939) (reaffirming the holding of Troy Bank v. G. A. Whitehead & Co., 222 U. S. 39, 40 (1911)), and Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). Clark held that, when federal-court jurisdiction is predicated on a specified amount in controversy, each plaintiff joined in the litigation must independently meet the jurisdictional amount requirement. Zahn confirmed that in class actions governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), "[e]ach [class member] . . . must satisfy the jurisdictional amount, and any [class member] who does not must be dismissed from the case." 414 U. S., at 301.

Section 1367, all agree, was designed to overturn this Court's decision in Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989). Finley concerned not diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction (28 U. S. C. § 1332), but original federal-court jurisdiction in cases arising under federal law (28 U. S. C. § 1331). [578] The plaintiff in Finley sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b), to recover for the death of her husband and children in an airplane crash. She alleged that the Federal Aviation Administration's negligence contributed to the fatal accident. She later amended her complaint to add state-law tort claims against two other defendants, a municipality and a utility company. 490 U. S., at 546-547. No independent basis for federal subject-matter jurisdiction existed over the state-law claims. The plaintiff could not have brought her entire action in state court, because federal jurisdiction in FTCA actions is exclusive. § 1346(b). Hence, absent federal jurisdiction embracing the state-law claims, she would be obliged to pursue two discrete actions, one in federal court, the other in state court. This Court held, nevertheless, that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over the "pendent-party" state-law claims. Id., at 555-556. In so holding, the Court stressed that Congress held the control rein. Id., at 547-549. Congress could reverse the result in Finley, and permit pendent jurisdiction over state-law claims against additional defendants, if it so chose. Id., at 556. Congress did so in § 1367.

What more § 1367 wrought is an issue on which courts of appeals have sharply divided. Compare Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928, 930 (CA7 1996) (§ 1367 "supersedes Clark and allows pendent-party jurisdiction when the additional parties have claims worth less than [the jurisdictional minimum]"), and In re Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d 524, 529 (CA5 1995) ("[U]nder § 1367 a district court can exercise supplemental jurisdiction over members of a class, although they did not meet the amount-in-controversy requirement, as did the class representatives."), with Meritcare Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co., 166 F. 3d 214, 222 (CA3 1999) (§ 1367 "preserves the prohibition against aggregation outlined in [Zahn and Clark]"), and Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co., 160 F. 3d 631, 641 (CA10 1998) (§ 1367 does not alter "the historical rules prohibiting aggregation [579] of claims, including Zahn's prohibition of such aggregation in diversity class actions"). The Court today holds that § 1367, although prompted by Finley, a case in which original access to federal court was predicated on a federal question, notably enlarges federal diversity jurisdiction. The Court reads § 1367 to overrule Clark and Zahn, thereby allowing access to federal court by coplaintiffs or class members who do not meet the now in excess of $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement, so long as at least one coplaintiff, or the named class representative, has a jurisdictionally sufficient claim. Ante, at 549.

The Court adopts a plausibly broad reading of § 1367, a measure that is hardly a model of the careful drafter's art. There is another plausible reading, however, one less disruptive of our jurisprudence regarding supplemental jurisdiction. If one reads § 1367(a) to instruct, as the statute's text suggests, that the district court must first have "original jurisdiction" over a "civil action" before supplemental jurisdiction can attach, then Clark and Zahn are preserved, and supplemental jurisdiction does not open the way for joinder of plaintiffs, or inclusion of class members, who do not independently meet the amount-in-controversy requirement. For the reasons that follow, I conclude that this narrower construction is the better reading of § 1367.

I

A

Section 1367, captioned "Supplemental jurisdiction," codifies court-recognized doctrines formerly labeled "pendent" and "ancillary" jurisdiction. Pendent jurisdiction involved the enlargement of federal-question litigation to include related state-law claims. Ancillary jurisdiction evolved primarily to protect defending parties, or others whose rights might be adversely affected if they could not air their claims in an ongoing federal-court action. Given jurisdiction over the principal action, federal courts entertained certain matters [580] deemed ancillary regardless of the citizenship of the parties or the amount in controversy.

Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966), the leading pendent jurisdiction case, involved a claim against a union for wrongfully inducing the plaintiff's discharge. The plaintiff stated a federal claim under the Taft-Hartley Act, and an allied state-law claim of unlawful conspiracy to interfere with his employment contract. This Court upheld the joinder of federal and state claims. "[T]here is power in federal courts to hear the whole," the Court said, when the state and federal claims "derive from a common nucleus of operative fact" and are so linked that the plaintiff "would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding." Id., at 725.

Gibbs involved the linkage of federal and state claims against the same defendant. In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545, the Court contained Gibbs. Without congressional authorization, the Court admonished, the pendent jurisdiction umbrella could not be stretched to cover the joinder of additional parties. Gibbs had departed from earlier decisions recognizing that "jurisdiction [must] be explicitly conferred," the Court said. 490 U. S., at 556. Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the Court observed, although resting "on a much narrower basis," R. Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System 925 (5th ed. 2003) (hereinafter Hart & Wechsler), had already signaled that "the Gibbs approach would not be extended to the pendent-party field," Finley, 490 U. S., at 556. While the Finley Court did not "limit or impair" Gibbs itself, 490 U. S., at 556, for further development of pendent jurisdiction, the Court made it plain, the initiative would lie in Congress' domain, id., at 555-556.^[6]

[581] Ancillary jurisdiction, which evolved as a more sprawling doctrine than pendent jurisdiction, was originally rooted in "the notion that [when] federal jurisdiction in [a] principal suit effectively controls the property or fund under dispute, other claimants thereto should be allowed to intervene in order to protect their interests, without regard to jurisdiction." Aldinger, 427 U. S., at 11; see, e. g., Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450 (1861). In Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 (1978), the Court addressed the permissible scope of the doctrine in relation to the liberal provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for joinder of parties and claims.

Kroger commenced as a suit between a citizen of Iowa and a Nebraska corporation. When the Nebraska defendant impleaded an Iowa corporation as a third-party defendant under Rule 14(a), the plaintiff asserted state-law claims against the impleaded party. No independent basis of federal jurisdiction existed over the newly asserted claims, for both plaintiff and impleaded defendant were citizens of Iowa. 437 U. S., at 370. The Court held that the plaintiff could not draw in a co-citizen defendant in this manner. Id., at 377. Federal courts, by the time of Kroger, were routinely exercising ancillary jurisdiction over compulsory counterclaims, impleader claims, cross-claims among defendants, and claims of parties who intervened "of right." See id., at 375, n. 18 (collecting cases). In Kroger, however,

"the nonfederal claim . . . was asserted by the plaintiff, who voluntarily chose to bring suit upon a state-law claim in a federal court. By contrast, ancillary jurisdiction typically involve[d] claims by a defending party haled into court against his will, or by another person whose rights might be irretrievably lost unless he could [582] assert them in an ongoing action in a federal court." Id., at 376.

Having "chosen the federal rather than the state forum," the Court said, the plaintiff had to "accept its limitations." Ibid.

In sum, in federal-question cases before § 1367's enactment, the Court recognized pendent-claim jurisdiction, Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725, but not pendent-party jurisdiction, Finley, 490 U. S., at 555-556. As to ancillary jurisdiction, the Court adhered to the limitation that in diversity cases, throughout the litigation, all plaintiffs must remain diverse from all defendants. See Kroger, 437 U. S., at 374.

Although pendent jurisdiction and ancillary jurisdiction evolved discretely,^[7] the Court has recognized that they are "two species of the same generic problem: Under what circumstances may a federal court hear and decide a state-law claim arising between citizens of the same State?" Id., at 370. Finley regarded that question as one properly addressed to Congress. See 490 U. S., at 549, 556; 13 Wright & Miller § 3523, p. 127 (2d ed., Supp. 2005); Hart & Wechsler 924-926.

