Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-07213/USCOURTS-caDC-00-07213-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 365
Nature of Suit: Personal Injury - Product Liability
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 16, 2001 Decided April 26, 2002

No. 00-7213

Republic of Venezuela,

Appellee

v.

Philip Morris Incorporated, et al.,

Appellants

Consolidated with

00-7214, 00-7215, 00-7216, 00-7257, 00-7258

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 99ms00213)

Herbert M. Wachtell argued the cause for appellants Philip

Morris Companies, Inc., et al. With him on the briefs were

Timothy M. Broas, Robert F. McDermott, Jr., Paul S. RyerUSCA Case #00-7213 Document #674037 Filed: 04/26/2002 Page 1 of 13
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son, Daniel F. Kolb, Kenneth N. Bass, Gene E. Voigts,

Richard L. Gray, Patrick S. Davies and Steven Klugman.

David Gruenstein and Leigh A. Hyer entered appearances.

Robin S. Conrad, Kenneth S. Geller and John J. Sullivan

were on the brief of amicus curiae Chamber of Commerce of

the United States of America in support of appellants.

Joel S. Perwin argued the cause for appellees. With him

on the brief were Jonathan S. Massey, George M. Fleming,

Sylvia Davidow and Andres C. Pereira.

Before: Ginsburg, Chief Judge, Henderson, Circuit Judge,

and Williams, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge Ginsburg.

Separate concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge

Williams.

Ginsburg, Chief Judge: The district court issued orders

remanding to a Florida state court four lawsuits filed by

foreign states against tobacco companies based in the United

States. The companies ask that we reverse the orders of the

district court and that we issue a writ of mandamus to

prevent the court from ordering the remand of similar lawsuits still pending before it. We hold that we are without

appellate jurisdiction to review the orders the district court

already has issued and that we have no warrant to prohibit

the district court from remanding to state court those cases

upon which it has not yet acted.

I. Background

Various foreign countries or subdivisions thereof sued 15

United States tobacco companies in a Florida court to recover

damages under the laws of Florida. Specifically, the Republics of Venezuela and of Ecuador, the Brazilian States of Mato

Grosso Do Sol, Goias, and Espirito Santo, and the Russian

Federation filed nearly identical complaints in the Circuit

Court for Florida's Eleventh Judicial District in Miami-Dade

County. They advanced at least ten distinct theories of

liability, such as fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment,

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and sought compensation from the companies for the costs of

treating persons suffering from diseases associated with tobacco use. Twenty-nine other foreign states or subdivisions

have filed similar actions--not now before us--in state and

federal courts around the United States. The tobacco companies removed the present cases from the Florida state court

to the United States District Court for the Southern District

of Florida. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation

then consolidated the cases brought by Venezuela and three

other foreign states and transferred them to the United

States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Some months later the district court dismissed for failure

to state a claim a substantially similar suit against the tobacco

companies brought in that court by the Republic of Guatemala. See In re Tobacco (Guatemala), 83 F. Supp.2d 125,

126 (1999), aff'd, Service Employees Int'l Union Health &

Welfare Fund v. Philip Morris Inc., 249 F.3d 1068 (2001).

The court ruled that Guatemala's claims were not viable

because Guatemala could not establish that its alleged injuries, that is, its expenditures for the care and treatment of its

citizens, were proximately caused by any misconduct on the

part of the tobacco companies. For the same reason the

district court has since dismissed several cases that had

originated in other federal courts and been transferred by the

JPML to this district. The cases under review are unlike

those the district court dismissed only in that they were filed

originally in state courts and therefore reached the district

court after the tobacco companies removed them to a federal

court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. s 1441; they are substantively

identical in all other respects.

The district court ordered that Venezuela's suit be remanded to the Circuit Court for Florida's Eleventh Judicial District on the ground that there is no federal jurisdiction over

the case. The court held that Venezuela's complaint does

"not present a federal question on [its] face, and federal

question jurisdiction is not proper under the federal common

law of foreign relations." In re Tobacco (Venezuela), 100

F. Supp.2d 31, 38 (2000); see also id. at 35 ("The complaints

... contain only state statutory and common law claims").

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The court later ordered the cases filed by Ecuador, Espirito

Santo, and Goias remanded to the same Florida state court

"for the reasons stated" in Venezuela. Since this case was

argued on appeal, the Florida court in turn has dismissed the

suits of Venezuela and Espirito Santo, citing with approval

the district court's opinion in Guatemala. See Venezuela v.

