Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-16-01101/USCOURTS-ca8-16-01101-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Essar Global Fund Ltd.
Appellant
Essar Steel India Limited
Appellant
Essar Steel Limited
Appellant
Essar Steel Minnesota LLC
Appellant
Great Lakes Gas Transmission Limited Partnership
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 16-1101

___________________________

Great Lakes Gas Transmission Limited Partnership

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Essar Steel Minnesota LLC; Essar Steel Limited, formerly known as Essar Steel

Holdings, Ltd.; Essar Steel India Limited, formerly known as Essar Steel Limited;

Essar Global Fund Ltd., formerly known as Essar Global Limited

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellants

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis

____________

 Submitted: October 20, 2016

 Filed: December 5, 2016 

____________

Before MURPHY, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

____________

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Great Lakes Gas Transmission Limited Partnership (“Great Lakes”) brought

suit against Essar Steel Minnesota, LLC and related entities (“ESML”) for breach of

contract in federal court, asserting diversity jurisdiction. The partieslater discovered

that diversity jurisdiction did not exist, and ESML filed a motion to dismiss for lack

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of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court held that it had federal question

jurisdiction and denied the motion. The case proceeded to trial, and judgment was

entered for Great Lakes. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the

district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Therefore, we vacate the judgment

and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

I.

Great Lakes operates a pipeline that transports natural gas from Canada to

locations in Minnesota. ESML’s predecessor, Minnesota Steel Industries (“MSI”),

sought to obtain gas for use at a steel production facility it planned to build in

Nashwauk, Minnesota. Thus, on September 6, 2006, MSI and Great Lakes entered

into a Transportation Service Agreement (“TSA”) for the transportation of gas to

Nashwauk. 

The TSA provided that Great Lakes would transport up to 55,000 dekatherms

of gas per day from July 1, 2009 to March 31, 2024. In exchange for the

transportation of natural gas, the TSA required MSI to pay Great Lakes its maximum

reservation rates and charges on a monthly basis under the applicable rate schedule

reflected in Great Lakes’s gas tariff (“Tariff”) on file with the Federal Energy

Regulatory Commission (“FERC”). The TSA also incorporated by reference the

terms of the Tariff, which included provisions such as a force majeure clause and a

limitation of liability clause. Additionally, the TSA stated that any controversy

arising under the agreement “shall be determined in accordance with the laws of the

State of Michigan.” 

On October 22, 2007, Essar Steel Holdings Ltd. acquired MSI, and MSI

subsequently changed its name to ESML. According to ESML, it was still in the

process of obtaining financing to construct the planned Nashwauk facility when the

2008 financial crisis delayed construction of the facility. Thus, in early 2009, ESML

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communicated to Great Lakes that performance under the existing terms of the TSA

wasimpractical and that it wished to modify the terms, including the commencement

date. As of October 2009, the parties had not reached an agreement, and ESML had

not made any of the monthly payments due beginning in August 2009. As a result,

on October 29, 2009, Great Lakes brought suit against ESML in federal court. 

Great Lakes’s first amended complaint (“FAC”) pleaded a claim for breach of

contract under a theory of anticipatory repudiation, and it requested relief in the form

of all future payments that would have been due under the TSA until its expiration

in March 2024. The FAC did not mention a cause of action based on federal law, and

it included only a passing reference to the Tariff in the factual background section,

stating that “MSI agreed to pay the rates indicated in the Contract, which include the

maximum reservation rate for the Contract’s transportation path as reflected in Great

Lakes’ FERC Gas Tariff, Second Revised Volume No. 1 (‘Tariff’).” The FAC

identified diversity jurisdiction as the only basis for subject matter jurisdiction.

Thus, the case proceeded under the assumption that diversity jurisdiction

existed. On May 15, 2012, when ruling on a counterclaim by ESML, the district

court applied Michigan law to determine that the force majeure clause did not apply

to the unforeseen financial crisis. On March 19, 2013, the court again applied

Michigan law to hold that ESML had committed an anticipatory repudiation of the

TSA and to deny ESML’s affirmative defense based on the Tariff’s limitation of

liability clause. As a result, the court granted Great Lakes’s motion for partial

summary judgment and held that Great Lakes was entitled to recover the entire

payment stream due under the TSA. Because the parties agreed that damages needed

to be reduced to net present value and that determining the particular discount rate to

apply was a question of fact, a trial was scheduled to calculate damages. 