B

Shortly before the Court decided Finley, Congress had established the Federal Courts Study Committee to take up issues relating to "the federal courts' congestion, delay, expense, and expansion." Judicial Conference of the United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee 3 (Apr. 2, 1990) (hereinafter Committee Report). The Committee's charge was to conduct a study addressing the "crisis" in federal courts caused by the "rapidly growing" caseload. Id., at 6 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[583] Among recommendations, the Committee urged Congress to "authorize federal courts to assert pendent jurisdiction over parties without an independent federal jurisdictional base." Id., at 47. If adopted, this recommendation would overrule Finley. Earlier, a Subcommittee had recommended that Congress overrule both Finley and Zahn. Report of the Subcommittee on the Role of the Federal Courts and Their Relationship to the States 547, 561, n. 33 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in 1 Judicial Conference of the United States, Federal Courts Study Committee, Working Papers and Subcommittee Reports (July 1, 1990) (hereinafter Subcommittee Report). In the Subcommittee's view, "[f]rom a policy standpoint," Zahn "ma[de] little sense." Subcommittee Report, at 561, n. 33.^[8] The full Committee, however, urged only the overruling of Finley and did not adopt the recommendation to overrule Zahn. Committee Report, at 47-48.

As a separate matter, a substantial majority of the Committee "strongly recommend[ed]" the elimination of diversity jurisdiction, save for "complex multi-state litigation, interpleader, and suits involving aliens." Id., at 38-39; accord Subcommittee Report, at 454-458. "[N]o other step," the Committee's Report maintained, "will do anywhere nearly as much to reduce federal caseload pressures and contain the growth of the federal judiciary." Committee Report, at 39.

Congress responded by adopting, as part of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 5089,^[9] recommendations [584] of the Federal Courts Study Committee ranked by the House Committee on the Judiciary as "modest" and "noncontroversial." H. R. Rep. No. 101-734, pp. 15-16 (1990) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.); see also 136 Cong. Rec. 36288 (1990). Congress did not take up the Study Committee's immodest proposal to curtail diversity jurisdiction. It did, however, enact a supplemental jurisdiction statute, codified as 28 U. S. C. § 1367.

II

A

Section 1367, by its terms, operates only in civil actions "of which the district courts have original jurisdiction." The "original jurisdiction" relevant here is diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction, conferred by § 1332. The character of that jurisdiction is the essential backdrop for comprehension of § 1367.

The Constitution broadly provides for federal-court jurisdiction in controversies "between Citizens of different States." Art. III, § 2, cl. 1. This Court has read that provision to demand no more than "minimal diversity," i. e., so long as one party on the plaintiffs' side and one party on the defendants' side are of diverse citizenship, Congress may authorize federal courts to exercise diversity jurisdiction. See State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 530-531 (1967). Further, the Constitution includes no amount-in-controversy limitation on the exercise of federal jurisdiction. But from the start, Congress, as its measures have been construed by this Court, has limited federal-court exercise of diversity jurisdiction in two principal ways. First, unless Congress specifies otherwise, diversity must be "complete," i. e., all parties on plaintiffs' side must be diverse from all parties on defendants' side. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); see 13B Wright & Miller § 3605 (2d ed. [585] 1984). Second, each plaintiff's stake must independently meet the amount-in-controversy specification: "When two or more plaintiffs, having separate and distinct demands, unite for convenience and economy in a single suit, it is essential that the demand of each be of the requisite jurisdictional amount." Troy Bank, 222 U. S., at 40.