Philip Morris Cos., No. 99-01943 (Nov. 20, 2001); Espirito

Santo v. Brooke Group Ltd., Inc., No. 00-07472 (Nov. 20,

2001). The suits filed by Ecuador and by Goias remain

pending before the Florida court.

On October 30, 2000--after the district court had dismissed

Guatemala and ordered Venezuela remanded--the JPML

transferred to that court the cases Russia and Mato Grosso

had brought in Florida and the tobacco companies had removed to the federal court there. The district court here has

not yet acted upon those cases.

To summarize, the six cases now on review were originally

filed in the Florida Circuit Court, then removed to a federal

court in Florida, and finally transferred to the district court

here; the district court ordered four cases--Venezuela, Ecuador, Espirito Santo, and Goias--remanded to the Florida

Circuit Court for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction

and has pending before it the two--Russia and Mato Grosso--that reached the district court after it had ordered the

other cases remanded. For the sake of simplicity, we will

refer to the four remanded cases as the Latin America Cases.

II. Analysis

The tobacco companies appeal the remand orders in the

Latin America Cases. They also ask the court to issue a writ

of mandamus prohibiting the district court from ordering the

remand of Russia and Mato Grosso to the state court where

those cases originated. Apparently, the companies would

rather have the district court dismiss all the cases on the

merits, as it dismissed Guatemala, than remit the cases to

any less certain fate in the courts of Florida.

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A. Appeal of the Latin America Cases

This court is without jurisdiction to consider the appeal of

the Latin America Cases. The orders of the district court

return those cases to the state court from which they were

removed on the ground that the court did not have federal

subject matter jurisdiction over them. When it appears that

a district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a case

that has been removed from a state court, the district court

must remand the case, 28 U.S.C. s 1447(c), and the court's

order remanding the case to the state court whence it came

"is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise," id. s 1447(d). See

also Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 711-12

(1996) ("remands based on grounds specified in s 1447(c) are

immune from review under s 1447(d)").

The tobacco companies claim that, notwithstanding the

unambiguous bar of the statute, some courts have said the

prohibition of s 1447(d) "is not as broad as it seems." Poore

v. American-Amicable Life, 218 F.3d 1287, 1291 (11th Cir.

2000). In each case they cite, however, the court was describing not the prohibition in s 1447(d) but the exception thereto

allowing review of a remand order that is not predicated upon

either a lack of subject matter jurisdiction or a defect in the

removal process. See Poore, 218 F.3d at 1289; Liberty Mut.

v. Ward Trucking, 48 F.3d 742, 745-46 (3d Cir. 1995). Because the district court remanded the Latin America Cases

for want of federal subject matter jurisdiction, the exception

does not apply here, and the cases cited by the companies are

not on point.

The tobacco companies argue also that their appeals raise

the "substantial question whether Congress intended by

s 1447(d) to make a district court the final arbiter of ... an

important issue of constitutional dimension," namely, "whether, under our constitutional scheme, claims by foreign governments of this nature fall within the adjudicatory authority of

the federal courts based upon federal common law." We are

tempted to say, as Wolfgang Pauli once said of a colleague's

idea, the contention is "not even wrong." James Gleick,

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman 115 (1992).

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For starters, the appeal does not raise an issue of "constitutional dimension." The district court decided a pleading

point: whether a complaint alleging various torts under the

law of Florida "raises issues of federal law." Chicago v.

International Coll. of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 163 (1997).

There is no provision in the Constitution, and the companies

do not cite to any, that suggests this mundane inquiry takes

on a "constitutional dimension" when the plaintiff is a foreign

sovereign.

Furthermore, the companies err in suggesting there is an

exception to the prohibition of appellate review in s 1447(d)

when the remand order does raise a constitutional question.

As long as the district court orders a case remanded for want

of subject matter jurisdiction, the Congress has insulated the

decision to remand from review "whether or not that order

might be deemed erroneous by an appellate court." Thermtron Prods., Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U.S. 336, 351 (1976).

The decision of the Third Circuit In re TMI Litig. Cases

Cons. II, 940 F.2d 832 (1991), which the companies offer for

the proposition that "in extraordinary circumstances

[s 1447(d) does not prohibit] appellate consideration of certain categories of remand orders," is not to the contrary.

