### In the 

# United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit

____________________
No. 14

- 3436

D ENNIS A DKINS , et al

. , Plaintiffs

- Appellees

, and
C ONNIE C URTS , Intervening Plaintiff

- Appellant

,

v.

N ESTLÉ P URINA P ET C ARE C OMPANY and W AGGIN ’ T RAIN , LLC

, Defendants

- Appellees

.

____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 12 C 2871

— Robert W. Gettleman

, Judge

.

____________________

A RGUED F EBRUARY 24, 2015

— D ECIDED M ARCH 2, 2015

____________________

Before E ASTERBROOK , R OVNER , and S YKES , Circuit Judges

. E ASTERBROOK , Circuit Judge

. Plaintiffs contend in this suit,
which the district court has certified as a nationwide class action, that Nestlé and Waggin ’ Train sold dog treats that injured the dogs. The parties have reached a settlement, to2 No. 14

- 3436

which the district court has given tentative approval pen ding a fairness hearing under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e). That hea ring has been scheduled for June 23, 2015 . The order tent ative ly approving the settlement has one non

- tentative prov ision: It enjoins all class mem bers from prosecuting litigation about the dog treats in any other forum.
One case affected by this injunction has been pending for

two years in Missouri, and it was certi fied as a state wide
class action before t he federal suit was certified as a national
class action

. It was on a schedule leading to a trial in May
2015 when the injunction stopped it cold. Connie Curts, the certified representative of the Missouri class, in tervened to protest the federal injunction. † She contends in this appeal that the district court has violated 28 U.S.C. §2283, the Anti

Injunction Act, which provides: “ A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or e ffectuate its judgments. ”
The parties (the representatives of the federal class plus Nestlé and Waggin ’ Train) contend that the injun ction is

“ necessary in aid of [the district court ’ s] jurisdiction ” . Curts

† At least she tried to intervene. The district judge denied the motion
with a brief oral statement. We have directed district courts to allow i ntervention under circumstances such as these. See, e.g., Crawford v. Equifax Payment Services, Inc ., 201 F.3d 87 7, 881 (7th Cir. 2000) ; Robert F. Booth Trust v. Crowley , 687 F.3d 314 (7th Cir. 2012). The district court did not mention either of these decisions (or any other case, for that matter). Still, the error is not fatal, given Devlin v. Scardelletti , 536 U.S. 1 (2002)

, and United States v. Kirschenbaum , 156 F.3d 784, 794 (7th Cir. 1998) (a non

party bound by an injunction is entitled to appeal).No. 14

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maintains, to the contrary, that only federal actions in rem

— that is, suits about the disposition of specific property

— come within the scope of the “ aid of jurisdiction ” exception,
b ecause only then could a state court ’ s action override the federal tribunal by moving or destroying the property on which federal authority depends.
But when we sought to learn the district court ’ s view of this subject, we were stymied

. The district judge has not e xplained why he entered the injunction

. There are some hints, but nothing more. T hat won ’ t do. Rule 65(d)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that every order issuing an injunction must “ state the reasons why it issued ”

. At oral argument, counsel for Nestlé insisted that the judge had provided reasons and referred us to six pages of the transcript of a hearing at which the settlement was di scussed . According to counsel, the district judge found that
continuation of the Mis souri a ction “ has a great potential of tanking the entire settlement ” . We ’ ll return to the question whether this has anything to do with “ jurisdiction. ” For the moment, it is enough to observe that Nestlé ’ s lawyer was quoting a statement by Morton Denlow, a retir ed magistrate judge who in a private capacity had mediated the negoti ations, not a statement by the district ju dge

. And if we understand the judge as sharing Mr. Denlow’s
view , that would not satisfy Rule 65(d)(1)(A). Before issuing an injunction, a judge must identify the appropriate legal
standard and make the findings of law and fact required by
that standard. “ A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of pr eliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor,4 No. 14

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and that an injunctio n is in the public interest. ” Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc ., 555 U.S. 7, 20 ( 2008).

The dis trict judg e did not discuss these subjects , and al though Mr. Denlow’s state ment may be relevant it is not co nclusive on any of them

. Take irreparable injury: It is esta blished that the costs of ongoing litigation (the result if the
settlement collapses) are not irre parable injury. See, e.g., P etroleum Exploration, Inc. v. Public Service Commission , 304 U.S. 209, 222 (1938); Renegotiation Board v. Bannercraft Clothing Co

., 415 U.S. 1 , 24 (1974); FTC v. Standard Oil Co ., 449 U.S. 232, 244 (1980)

. More: an injunctio n th at halts state litiga tion is permissible only if it satis fies §2283 in addition to the trad itional factors that Winter catalogs

. The district judge was s ilent about everything that matters.
The immediate question we must resolve, therefore, is
whether to vacate the injunction and remand for further pr oceedings, or to reverse outright. We think the latter step a ppropriate, for two reasons: first, the final hearing is sche duled for June , and further pro ceedings in the district court (potentially followed by another appeal) c ould leave the state litiga tion in limbo until then

, disrupting the state case almost as effectively as an injunction; second , in supporting this injunction the parties do not even contend that it is “ ne cessary ” in aid of the district cour t ’ s “ jurisdiction. ” Instead the parties contend that, if the Missouri case proceeds to f inal decision before June 23

, then their settlement must be r enegotiated and may well collapse. We take that as a given. Still, what has that to do with the federal cou rt ’ s “ jurisdi ction ” ? And why is preserving a particular settlement “ nece ssary ” to federal jurisdiction?No. 14

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Many decisions by the Supreme Court over the last 30 years tell us that “ jurisdiction ” means adjudicatory comp etence. See, e.g., Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick , 559 U.S. 154 (2010) ; Union Pacific R.R. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng ineers , 558 U.S. 67 (2009); Zipe s v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.