The statute today governing federal-court exercise of diversity jurisdiction in the generality of cases, § 1332, like all its predecessors, incorporates both a diverse-citizenship requirement and an amount-in-controversy specification.^[10] As to the latter, the statute reads: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction [in diversity-of-citizenship cases] where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum . . . of $75,000." § 1332(a). This Court has long held that, in determining whether the amount-in-controversy requirement has been satisfied, a single plaintiff may aggregate two or more claims against a single defendant, even if the claims are unrelated. See, e. g., Edwards v. Bates County, 163 U. S. 269, 273 (1896). But in multiparty cases, including class actions, we have unyieldingly adhered to the nonaggregation [586] rule stated in Troy Bank. See Clark, 306 U. S., at 589 (reaffirming the "familiar rule that when several plaintiffs assert separate and distinct demands in a single suit, the amount involved in each separate controversy must be of the requisite amount to be within the jurisdiction of the district court, and that those amounts cannot be added together to satisfy jurisdictional requirements"); Snyder v. Harris, 394 U. S. 332, 339-340 (1969) (abandonment of the nonaggregation rule in class actions would undercut the congressional "purpose . . . to check, to some degree, the rising caseload of the federal courts").

This Court most recently addressed "[t]he meaning of [§ 1332's] `matter in controversy' language" in Zahn, 414 U. S., at 298. Zahn, like Snyder decided four years earlier, was a class action. In Snyder, no class member had a claim large enough to satisfy the jurisdictional amount. But in Zahn, the named plaintiffs had such claims. 414 U. S., at 292. Nevertheless, the Court declined to depart from its "longstanding construction of the `matter in controversy' requirement of § 1332." Id., at 301. The Zahn Court stated:

"Snyder invoked the well-established rule that each of several plaintiffs asserting separate and distinct claims must satisfy the jurisdictional-amount requirement if his claim is to survive a motion to dismiss. This rule plainly mandates not only that there may be no aggregation and that the entire case must be dismissed where none of the plaintiffs claims [meets the amount-in-controversy requirement] but also requires that any plaintiff without the jurisdictional amount must be dismissed from the case, even though others allege jurisdictionally sufficient claims." Id., at 300.

The rule that each plaintiff must independently satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, unless Congress expressly orders otherwise, was thus the solidly established [587] reading of § 1332 when Congress enacted the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, which added § 1367 to Title 28.

B

These cases present the question whether Congress abrogated the nonaggregation rule long tied to § 1332 when it enacted § 1367. In answering that question, "context [should provide] a crucial guide." Rosario Ortega v. Star-Kist Foods, Inc., 370 F. 3d 124, 135 (CA1 2004). The Court should assume, as it ordinarily does, that Congress legislated against a background of law already in place and the historical development of that law. See National Archives and Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U. S. 157, 169 (2004). Here, that background is the statutory grant of diversity jurisdiction, the amount-in-controversy condition that Congress, from the start, has tied to the grant, and the nonaggregation rule this Court has long applied to the determination of the "matter in controversy."

Section 1367(a) provides:

"Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution. Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include claims that involve the joinder or intervention of additional parties."

The Court is unanimous in reading § 1367(a) to permit pendent-party jurisdiction in federal-question cases, and thus, to overrule Finley. The basic jurisdictional grant, § 1331, provides that "[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, [588] laws, or treaties of the United States." Since 1980, § 1331 has contained no amount-in-controversy requirement. See 94 Stat. 2369 (eliminating § 1331's amount-in-controversy requirement). Once there is a civil action presenting a qualifying claim arising under federal law, § 1331's sole requirement is met. District courts, we have held, may then adjudicate, additionally, state-law claims "deriv[ing] from a common nucleus of operative fact." Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Section 1367(a) enlarges that category to include not only state-law claims against the defendant named in the federal claim, but also "[state-law] claims that involve the joinder or intervention of additional parties."^[11]

The Court divides, however, on the impact of § 1367(a) on diversity cases controlled by § 1332. Under the majority's reading, § 1367(a) permits the joinder of related claims cut loose from the nonaggregation rule that has long attended actions under § 1332. Only the claims specified in § 1367(b)^[12] would be excluded from § 1367(a)'s expansion of § 1332's grant [589] of diversity jurisdiction. And because § 1367(b) contains no exception for joinder of plaintiffs under Rule 20 or class actions under Rule 23, the Court concludes, Clark and Zahn have been overruled.^[13]

The Court's reading is surely plausible, especially if one detaches § 1367(a) from its context and attempts no reconciliation with prior interpretations of § 1332's amount-incontroversy requirement. But § 1367(a)'s text, as the First Circuit held, can be read another way, one that would involve no rejection of Clark and Zahn.