TMI holds that "1447(d) was not intended to preclude appellate consideration of a section 1292(b) certified question concerning the constitutionality of an Act of Congress"--in that

case the very statute upon the basis of which the plaintiff had

invoked federal jurisdiction. Id. at 836. The decision recognizes that s 1447(d) precludes appellate review of an order

remanding a case to a state court when, as here, the order is

"based upon a finding that removal was not authorized by

Congress." Id. at 845; accord Rio de Janeiro v. Philip

Morris Inc., 239 F.3d 714, 716 n.6 (5th Cir. 2001).

The plaintiffs argue that the court may not hear the

appeals for the additional reason that the records of the cases

have been transferred back to the state court. See Starnes v.

McGuire, 512 F.2d 918, 935 (1974) (en banc), a habeas corpus

case in which we said that "once a record is transferred to a

permissible forum in another district, this court loses jurisdiction over the matter." The companies respond that Starnes

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governs only those cases that have been transferred to another federal court, see Kimbro v. Velton, 30 F.3d 1501, 1504 n.2

(D.C. Cir. 1994), and that we should not extend its holding to

cases that have been remanded to state court. Having

already held that s 1447(d) precludes review, however, we

need not resolve this side dispute in order to decide the

present cases.

B. Mandamus in Russia and Mato Grosso

The tobacco companies also petition this court for a writ of

mandamus prohibiting the district court from issuing any

orders remanding Russia and Mato Grosso to the Florida

Circuit Court where they were filed. The companies contend

the lawsuits arise under federal common law because they

implicate the vital interests--economic and sovereign--of a

foreign nation and, hence, the foreign relations of the United

States. (We will assume without deciding that the companies

are correct about the significance of these cases to American

foreign policy.) The foreign states respond that "federal

jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented

on the face of the plaintiff's properly pleaded complaint," and

that a federal court may not assert jurisdiction over a case

that raises no question of federal law simply because the

plaintiff is a foreign sovereign. We need not resolve this

dispute unless we determine first that a writ of mandamus is

at least potentially available in the circumstances of this case.

As a threshold matter, we agree with the tobacco companies that s 1447(d) is not a jurisdictional bar to the relief they

request. The statute "prohibits review of all remand orders

issued pursuant to s 1447(c) whether erroneous or not and

whether review is sought by appeal or by extraordinary writ,"

Thermtron Prods., 423 U.S. at 343, but the district court has

not issued an order of remand in Russia or Mato Grosso. By

its terms, therefore, s 1447(d) does not prevent the court

from entertaining the present petitions. But see Black &

Decker v. Brown, 817 F.2d 13, 14 (3d Cir. 1987). We will not

infer a jurisdictional limitation upon "our normal and traditional function when no statute requires that we do so." Id.

at 15 (Garth, J., dissenting).

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As we often have noted, "the writ of mandamus is an

extraordinary remedy, to be reserved for extraordinary situations." National Ass'n of Crim. Def. Lawyers, Inc. v. United

States DOJ, 182 F.3d 981, 986 (1999) (NACDL). We are

particularly disinclined to issue the writ before the district

court has acted, as the petitioners here request. See In re

Bituminous Coal Operators' Ass'n, Inc., 949 F.2d 1165, 1167

(D.C. Cir. 1991) ("indiscriminate use of the remedy [would]

avoid the stricture of the final judgment rule"). In resolving

such a preemptive petition, we consider instructive the following factors:

(1) whether the party seeking the writ has any other

adequate means, such as a direct appeal, to attain the

desired relief;

(2) whether that party will be harmed in a way not

correctable on appeal;

(3) whether the district court clearly erred or abused its

discretion;

(4) whether the district court committed an oft-repeated

error; and

(5) whether the decision of the district court raises important and novel problems or issues of law.

See NACDL, 182 F.3d 986-87. As the tobacco companies

correctly observe, a petitioner need not be favored by all five

factors in order to demonstrate its entitlement to the writ of

mandamus; indeed, "it is difficult to envision a case that

involves both an oft-repeated error as well as an issue of law

of first impression." Valley Broad. Co. v. United States Dist.

Ct. for the Dist. of Nev., 798 F.2d 1289, 1292 n.3 (9th Cir.

1986). Our cases also make clear, however, that two of the

factors are actually prerequisites, for no writ of mandamus--

whether denominated "advisory," "supervisory," or otherwise--will issue unless the petitioner shows (1, above) that it

has no other adequate means of redress, see NACDL, 182

F.3d at 987, and (3, above) that the writ is necessary to

emend a clear error or abuse of discretion. See Byrd v.