Meanwhile, ESML filed a complaint with FERC on November 27, 2012,

asking FERC to order Great Lakes “to negotiate in good faith to resolve this dispute

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with ESML.” FERC found that it lacked exclusive jurisdiction because ESML was

not challenging the reasonableness ofthe Tariff’s rate, and FERC declined to exercise

its primary jurisdiction. Thus, FERC dismissed the complaint.

On the eve of trial, ESML alerted the court that one of Great Lakes’s limited

partners, TC PipeLines, LP, had hundreds or thousands of public unitholders whose

citizenship destroyed diversity jurisdiction. GreatLakes had not previously disclosed

their existence, and ESML noticed the inaccuracy in Great Lakes’s citizenship

disclosure while preparing a trial brief. ESML moved to dismiss the case for lack of

subject matter jurisdiction. 

On May 4, 2015, the district court denied the motion to dismiss. The court

agreed with ESML that diversity jurisdiction was not present. Nevertheless, the court

held that federal question jurisdiction existed. The court did not base its decision on

the proposition that federal law created the cause of action. In fact, it rejected the

argument that the Natural Gas Act (“NGA”) creates an express cause of action for

recovering payments due under a federal tariff, and it declined to rule on whether the

NGA creates an implied cause of action. Rather, the court held that it had federal

question jurisdiction “given the disputed and substantial federal issues at play.” 

Great Lakes Gas Transmission Ltd. P’ship v. Essar Steel Minn., LLC, 103 F. Supp.

3d 1000, 1017-18 (D. Minn. 2015). The court also held that its jurisdiction over the

claim was exclusive because of the NGA’s exclusive jurisdiction provision. 

The case proceeded to trial, and Great Lakesreceived a judgment in the amount

of $32,902,183. On appeal, ESML raises four arguments: (1) the district court lacked

subject matter jurisdiction; (2) the district court erred in granting summary judgment

on the anticipatory repudiation claim; (3) the district court erred in dismissing

ESML’s affirmative defense based on the Tariff’s limitation ofliability provision; and

(4) the district court abused its discretion in excluding ESML’s expert witness on

damages and in limiting ESML’s cross-examination of Great Lakes’s expert witness. 

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We agree with ESML that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, and

thus we do not address ESML’s remaining arguments.

II.

“Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, possessing only that power

authorized by Constitution and statute.” Gunn v. Minton, 133 S. Ct. 1059, 1064

(2013) (citation and quotation marks omitted). “The existence of subject matter

jurisdiction in federal court is a question of law subject to de novo review.” Keene

Corp. v. Cass, 908 F.2d 293, 296 (8th Cir. 1990). The parties agree that the only

possible basis for subject matter jurisdiction is federal question jurisdiction, which

grantsfederal district courts “original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the

Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1331. 

“[T]he question whether a claim ‘arises under’ federal law must be determined

by reference to the ‘well-pleaded complaint.’” Merrell Dow Pharm. Inc. v.

Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 808 (1986) (quoting Franchise Tax Bd. v. Constr. Laborers

Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1983)). The well-pleaded complaint rule “provides

that federal jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented on the face

of the plaintiff’s properly pleaded complaint.” Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S.

386, 392 (1987). “Federal question jurisdiction exists if the well-pleaded complaint

establishes either that federal law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff’s

right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal

law.” Williams v. Ragnone, 147 F.3d 700, 702 (8th Cir. 1998) (citation and quotation

marks omitted). Thus, we first address whether federal law creates the cause of action

in this case, and we next address whether Great Lakes’s right to relief necessarily

depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal law.

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III.

“[T]he vast majority of cases brought under the general federal-question

jurisdiction of the federal courts are those in which federal law creates the cause of

action.” Merrell Dow, 478 U.S. at 808. Federal law may create a cause of action

“either expressly or by implication.” Transamerica Mortg. Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis,

444 U.S. 11, 15 (1979). The cause of action identified in the FAC is a breach of

contract claim. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that federal law neither

expressly nor implicitly created this cause of action. 