As explained by the First Circuit in Ortega, and applied to class actions by the Tenth Circuit in Leonhardt, see supra, at 578-579, § 1367(a) addresses "civil action[s] of which the district courts have original jurisdiction," a formulation that, in diversity cases, is sensibly read to incorporate the rules on joinder and aggregation tightly tied to § 1332 at the time of § 1367's enactment. On this reading, a complaint must first meet that "original jurisdiction" measurement. If it does not, no supplemental jurisdiction is authorized. If it does, § 1367(a) authorizes "supplemental jurisdiction" over related claims. In other words, § 1367(a) would preserve undiminished, as part and parcel of § 1332 "original jurisdiction" determinations, both the "complete diversity" rule and [590] the decisions restricting aggregation to arrive at the amount in controversy.^[14] Section 1367(b)'s office, then, would be "to prevent the erosion of the complete diversity [and amount-in-controversy] requirement[s] that might otherwise result from an expansive application of what was once termed the doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction." See Pfander, Supplemental Jurisdiction and Section 1367: The Case for a Sympathetic Textualism, 148 U. Pa. L. Rev. 109, 114 (1999); infra, at 593-594. In contrast to the Court's construction of § 1367, which draws a sharp line between the diversity and amount-in-controversy components of § 1332, see ante, at 554; supra, at 585, n. 5, the interpretation presented here does not sever the two jurisdictional requirements.

The more restrained reading of § 1367 just outlined would yield affirmance of the First Circuit's judgment in Ortega, and reversal of the Eleventh Circuit's judgment in Exxon. It would not discard entirely, as the Court does, the judicially developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction as they existed when Finley was decided.^[15] Instead, it would recognize § 1367 essentially as a codification of those doctrines, placing them under a single heading, but largely retaining their substance, with overriding Finley the only basic change: Supplemental jurisdiction, once the district court has original jurisdiction, would now include "claims that involve the joinder or intervention of additional parties." § 1367(a).

Pendent jurisdiction, as earlier explained, see supra, at 579-580, applied only in federal-question cases and allowed [591] plaintiffs to attach nonfederal claims to their jurisdiction-qualifying claims. Ancillary jurisdiction applied primarily, although not exclusively, in diversity cases and "typically involve[d] claims by a defending party haled into court against his will." Kroger, 437 U. S., at 376 (emphasis added); see also id., at 375, n. 18; supra, at 581-582. As the First Circuit observed, neither doctrine permitted a plaintiff to circumvent the dual requirements of § 1332 (diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy) "simply by joining her [jurisdictionally inadequate] claim in an action brought by [a] jurisdictionally competent diversity plaintiff." Ortega, 370 F. 3d, at 138.

Not only would the reading I find persuasive "alig[n] statutory supplemental jurisdiction with the judicially developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction," ibid., it would also synchronize § 1367 with the removal statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1441. As the First Circuit carefully explained:

"Section 1441, like § 1367, applies only if the `civil action' in question is one `of which the district courts . . . have original jurisdiction.' § 1441(a). Relying on that language, the Supreme Court has interpreted § 1441 to prohibit removal unless the entire action, as it stands at the time of removal, could have been filed in federal court in the first instance. See, e. g., Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson, 537 U. S. 28, 33 (2002); Okla. Tax Comm'n v. Graham, 489 U. S. 838, 840 (1989) (per curiam). Section 1441 has thus been held to incorporate the well-pleaded complaint rule, see City of Chicago [v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156, 163 (1997)];^[16] the complete diversity rule, see Caterpillar, [592] Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 73 (1996); and rules for calculating the amount in controversy, see St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 291-292 (1938)." 370 F. 3d, at 138 (citations omitted and footnote added).