Reno, 180 F.3d 298, 303 (D.C. Cir. 1999).

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We doubt the tobacco companies satisfy the first condition.

It is true, as the companies assert, that they could not seek

review of an order remanding Russia or Mato Grosso to the

state court in Florida, but that is not because some practical

exigency prevents the companies from availing themselves of

their remedy at law. Compare, e.g., In re Sealed Case, 141

F.3d 337, 340 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (issuing writ to prevent transfer of motion to quash third-party subpoena). On the contrary, the companies have no legal right to appellate review.

Rather, the court of appeals is prohibited by statute from

reviewing remand orders--by appeal or otherwise--of the

sort the district court might issue in Russia and Mato

Grosso. Although, as we have said, s 1447(d) does not

deprive this court of jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus,

the determination of the Congress that we should not review

a remand order certainly militates against our opining in

advance upon the propriety of a remand order the district

court might otherwise issue. See Ex parte Pennsylvania, 137

U.S. 451, 454 (1890) ("it is unquestionably a general rule that

the abrogation of one remedy does not affect another. But in

this case, we think, it was the intention of [C]ongress to make

the judgment of the circuit court remanding a cause to the

state court final and conclusive").

In any event, the tobacco companies do not come close to

demonstrating that it would be a clear error or an abuse of

discretion for the district court to order the cases remanded.

The companies identify no precedent of this court or of the

Supreme Court even suggesting there is federal subject

matter jurisdiction over a case merely because the plaintiff is

a foreign government with a sovereign or an economic interest in the outcome of the lawsuit. The other circuits to have

considered the companies' theory--in cases where the foreign

sovereigns were not the plaintiffs but had a material interest

in the outcomes--are divided over the issue of federal jurisdiction. Compare Pacheco de Perez v. AT&T Co., 139 F.3d

1368, 1377 (11th Cir. 1998) ("Where a state law action has as a

substantial element an issue involving foreign relations or

foreign policy matters, federal jurisdiction is present"), and

Torres v. Southern Peru Copper Corp., 113 F.3d 540, 542-43

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(5th Cir. 1997) (same), with Patrickson v. Dole Food Co., 251

F.3d 795, 803 (9th Cir. 2001) (rejecting reasoning of Pacheco

and Torres and citing with approval decision of district court

to remand in Venezuela). Considering that the Ninth Circuit

has adopted as its own the district court's reason for remanding in the Latin America Cases, we cannot agree with the

companies that the district court is now poised to commit a

clear error that would justify our issuing a writ of mandamus.* See Byrd v. Reno, 180 F.3d 298, 303 (D.C. Cir. 1999)

(denying petition for writ of mandamus "because it [was] far

from clear that the district court erred"); In re Thornburgh,

869 F.2d 1503, 1507 (D.C. Cir. 1989) ("the petitioner must

demonstrate that [its] right to relief is 'clear and indisputable' ") (quoting Kerr v. United States Dist. Ct. for the N. Dist.

of Ca., 426 U.S. 394, 403 (1976)).

In sum, the companies have failed to make out one if not

both prerequisites for a writ of mandamus. Therefore, we

deny the companies' petitions without considering the other

factors mentioned in NACDL.

__________

* The companies argue in a footnote that "even if the entire

claims [sic] of these foreign governments are not deemed to be

governed by federal common law ... the question of the availability

of the parens patriae doctrine in these suits is in and of itself

clearly a substantial question governed by federal law sufficient to

confer federal-question jurisdiction." We respond in kind. Cf.

Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531, 539 n.3 (D.C. Cir.

1999) ("We need not consider cursory arguments made only in a

footnote").

"[T]he doctrine of parens patriae is merely a species of prudential standing," Service Employees, 249 F.3d at 1073; it is not a

substantive element of the plaintiffs' state common law claims.

Whether a litigant has standing to sue may present a threshold

issue for a federal court, but our doctrines of prudential standing

are of no moment in a state court, the jurisdiction of which is not

similarly limited to what is granted by an act of the legislature.

The companies may not bootstrap their way into a federal court

with a claim that the plaintiffs' standing would be an issue had the

plaintiffs originally filed their lawsuits in a federal court, and the

district court therefore did not err in rejecting this argument.

