Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U.S. 1 (1976)

The plaintiff, a Washington domiciliary, was fired from her job with the government of the County of Spokane, Washington.  She sued two defendants:

(i) her boss, a County employee (and thus clearly a "person" acting "under color" or state law), personally, alleging that her discharge violated her federal civil rights and thus triggered liability under 42 U.S.C. §1983, as well as under certain state law theories, and

(ii) Spokane County under state law only, alleging that it was responsible in part for her firing (you do not need to know why here, but you can think of it as a negligent failure to train adequately her supervisor).

The plaintiff likely wanted to sue Spokane County under Section 1983 as well, but at the time, has she done so, she would have lost on the merits. At the time, Supreme Court precedent established that a county was not a "person" for purposes of Section 1983, and thus no cause of action under Section 1983 was available against a county.  (Several years after Aldinger, the Supreme Court overruled its own precedent and held that a county actually was a "person" under Section 1983, but that ruling came too late to help this plaintiff.)

Back to the case we actually have: Spokane County moved to dismiss the state law claims against it, arguing that the federal district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over it.  The plaintiff argued in response that the district court could exercise what we now call supplemental jurisdiction under Gibbs because her claim against her supervisor and her claims against Spokane shared a "common nucleus of operative fact." The Supreme Court held that supplemental jurisdiction could not be exercised.

* * * From a purely factual point of view, it is one thing to authorize two parties, already present in federal court by virtue of a case over which the court has jurisdiction, to litigate in addition to their federal claim a state law claim over which there is no independent basis of federal jurisdiction. But it is quite another thing to permit a plaintiff, who has asserted a claim against one defendant with respect to which there is federal jurisdiction, to join an entirely different defendant on the basis of a state law claim over which there is no independent basis of federal jurisdiction, simply because his claim against the first defendant and his claim against the second defendant "derive from a common nucleus of operative fact." . . . True, the same considerations of judicial economy would be served insofar as plaintiff's claims "are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding. . . ." . . . But the addition of a completely new party would run counter to the well established principle that federal courts, as opposed to state trial courts of general jurisdiction, are courts of limited jurisdiction marked out by Congress.

There is also a significant legal difference. In . . .Gibbs, Congress was silent on the extent to which the defendant, already properly in federal court under a statute, might be called upon to answer nonfederal questions or claims; the way was thus left open for the Court to fashion its own rules under the general language of Art. III. But the extension of Gibbs to this kind of "pendent party" jurisdiction -- bringing in an additional defendant at the behest of the plaintiff -- presents rather different statutory jurisdictional considerations. Petitioner's contention that she should be entitled to sue Spokane County as a new third party, and then to try a wholly state law claim against the county, all of which would be "pendent" to her federal claim against respondent county treasurer, must be decided not in the context of congressional silence or tacit encouragement, but in quite the opposite context. The question here, which it was not necessary to address in Gibbs . . ., is whether, by virtue of the statutory grant of subject matter jurisdiction, upon which petitioner's principal claim against the treasurer rests, Congress has addressed itself to the party as to whom jurisdiction pendent to the principal claim is sought. And it undoubtedly has done so.

Resolution of a claim of pendent party jurisdiction, therefore, calls for careful attention to the relevant statutory language. As we have indicated, we think a fair reading of the language used in [another jurisdictional statute we do not consider, but that for our purposes is the same as 28 U.S.C. § 1331], together with the scope of § 1983, requires a holding that the joinder of a municipal corporation, like the county here, for purposes of asserting a state law claim not within federal diversity jurisdiction, is without the statutory jurisdiction of the district court.

Other statutory grants and other alignments of parties and claims might call for a different result. When the grant of jurisdiction to a federal court is exclusive, for example, as in the prosecution of tort claims against the United States under [a statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act], the argument of judicial economy and convenience can be coupled with the additional argument that only in a federal court may all of the claims be tried together.

Two observations suffice for the disposition of the type of case before us. If the new party sought to be joined is not otherwise subject to federal jurisdiction, there is a more serious obstacle to the exercise of pendent jurisdiction than if parties already before the court are required to litigate a state law claim. Before it can be concluded that such jurisdiction exists, a federal court must satisfy itself not only that Art. III permits it, but that Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has not expressly or by implication negated its existence.

Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365 (1978)

Following the death of her husband, who was electrocuted when a beam of a steel crane came too close to a high-tension electric line, the plaintiff, an Iowa citizen, sued Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), a Nebraska corporation with its principal place of business in Nebraska, in federal court, asserting diversity jurisdiction. OPPD filed a third-party complaint against Owen Equipment & Erection Co. (Owen), alleging that Owen was also a Nebraska corporation with its principal place of business in Nebraska; that it owned and operated the equipment involved in the industrial accident; and that its negligence was the proximate cause of the death. The court permitted the plaintiff to amend her complaint to include Owen as a co-defendant. The federal district court granted OPPD's motion for summary judgment, leaving the plaintiff and Owen as the only parties to the suit. The parties then discovered that Owen's primary place of business was not in Nebraska but rather in Iowa, so, for purposes of diversity jurisdiction, Owen was an Iowa citizen, as was the plaintiff.  (The confusion had arisen because a river that demarcated the border between Iowa and Nebraska had recently changed position. That is not a joke.) Owen moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court denied the motion. The court of appeals affirmed, but the United States Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court could not exercise what we now call supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiff-Owen suit:

The relevant statute in this case, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(1), confers upon federal courts jurisdiction over "civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of [the amount required at that time, which is now $75,000] . . . and is between . . . citizens of different States." This statute and its predecessors have consistently been held to require complete diversity of citizenship. [Strawbridge] That is, diversity jurisdiction does not exist unless each defendant is a citizen of a different State from each plaintiff. Over the years, Congress has repeatedly reenacted or amended the statute conferring diversity jurisdiction, leaving intact this rule of complete diversity. Whatever may have been the original purposes of diversity of citizenship jurisdiction, this subsequent history clearly demonstrates a congressional mandate that diversity jurisdiction is not to be available when any plaintiff is a citizen of the same State as any defendant.

Thus, it is clear that the [plaintiff here] could not originally have brought suit in federal court naming Owen and OPPD as codefendants, since citizens of Iowa would have been on both sides of the litigation. Yet the identical lawsuit resulted when she amended her complaint. Complete diversity was destroyed just as surely as if she had sued Owen initially. In either situation, in the plain language of the statute, the "matter in controversy" could not be "between . . . citizens of different States."

It is not unreasonable to assume that, in generally requiring complete diversity, Congress did not intend to confine the jurisdiction of federal courts so inflexibly that they are unable to protect legal rights or effectively to resolve an entire, logically entwined lawsuit. Those practical needs are the basis of [what the Court did in Gibbs]. But neither the convenience of litigants nor considerations of judicial economy can suffice to justify extension of the [Gibbs] doctrine . . . to a plaintiff's cause of action against a citizen of the same State in a diversity case. Congress has established the basic rule that diversity jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 only when there is complete diversity of citizenship. "The policy of the statute calls for its strict construction." Healy v. Ratta, 292 U.S. 263. To allow the requirement of complete diversity to be circumvented as it was in this case would simply flout the congressional command.

Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545 (1989)

The plaintiff's husband and two of her children died when their plane struck electric power lines on its approach to a city-run airfield in San Diego, California. The plaintiff, a California domiciliary, sued

(i) a gas company, a California corporation, for negligently positioning the transmission lines, a state law claim

(ii) the City of San Diego (a California citizen for diversity purposes) for negligently maintaining airport runway lights in state court, another state law claim

(iii) the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a United States agency, under a statute called the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for improperly maintaining the runway lights. The FTCA creates a federal cause of action against the United States when one of its agencies does something negligent. When passing the FTCA, Congress provided that suits based on it could occur only in federal court, i.e., the federal district courts have exclusive jurisdiction over FTCA claims.  The plaintiff could not have sued the FAA under the FTCA in state court.

The Supreme Court held that the federal court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's claims against the gas company and the City of San Diego:

It remains rudimentary law that "[a]s regards all courts of the United States inferior to this tribunal, two things are necessary to create jurisdiction, whether original or appellate. The Constitution must have given to the court the capacity to take it, and an act of Congress must have supplied it. . . . To the extent that such action is not taken, the power lies dormant." The Mayor v. Cooper, 6 Wall. 247, 73 U. S. 252 (1868).

Despite this principle, in a line of cases by now no less well established, we have held, without specific examination of jurisdictional statutes, that federal courts have [what we now call supplemental jurisdiction, but the courts then called] pendant claim jurisdiction -- that is, jurisdiction over nonfederal claims between parties litigating other matters properly before the court -- to the full extent permitted by the Constitution. Gibbs, which has come to stand for the principle in question, held that "[p]endent 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.'"

Analytically, petitioner's case is fundamentally different from Gibbs in that it brings into question what has become known as pendent party jurisdiction, that is, jurisdiction over parties not named in any claim that is independently cognizable by the federal court. We may assume, without deciding, that the constitutional criterion for pendent party jurisdiction is analogous to the constitutional criterion for pendent claim jurisdiction, and that petitioner's state law claims pass that test. Our cases show, however, that, with respect to the addition of parties, as opposed to the addition of only claims, we will not assume that the full constitutional power has been congressionally authorized, and will not read jurisdictional statutes broadly.

The FTCA . . .  confers jurisdiction over "civil actions on claims against the United States." It does not say "civil actions on claims that include requested relief against the United States," nor "civil actions in which there is a claim against the United States" -- formulations one might expect if the presence of a claim against the United States constituted merely a minimum jurisdictional requirement, rather than a definition of the permissible scope of FTCA actions. Just as the statutory provision "between . . . citizens of different States" has been held to mean citizens of different States and no one else, see [Owen v.] Kroger, supra, so also here we conclude that "against the United States" means against the United States and no one else.