The less disruptive view I take of § 1367 also accounts for the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs and Rule 23 class actions in § 1367(b)'s text. If one reads § 1367(a) as a plenary grant of supplemental jurisdiction to federal courts sitting in diversity, one would indeed look for exceptions in § 1367(b). Finding none for permissive joinder of parties or class actions, one would conclude that Congress effectively, even if unintentionally, overruled Clark and Zahn. But if one recognizes that the nonaggregation rule delineated in Clark and Zahn forms part of the determination whether "original jurisdiction" exists in a diversity case, see supra, at 590, then plaintiffs who do not meet the amount-in-controversy requirement would fail at the § 1367(a) threshold. Congress would have no reason to resort to a § 1367(b) exception to turn such plaintiffs away from federal court, given that their claims, from the start, would fall outside the court's § 1332 jurisdiction. See Pfander, supra, at 148.

Nor does the more moderate reading assign different meanings to "original jurisdiction" in diversity and federal-question cases. See ante, at 561. As the First Circuit stated:

"`[O]riginal jurisdiction' in § 1367(a) has the same meaning in every case: [An] underlying statutory grant of original jurisdiction must be satisfied. What differs between [593] federal question and diversity cases is not the meaning of `original jurisdiction' but rather the [discrete] requirements of sections 1331 and 1332. Under § 1331, the sole issue is whether a federal question appears on the face of the plaintiff's well-pleaded complaint; the [citizenship] of the parties and the amounts they stand to recover [do not bear on that determination]. Section 1332, by contrast, predicates original jurisdiction on the identity of the parties (i. e., [their] complete diversity) and their [satisfaction of the amount-in-controversy specification]. [In short,] the `original jurisdiction' language in § 1367 operates differently in federal-question and diversity cases not because the meaning of that term varies, but because the [jurisdiction-granting] statutes are different." 370 F. 3d, at 139-140.

What is the utility of § 1367(b) under my reading of § 1367(a)? Section 1367(a) allows parties other than the plaintiff to assert reactive claims once entertained under the heading ancillary jurisdiction. See supra, at 581 (listing claims, including compulsory counterclaims and impleader claims, over which federal courts routinely exercised ancillary jurisdiction). As earlier observed, see supra, at 590-591, § 1367(b) stops plaintiffs from circumventing § 1332's jurisdictional requirements by using another's claim as a hook to add a claim that the plaintiff could not have brought in the first instance. Kroger is the paradigm case. See supra, at 581-582. There, the Court held that ancillary jurisdiction did not extend to a plaintiff's claim against a nondiverse party who had been impleaded by the defendant under Rule 14. Section 1367(b), then, is corroborative of § 1367(a)'s coverage of claims formerly called ancillary, but provides exceptions to ensure that accommodation of added claims would not fundamentally alter "the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332." See Pfander, 148 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 135-137.

[594] While § 1367's enigmatic text^[17] defies flawless interpretation, see supra, at 589, n. 8,^[18] the precedent-preservative reading, I am persuaded, better accords with the historical and legal context of Congress' enactment of the supplemental jurisdiction statute, see supra, at 582-584, 587, and the established limits on pendent and ancillary jurisdiction, see supra, at 580-582. It does not attribute to Congress a jurisdictional enlargement broader than the one to which the legislators adverted, cf. Finley, 490 U. S., at 549, and it follows the sound counsel that "close questions of [statutory] construction should be resolved in favor of continuity and [595] against change," Shapiro, Continuity and Change in Statutory Interpretation, 67 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 921, 925 (1992).^[19]

* * *

For the reasons stated, I would hold that § 1367 does not overrule Clark and Zahn. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

[1] Together with No. 04-79, del Rosario Ortega et al. v. Star-Kist Foods, Inc., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

[2] A brief of amicus curiae urging reversal in No. 04-79 was filed for the United States by Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Hungar, Deanne E. Maynard, Mark B. Stern, and Alisa B. Klein.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance in No. 04-70 were filed for the United States by Mr. Clement, Acting Assistant Attorney General Schiffer, Mr. Hungar, Ms. Maynard, Mr. Stern, and Ms. Klein; and for the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., by Robert N. Weiner.