A.

We agree with the district court that federal law does not create an express

cause of action under which Great Lakes may sue for breach of contract. The Tariff

was filed pursuant to the NGA, and nothing in the NGA expressly creates a cause of

action for breach of contract. Although Section 717u of the NGA provides that

district courts have “exclusive jurisdiction of violations of [the NGA] or the rules,

regulations, and orders thereunder,” 15 U.S.C. § 717u, the district court correctly

ruled that this provision “does not create a cause of action, but merely states that

federal district courts have exclusive jurisdiction over casesthat otherwise arise under

federal law or involve a substantial question of federal law.” Great Lakes, 103 F.

Supp. 3d at 1013. Indeed, “[e]xclusiveness is a consequence of having jurisdiction,

not the generator of jurisdiction.” Pan Am. Petroleum Corp. v. Super. Ct. of Del., 366

U.S. 656, 664 (1961); see also Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC v. Singh, 707 F.3d

583, 591 (6th Cir. 2013) (“Section 717u provides for federal jurisdiction, but it does

not create an action.”). Thus, the NGA does not create an express federal cause of

action. 

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B. 

The NGA also does not create an implied cause of action. In limited

circumstances, courts may determine that “a private remedy isimplicit in a statute not

expressly providing one.” Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 78 (1975). Before the district

court, Great Lakes contended that Section 717c of the NGA creates an implied cause

of action. Great Lakes argued that because Section 717c prohibits “undue preference

or advantage,” Great Lakes must be able to sue to collect unpaid tariff paymentsfrom

all of its shippers in order to avoid giving undue preference to shippers from whom

it does not collect. See 15 U.S.C. § 717c(b). The district court declined to rule on

whether the NGA creates an implied cause of action because it noted that the two

relevant Supreme Court cases were “not particularly instructive.” Great Lakes, 103

F. Supp. 3d at 1015, 1018. On appeal, Great Lakes contends that our recent decision

in City of Osceola v. Entergy Arkansas, Inc., 791 F.3d 904 (8th Cir. 2015) establishes

that “a suit to enforce an agreement incorporating a FERC-approved tariff arises

under federal law.” However, Osceola and the two Supreme Court cases identified

by the district court are distinguishable from the present case. 

In Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Rice, a railroad sued a consignee to recover money

“claimed to be due under tariffs approved and published as required by Interstate

Commerce Act.” 247 U.S. 201, 201 (1918). The Supreme Court recognized that the

InterstateCommerce Act (“ICA”) expressly “requires carrier to collect and consignee

to pay all lawful charges duly prescribed by the tariff in respect of every shipment.” 

Id. at 202. Thus, the Court held that federal jurisdiction existed because the “result

of the action necessarily depended upon construction and effect of [the ICA].” Id. at

203. Likewise, in Thurston Motor Lines, Inc. v. Jordan K. Rand, Ltd., the Court held

thatfederal jurisdiction existed over a claimseeking “pay[ment] for transport services

as required by petitioner’s tariff” because the complaintspecifically “alleged that the

action arose under the Interstate Commerce Act.” 460 U.S. 533, 533 (1983). 

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This case involves the NGA, not the ICA. Unlike the ICA, the NGA does not

expressly require transporters to collect and shippers to pay all lawful charges from

their shippers. Thus, the result of this action did not “necessarily depend[] upon

construction” of the NGA. See Rice, 247 U.S. at 203. Moreover, the FAC did not

“allege[] that the action arose under” the NGA. See Thurston, 460 U.S. at 533. 

Indeed, aside from one brief reference to the Tariff, the FAC did not mention any

federal law at all. Therefore, both Rice and Thurston are inapposite.