The Gibbs line of cases was a departure from prior practice, and a departure that we have no intent to limit or impair. But Aldinger indicated that the Gibbs approach would not be extended to the pendent party field, and we decide today to retain that line. Whatever we say regarding the scope of jurisdiction conferred by a particular statute can, of course, be changed by Congress. What is of paramount importance is that Congress be able to legislate against a background of clear interpretive rules, so that it may know the effect of the language it adopts. All our cases -- [including] Aldinger, and Kroger -- have held that a grant of jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different parties. Our decision today reaffirms that interpretive rule; the opposite would sow confusion.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed.

Justice Stevens dissented:

In Aldinger, we adopted a rule of construction that assumed the existence of pendent jurisdiction unless "Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has . . . expressly or by implication negated its existence," 427 U.S. at 18. We rejected the assertion of pendent party jurisdiction there because it arose "not in the context of congressional silence or tacit encouragement, but in quite the opposite context." Id. at 15-16. Congress' exclusion of municipal corporations from the definition of persons under § 1983, we concluded, evinced an intent to preclude the exercise of federal court jurisdiction over them. If congressional silence were sufficient to defeat pendent jurisdiction, the careful reasoning in our Aldinger opinion was wholly unnecessary, for obviously the civil rights statutes do not affirmatively authorize the joinder of any state law claims.

The Court today adopts a sharply different approach. Without even so much as acknowledging our statement in Aldinger that, before a federal court may exercise pendent party jurisdiction, it must satisfy itself that Congress "has not expressly or by implication negated its existence," it now instructs that "a grant of jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different parties."

Removal allows a party (almost always a defendant) to a civil action to transfer it from a state court to an appropriate federal court.  While the Constitution does not mention removal, Congress, in the First Judiciary Act of 1789, granted jurisdiction to courts to hear removed cases. The current general removal statute is 28 U.S.C. § 1441.

Removal jurisdiction offers defendants a significant level of control over the plaintiff's forum choice. Justifications for removal jurisdiction include:

• Litigant equality - allows defendants as much control as plaintiffs in deciding which cases federal courts hear
• Bias - protects out-of-state defendants from local bias

Defendants remove cases to federal court for the same reasons that plaintiffs consider when deciding where to initiate a case, e.g., jury pools, trial rules, court procedures, caseloads, etc.  Some courts and commentators have labeled the search for a more favorable court in which to file (or remove) "forum shopping."  When courts and commentators use the phrase "forum shopping," they intend to imply that such behavior is bad.  Is it bad?  If so, what is bad about it?

Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U.S. 100 (1941)

The plaintiff sued the defendant in state court on a state-law cause of action. The parties were not diverse.  The defendant filed a counterclaim that asserted a federal cause of action.  The plaintiff removed the case to federal court, citing the federal law counterclaim.  The Supreme Court held that no federal statute authorized a plaintiff (as opposed to a defendant or defendants) to remove a case from state to federal court.  Justice Stone, writing for a unanimous court, explained:

Section 12 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, declared that 'if a suit be commenced in any state court against an alien * * * or * * * against a citizen of another state, and the matter in dispute exceeds' the jurisdictional amount 'and the defendant shall, at the time of entering his appearance in such state court, file a petition for the removal of the cause,' it shall be removable to the circuit court. In West v. Aurora City, 6 Wall. 139, this Court held that removal of a cause from a state to a federal court could be effected under § 12 only by a defendant against whom the suit is brought . . . . Consequently a non-citizen plaintiff in the state court, against whom the citizen-defendant had asserted in the suit a claim by way of counterclaim which, under state law, had the character of an original suit, was not entitled to remove the cause. The Court ruled that the plaintiff, having submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the state court, was not entitled to avail himself of a right of removal conferred only on a defendant who has not submitted himself to the jurisdiction.

[In 1875, Congress passed another statute by which] the practice on removal was greatly liberalized. It authorized 'either party, or any one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants entitled to remove any suit' from the state court to do so upon petition in such suit to the state court 'before or at the term at which said cause could be first tried and before the trial thereof'. These provisions were continued until the adoption of the provisions of the present statute so far as now material by the Act of 1887.

We cannot assume that Congress, in thus revising the statute, was unaware of the history which we have just detailed, or certainly that it regarded as without significance the omission from the earlier act of the phrase 'either party', and the substitution for it of the phrase authorizing removal by the 'defendant or defendants' in the suit, or the like omission of the provision for removal at any time before the trial, and the substitution for it of the requirement that the removal petition be filed by the 'defendant' at or before the time he is required to plead in the state court.

Not only does the language of the Act of 1887 evidence the Congressional purpose to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts on removal, but the policy of the successive acts of Congress regulating the jurisdiction of federal courts is one calling for the strict construction of such legislation. The power reserved to the states under the Constitution to provide for the determination of controversies in their courts, may be restricted only by the action of Congress in conformity to the Judiciary Articles of the Constitution.