[3] The last quoted paragraph was intended to refer to Rule 24, not Rule 23. See ante, at 568.

[4] As I pointed out in my dissent in Finley, the majority's decision was "not faithful to our precedents," 490 U. S., at 558, and casually dismissed the accumulated wisdom of judges such as Henry Friendly, who had "special learning and expertise in matters of federal jurisdiction," id., at 565.

[5] The professors' account of the challenges they faced in drafting § 1367 gives some sense, I think, of why that statute has proved difficult to interpret: "More broadly, codifying a complex area like supplemental jurisdiction—as Professor Freer's discussion illustrates—is itself complex business. A danger is that the result of the effort to deal with all the foreseeables will be a statute too prolix and baroque for everyday use and application by practitioners and judges. Section 1367 reflects an effort to provide sufficient detail without overdoing it. The statute is concededly not perfect. What it accomplishes, however, is to change the direction taken by the Supreme Court in Finley, to provide basic guidance (in particular the legislative history's general approval of pre-Finley case law, which has treated some specific issues Professor Freer raises), and then to trust the federal courts under the changed direction to interpret the statute sensibly. . . ." 40 Emory L. J., at 961.

[6] "[B]oth the Finley result and its implications" sparked "considerable criticism." Hart & Wechsler 926; see also 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, & R. Freer, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3567.2, p. 91 (2d ed., Supp. 2005) (hereinafter Wright & Miller) (characterizing the Finley decision as "surprising").

[7] See generally 13B Wright & Miller §§ 3567, 3567.1, 3567.2 (2d ed. 1984) (discussing pendent jurisdiction); 13 id., § 3523 (discussing ancillary jurisdiction); Hart & Wechsler 922-926 (discussing pendent jurisdiction); id., at 1488-1490 (discussing ancillary jurisdiction).

[8] Anomalously, in holding that each class member "must satisfy the jurisdictional amount," Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291, 301 (1973), the Zahn Court did not refer to Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356, 366 (1921), which established that in a class action, the citizenship of the named plaintiff is controlling. But see Zahn, 414 U. S., at 309-310 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (urging Zahn's inconsistency with Ben-Hur).

[9] The omnibus Act encompassed the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990 (Title I), the creation of new judgeships (Title II), the Federal Courts Study Committee Implementation Act of 1990 (Title III), and the establishment of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal (Title IV).

[10] Endeavoring to preserve the "complete diversity" rule first stated in Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806), the Court's opinion drives a wedge between the two components of 28 U. S. C. § 1332, treating the diversity-of-citizenship requirement as essential, the amount-incontroversy requirement as more readily disposable. See ante, at 553, 562. Section 1332 itself, however, does not rank order the two requirements. What "[o]rdinary principl[e] of statutory construction" or "sound canon of interpretation," ante, at 558, allows the Court to slice up § 1332 this way? In partial explanation, the Court asserts that amount in controversy can be analyzed claim by claim, but the diversity requirement cannot. See ante, at 554. It is not altogether clear why that should be so. The cure for improper joinder of a nondiverse party is the same as the cure for improper joinder of a plaintiff who does not satisfy the jurisdictional amount. In both cases, original jurisdiction can be preserved by dismissing the nonqualifying party. See Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 64 (1996) (diversity); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 836-838 (1989) (same); Zahn, 414 U. S., at 295, 300 (amount in controversy); Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583, 590 (1939) (same).