In Osceola, we addressed a claim brought to enforce a tariff filed under the

Federal Power Act (“FPA”). 791 F.3d at 907. There, FERC required certain

companies, including the defendant, Entergy, to make “bandwidth payments” to other

companies. Id. at 906. After making these bandwidth payments, Entergy passed the

costs on to its customers as “purchased energy.” Id. In a FERC compliance action,

FERC determined that Entergy’s contract with one of its customers, Union Electric,

did not permit Entergy to charge these payments to Union Electric as purchased

energy. See id. Subsequently, another customer, the City of Osceola, sued Entergy

in state court, seeking recovery of $4 million in bandwidth payments charged to

Osceola. See id. at 907. Osceola’s complaint cited FERC decisions, asserted that

those decisions governed the interpretation of Osceola’s contract with Entergy, and

stated that Osceola “sought damages permissible under the Federal Power Act and

FERC decisions.” Id. On appeal after removal to federal court, we observed that this

dispute centered on the interpretation of a “rate formula” contained within the

agreement and approved by FERC. Id. at 908. Based on these facts, we concluded

that removal was proper, noting that Osceola sought to enforce the tariff contained

in the agreement and approved by FERC and that “a suit to enforce [filed tariffs]

arises under federal law.” Id. at 907-08. 

Unlike in Osceola, this claim was not brought to enforce the terms of a tariff

as previously interpreted by FERC. This dispute did not “center[] on” an

interpretation of a “FERC approved rate formula,” nor did the FAC seek “damages

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permissible under” the NGA or FERC decisions. See id. Rather, the FAC alleged a

simple breach of contract claim. There was no indication that federal law created this

cause of action or played any role in Great Lakes’s right to relief. Therefore, Osceola

does not suggest that federal law necessarily creates an implied cause of action for

breach of contract.

To determine whether the NGA creates such a cause of action, “the central

inquiry remains whether Congress intended to create, either expressly or by

implication, a private cause of action.” Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S.

560, 575 (1979). Several factors are relevant to this inquiry, including whether there

is “any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create such a

remedy or to deny one” and whether the cause of action is “one traditionally relegated

to state law, in an area basically the concern of the States, so that it would be

inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law.” Cort, 422 U.S.

at 78. Other than the inferences that Great Lakes seeks to draw from Section 717c,

there is no indication of legislative intent to create a federal cause of action displacing

traditionalstate law breach of contract causes of action. Indeed, “all pronouncements

by the Supreme Court have indicated that regulation of the natural gas industry was

intended to be a cooperative operation between the state and federal governments.”

City of New Orleans v. United Gas Pipe Line Co., 390 F. Supp. 861, 866 (E.D. La.

1974). Therefore, we find no implied federal cause of action for breach of contract

in the NGA. Because federal law does not create the cause of action identified in the

FAC, federal question jurisdiction may not rest on this basis. 

IV.

Even though federal law does not create the cause of action, federal question

jurisdiction may exist if Great Lakes’s “state-law claim necessarily raise[s] a stated

federal issue, actually disputed and substantial, which a federal forum may entertain

without disturbing any congressionally approved balance of federal and state judicial

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responsibilities.” Grable &Sons Metal Prods., Inc. v. Darue Eng’g & Mfg., 545 U.S.

308, 314 (2005). This rule applies only to a “special and small category” of casesthat

present “a nearly pure issue of law, one that could be settled once and for all and

thereafter would govern numerous . . . cases.” Empire Healthchoice Assur., Inc. v.

McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 699-700 (2006) (citation and quotation marks omitted). 

For example, in Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering &

Manufacturing, the plaintiff brought a state law claim to quiet title in real property,

claiming that the IRS failed to provide the plaintiff with the notice required by a

federal statute. 545 U.S. at 310-11. The Supreme Court noted that “the meaning of

the federal statute is thus an essential element of [the] quiet title claim” and it

“appears to be the only legal or factual issue contested in the case.” Id. at 315. Thus,

the Court held that “the meaning of the federal tax provision is an important issue of

federal law that sensibly belongs in federal court.” Id. The Court emphasized the

narrowness of its holding, stating that the exercise of federal jurisdiction would have

only a “microscopic effect on the federal-state division of labor” because “it will be

the rare state title case that raises a contested matter of federal law.” Id. In contrast,

in Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. v. McVeigh, the Court found that a dispute

over the meaning of terms in a federal health insurance contract was “fact-bound and

situation-specific” and could not “be squeezed into the slim category Grable

exemplifies.” 547 U.S. at 701. 