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Finally, we decline, as we must, the companies' invitation to

issue an advisory opinion to the effect that the district court

should not remand Russia or Mato Grosso. See Br. of

Appellants at 31 ("[I]t may be entirely possible for this Court

to grant petitioners effective relief in this proceeding while

stopping short of actually issuing a writ of mandamus at this

time"). Article III does not authorize a federal court "to

declare, for the government of future cases, principles or

rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in

issue in the case before it." California v. San Pablo & T.R.

Co., 149 U.S. 308, 314 (1893).

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the appeals in the Latin America Cases are dismissed for want of appellate jurisdiction, and

the petitions for a writ of mandamus in Russia and Mato

Grosso are denied.

So ordered.

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Williams, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring: Although I

agree that the defendants' arguments do not prevail, they

seem to me a good deal subtler than the majority opinion lets

on.

First, the argument for federal jurisdiction is not for all

claims in which a plaintiff foreign government has "a sovereign or an economic interest in the outcome," Maj. Op. at 9,

but for a considerably narrower set, ones "where the actions

of a foreign government are a direct focus of the litigation."

Defendants' Br. at 36, quoting Pacheco de Perez v. AT&T, 139

F.3d 1368, 1377 (11th Cir. 1998). This is manifested here,

defendants argue, by the plaintiff governments' claim that

"their very policymaking--their core governmental decisionmaking as such--was subverted by an American industry

over a period of some 40 years." Appellants' Br. at 34.

From this the defendants reason that adjudication of the

claims will necessarily take the court deep into the evaluation

of plaintiff states' governmental decisionmaking, thereby implicating United States foreign relations and rendering the

dispute "inappropriate for state law to control." Texas Indus. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U.S. 630, 641 (1981).

But it is not clear that these allegedly federal issues satisfy

the well-pleaded complaint rule--i.e., the proposition that

federal court jurisdiction under s 1331 exists only if the

federal issue appears on the face of a properly pleaded

complaint. See Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386,

392 (1987); see also Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley,

211 U.S. 149, 152 (1908). Federal issues raised by way of

defense do not qualify, see Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v.

Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463

U.S. 1, 14 (1983); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481

U.S. 58, 63 (1987); Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian, 299

U.S. 109, 112 (1936), yet that appears to be the character of

the issues sketched out by defendants. The plaintiffs presumably will portray themselves as completely innocent gulls

of the tobacco companies, akin for example to garden-variety

medical insurers, and the companies will then respond with

evidence impugning the supposed innocence.

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The defendants hint at an argument that the present case

might fall under the rubric of "complete preemption," an

exception to the well-pleaded complaint doctrine. See Rivet

v. Regions Bank of Louisiana, 522 U.S. 470, 475-76 (1998).

But they do not offer us an analytical basis for extending the

complete preemption doctrine beyond the two statutes that

the Supreme Court has held effected such a preemption:

s 502(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act

and s 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act. See,

e.g., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58,

64-67 (1987) (ERISA); Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge Number

735, International Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 390 U.S. 557, 560-62 (1968) (LMRA); see also Anderson

v. H&R Block, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 5978, at *5-*12 (11th

Cir., Apr. 3, 2002) (discussing well-pleaded complaint and

complete preemption doctrines).

Second, defendants argue a still narrower position: that

some of plaintiffs' common law claims, those brought by the

foreign governments as parens patriae, even though they are

purportedly only under state law, in fact depend on an

anterior federal law issue, namely a finding of federal prudential standing. See Defendants' Br. at 38 & n.**. Although

normally of course federal standing doctrines are no part of

state common law actions, see Maj. Op. at 10 n.*, defendants

point to our decision in Service Employees Int'l Union Health

& Welfare Fund v. Philip Morris, Inc., 249 F.3d 1068 (D.C.

Cir. 2001), in which we treated the parens patriae standing

issue as an element of the plaintiffs' state common law claims,

and, in reliance entirely on federal law concepts, found the

absence of such standing fatal to the claims. See id. at 1073;

see also id. at 1069 (noting complaints' inclusion of common

law claims). But in that case the plaintiffs themselves explicitly invoked parens patriae standing as to all claims, see

Appellants' Opening Br. at 37-38 and Reply Br. at 6-7,

Service Employees (No. 00-7093), drawing no distinction between the statutory and common law claims. Thus, the court

in Service Employees had no occasion to hold that state

common law parens patriae claims by a foreign government

inherently include a federal element.

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