[11] The Court noted in Zahn, 414 U. S., at 302, n. 11, that when the exercise of § 1331 federal-question jurisdiction and § 1332 diversity jurisdiction were conditioned on the same jurisdictional-amount limitation, the same nonaggregation rule applied under both heads of federal jurisdiction. But cf. ante, at 562. The Court added, however, that "Congress ha[d] exempted major areas of federal-question jurisdiction from any jurisdictional-amount requirements," thus diminishing the impact of § 1331's "matter in controversy" specification in cases arising under federal law. Zahn, 414 U. S., at 302, n. 11.

[12] Title 28 U. S. C. § 1367(b) provides:

"In any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this title, the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332."

[13] Under the Court's construction of § 1367, see ante, at 560, 566-567, Beatriz Ortega's family members can remain in the action because their joinder is merely permissive, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 20. If, however, their presence was "needed for just adjudication," Rule 19, their dismissal would be required. The inclusion of those who may join, and exclusion of those who should or must join, defies rational explanation, but cf. ante, at 565, and others adopting the interpretation the Court embraces have so acknowledged, see Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928, 932 (CA7 1996) (recognizing the anomaly and inquiring: "What sense can this make?"); cf. 14B Wright & Miller § 3704, p. 168 (3d ed. 1998) (distinction between Rule 19 and Rule 20 "seems incongruous, and serves no apparent public policy purpose").

[14] On this reading of § 1367(a), it is immaterial that § 1367(b) "does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of the additional parties at issue here." Ante, at 560. Because those claims would not come within § 1367(a) in the first place, Congress would have had no reason to list them in § 1367(b). See infra, at 592-593.

[15] The Court's opinion blends the two doctrines, according no significance to their discrete development. See ante, at 552-557.

[16] The point of the Court's extended discussion of Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), in the instant cases, see ante, at 562-564, slips from my grasp. There was no disagreement in that case, and there is none now, that 28 U. S. C. § 1367(a) is properly read to authorize the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in removed cases. International College of Surgeons was unusual in that the federal court there was asked to review a decision of a local administrative agency. Such review, it was unsuccessfully argued, was "appellate" in character, and therefore outside the ken of a court empowered to exercise "original" jurisdiction. Compare 522 U. S., at 166-168, with id., at 176-177 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting).

[17] The Court notes the passage this year of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Pub. L. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4, ante, at 571-572, only to dismiss that legislation as irrelevant. Subject to several exceptions and qualifications, CAFA provides for federal-court adjudication of state-law-based class actions in which diversity is "minimal" (one plaintiff's diversity from one defendant suffices), and the "matter in controversy" is an aggregate amount in excess of $5,000,000. Significant here, CAFA's enlargement of federal-court diversity jurisdiction was accomplished, "clearly and conspicuously," by amending § 1332. Cf. Rosario Ortega v. Star-Kist Foods, Inc., 370 F. 3d 124, 142 (CA1 2004).

[18] If § 1367(a) itself renders unnecessary the listing of Rule 20 plaintiffs and Rule 23 class actions in § 1367(b), see supra, at 592, then it is similarly unnecessary to refer, as § 1367(b) does, to "persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19." On one account, Congress bracketed such persons with persons "seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24" to modify pre-§ 1367 practice. Before enactment of § 1367, courts entertained, under the heading ancillary jurisdiction, claims of Rule 24(a) intervenors "of right," see Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 375, n. 18 (1978), but denied ancillary jurisdiction over claims of "necessary" Rule 19 plaintiffs, see 13 Wright & Miller § 3523, p. 127 (2d ed., Supp. 2005). Congress may have sought simply to underscore that those seeking to join as plaintiffs, whether under Rule 19 or Rule 24, should be treated alike, i. e., denied joinder when "inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332." See 370 F. 3d, at 140, and n. 15 (internal quotation marks omitted); H. R. Rep., at 29 ("Subsection (b) makes one small change in pre-Finley practice," i. e., it eliminates the Rule 19/Rule 24 anomaly.).

[19] While the interpretation of § 1367 described in this opinion does not rely on the measure's legislative history, that history, as JUSTICE STEVENS has shown, see ante, at 573 (dissenting opinion), is corroborative of the statutory reading set out above.