Here, the district court held that it had federal question jurisdiction under the

Grable rule. The court first recognized that “federal tariffs carry the same legal force

as federal regulations, and are thus considered federal law.” Great Lakes, 103 F.

Supp. 3d at 1018 (citations omitted);see also MCI Telecomms. Corp. v. Garden State

Inv. Corp., 981 F.2d 385, 387 (8th Cir. 1992) (explaining that “federal tariffs are the

law, not mere contracts”). The court then held that the construction and application

of this federal law was both “necessarily raised” and “actually disputed.” The court

reasoned that, even if ESML had not raised the force majeure and limitation of

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liability clauses as affirmative defenses, the court would have needed to interpret

those clauses when determining the merits of Great Lakes’s affirmative case for

damages. Great Lakes, 103 F. Supp. 3d at 1021-24.

Assuming that the district court correctly held that federal issues were

“necessarily raised” and “actually disputed,” we do not agree with the district court

that the third and fourth requirements of Grable are satisfied. See Grable, 545 U.S.

at 314. Specifically, we do not agree that the federal issues in this case are

“substantial,” nor do we agree that federal courts can exercise federal question

jurisdiction “without disturbing any congressionally approved balance of federal and

state judicial responsibilities.” See id. 

A.

The third requirement of Grable is not met because the federal issues in this

case are not substantial in the relevant sense. The district court held that the

interpretation of these Tariff provisions was “significant to the federal system as a

whole” based on the following logic:

Likely, many tariffs contain limited liability provisions that are similar,

if not identical, to the provisions at issue in this case. Therefore, in

future NGA tariff violation cases, courts may look to the way in which

this Court interpreted the Tariff provisions here, and applied those

provisions to the particular facts of this case, in order to determine

whether a defendant is liable for damages in a similar case.

Great Lakes, 103 F. Supp. 3d at 1024-25 (citation omitted). 

However, the district court did not interpret the force majeure or limitation of

liability clauses in accordance with federal law. Rather, as required by the TSA, it

interpreted the Tariff provisions in accordance with Michigan law. As another court

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has recognized, there islittle national interest in having a federal court interpret tariff

provisions if it will merely apply state law:

Any interpretation by a federal court of the language of the tariffs will

only speak to how those tariffs should be construed in this state.

Accordingly, the reach of any such adjudication will not have federal

reverberation. In addition, to the extent federal interests are implicated,

the state court is quite competent to apply the language of the tariffs and

is certainly well positioned to do so where, as here, the tariff language

is to be construed in accord with state law.

Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Ariz. Elec. Power Coop., Inc., 479 F. Supp. 2d 1113, 1123

(E.D. Cal. 2007). Thus, because the district court interpreted the force majeure and

limitation of liability clauses in accordance with Michigan law, its interpretation of

these provisions could not promote national uniformity. 

In addition, FERC’s reasoning for declining primary jurisdiction in this case

further suggests that any federal interest in national uniformity is not substantial:

[T]he Commission (1) has no special expertise in straight-forward

contractual matters, (2) there is no need for uniformity of interpretation

when dealing with a contract dispute over damages resulting from

termination of an agreement, and (3) the issue of whether there has been

an anticipatory repudiation of the TSA is not important in relation to the

Commission’s regulatory responsibilities. 

Essar Steel Minn., LLC v. Great Lakes Gas Transmission Ltd. P’ship, 2013 WL

1177519, at *4 (F.E.R.C. Mar. 21, 2013). FERC has expressed similar reasoning in

other cases involving contracts filed with FERC and governed by state law. See

Portland Gen. Elec. Co., 1995 WL 394547, at *4 (F.E.R.C. July 5, 1995) (“An

interpretation of this language by Oregon courts, under Oregon law, even if different

from that of other state courts’ interpretations of other contract default provisions,

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will not impinge significantly on the operations of public utilities across the

Nation.”). 

Certainly, whether FERC exercises its primary jurisdiction should not be

conflated with whether federal question jurisdiction exists. However, we find

FERC’s reasoning persuasive for finding that the federal interests here are not

“substantial” within the meaning of Grable. This case presents no “serious federal

interest in claiming the advantages thought to be inherent in a federal forum.” 

Grable, 545 U.S. at 313. Indeed, this case is far more similar to the “fact-bound and

situation-specific” dispute over the application of contract terms in Empire

Healthchoice than it is to the interpretation of a federal statute posed in Grable. See

Empire Healthchoice, 547 U.S. at 701. Therefore, we conclude that the substantiality

requirement of Grable is not satisfied here.

B.

Furthermore, we conclude that Grable’s fourth requirement also is not

satisfied. Specifically, allowing federal courtsto exercise exclusive jurisdiction over

this type of claim would disturb a “congressionally approved balance of federal and

state judicial responsibilities.” See Grable, 545 U.S. at 314. 

As the district court correctly determined, once a federal court determines that

a claim “arises under” the NGA or any regulation thereunder—either because the

NGA creates the cause of action or because the Grable test issatisfied—the exclusive

jurisdiction clause of the NGA requires that the federal court retain exclusive

jurisdiction of the claim. See Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner &Smith Inc. v. Manning,

136 S. Ct. 1562, 1572 (2016) (“[A]n action ‘brought to enforce’ a duty or liability

created by a federal statute is nothing more (and nothing less) than an action ‘arising

under’ that law.”); 15 U.S.C. § 717u (granting federal courts exclusive jurisdiction

over all claims “brought to enforce any liability or duty created by, or to enjoin any

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violation of, [the NGA] or any rule, regulation, or order thereunder”). Despite the

fact that exercising federal question jurisdiction would inevitably result in exclusive

jurisdiction, the district court concluded that resolving this issue in federal court

would not disrupt the federal-state balance approved by Congress because “the

language of the NGA does not evidence Congress’s intent to keep these types of cases

out of federal court.” Great Lakes, 103 F. Supp. 3d at 1025. Rather, the district court

held that the presence of the exclusive jurisdiction clause was “evidence of the fact

that Congress affirmatively sought to provide a federal forum for certain cases, such

as this one.” Id.

On the contrary, the mere presence of the exclusive jurisdiction clause does not

indicate that Congress intended to provide a federal forum for breach of contract

cases. First, “the combination of no federal cause of action and no preemption of

state remedies” serves as an “important clue” suggesting a congressionally approved

balance disfavoring federal involvement. Grable, 545 U.S. at 318. Second, the

presence ofthe exclusive jurisdiction provision indicatesthatCongress did not intend

this particular type of case to end up in federal court, because exclusive jurisdiction

over breach of contract cases would result in the very disturbance that Grable warned

against. Specifically, exclusive federal jurisdiction over these cases would preclude

state courts from adjudicating contract disputes governed by their own state law. As

the Supreme Court has emphasized, “when a statute mandates, rather than permits,

federal jurisdiction—thus depriving state courts of all ability to adjudicate certain

claims—our reluctance to endorse broad readings, if anything, grows stronger.” 

Manning, 136 S. Ct. at 1573 (citation and quotation marks omitted). Our reluctance

is especially heightened in this case because “the interpretation of a contract is

ordinarily a matter of state law to which we defer.” DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, 136

S. Ct. 463, 468 (2015) (citation omitted). Therefore, we decline to read broadly the

NGA’s exclusive jurisdiction provision to evidence a congressional intent to provide

an exclusively federal forum for traditional state law breach of contract claims. 

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Because the federal issues in this case are not substantial to the federal system

as a whole and because the district court could not exercise federal question

jurisdiction without disrupting the balance of state and federal responsibilities, we

conclude that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, we

do not reach the remaining issues. 

V.

We recognize that the district court and the parties expended significant time,

effort, and expense before the issue of subject matter jurisdiction was raised. 

However, we have a duty to determine the existence of subject matter jurisdiction at

any time, even on appeal. See Arnold v. Wood, 238 F.3d 992, 994 (8th Cir. 2001). 

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is vacated, and we

remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. 

______________________________

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