, 455 U.S. 385 (1982 ) . See also Minn

- Chem, Inc. v. Agrium Inc

. , 683 F.3d 845 (7th Cir. 2012) (en banc). These opinions show
that there is a fundamental difference b etween “ jurisdiction ”
and the many procedural or substantive rules that determine
how cases are resolved . A court has “ jurisdiction ” when it has been designated by statute as an appropriate forum for a dispute of a given sort; othe r rules are non

- jurisdictional.
No one doubts that the district court has subject

- matter jurisdiction over this litigation, and no one contends that tr ial or judgment in the Missouri litigation could imperil the
district court ’ s ability and authority to adjudicate the federal suit. If the settlement collapses, the court ’ s adjudicatory competence remains. A need to adjudicate a suit on the me rits after settlement negotiations fail does not undermine the
nature or extent of a cour t ’ s jurisdiction. Yet if the Missouri

case cannot diminish federal jurisdiction, §2283 precludes an injunction until the federal case reaches a final decision. (A fter a final decision, an injunction could be appropriate to protect the federal judgment , alt hough class members who opt out would remain entitled to pursue their own suits .)
Parallel state and federal litigation is common. The first to reach final decision can affect the other, either through
rules of claim and issue preclusion (res judicata and colla teral estoppel ) or through effects such as reducing the scope of a class from 50 to 49 states. Yet the potential effect of one
suit on the other does not justify an injunction.6 No. 14

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We have never viewed parallel in personam actions as interfering
with the jurisdiction of either court; as we stated in Kline v. Burke
Construction Co ., 260 U.S. 226 (1922):

[A]n action brought to enforce [a personal liability] does not tend to impair or defeat the jurisdiction of the court in which a prior action for the same cause is pending. Each court is free to proceed in its own way and in its own time, without re ference to the proceedings in the other court. Whenever a judgment is rendered in one of the courts and pleaded in the other, the effect of that judgment is to be determined by the application of the principles of res adjudicata

... . ” Id ., at 230 (emphasis added).

No case of this Court has ever held that an injunction to “ pr eserve ” a case or controversy fits within the “ necessary in aid of its jurisdiction ” exceptio n [to §2283]; neither have the parties d irected us to any other federal

- court decisions so holding.

Vendo Co. v. Lektro

- Vend Corp

., 433 U.S. 623, 642 (1977 ) (pl urality opinion). More recently, Sprint Communications, Inc. v. Jacobs , 134 S. Ct. 584 (2013), h eld that parallel state and fe deral proceedings do not justify abstention by a federal court. The Court thought that both should be allowed to proceed, subject only to the equitable power of each tribunal to defer its own proceedings in deference to a case that is farther along. Nothing in Sprint or any other decision of the S upreme Court suggests that the court presiding over the case likely to reach judgment second can jump the queue by e njoining the suit that is likely to reach decision first. Our opi nio n in Zurich American Insurance Co. v. Superior Court of Cal ifornia , 326 F.3d 816, 825

– 27 (7th Cir. 2002 ), dealt with just such a situation and held that the prospect of a state court reaching decision first, making federal decision unnecessary (or the fede ral case harder to adjudicate), does not justify a federal injunction against the state litigation.No. 14

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We therefore need not address Curts ’ s argument that o nly in rem proceedings can satisfy the “ aid of jurisdiction ” clause in §2283. We can imagine extreme situations in which a state could imperil a federal court ’ s adjudicatory power

over in personam actions. For example, suppose a state court

were to bar a necessary witness from atten d ing a federal trial or depositio n; a federal injunction (or a writ of habeas co rpus) might be an authorized response. Winkler v. Eli Lilly &
Co ., 101 F.3d 1196, 1202 (7th Cir. 1996), concludes that the “aid of jurisdiction” clause may be invoked when an inco nsistent decision by a state c ourt would “render the exercise of the federal court’s jurisdiction nu gatory.”

The panel in Winkler thought that this might occur when the federal litigation sought an in junction (as in school d esegregation litigation); an order by the state court to do

so mething different from what the federal litigation sought could undermine federal authority as a practical matter. ( Winkler itself entailed incompatible state and federal orders about discovery management.) But nothing of the sort has
occurred here. Curts wants to litigate her own suit in Mi ssouri, not to stop the federal court from adjudicating the suit pending be fore it, and the parties do not contend that there is a significant prospect of inconsistent injunctions affecting defendants’ future conduct. (S hould that possibility be rea lized, it can be dealt with.)

No matter what one makes of the word “ jurisdiction ” in §2283, an injunction is proper only when “ necessary ” to pr otect federal jurisdiction. The parties argue that closing down
the Missouri case wo uld be prudent, beneficial, helpful, and so on; the unstated premise is that §2283 allows whatever a federal court thinks is good litigation management. But8 No. 14

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that ’ s not what “ necessary ” means. The Supreme Court told us recently:

The statute ... “ is a necessar y concomitant of the Framers ’ dec ision to authorize, and Congress ’ decision to implement, a dual system of federal and state courts. ” And the Act ’ s core message is one of respect for state courts. The Act broadly commands that
those tribunals “ shall remain free from interference by federal

courts. ” That edict is subject to only “ three specifically defined exceptions. ” And those exceptions, though designed for i mportant purposes, “ are narrow and are ‘ not [to] be enlarged by loose statutory construction. ’ ” Indeed, “ [a]ny doubts as to the propriety of a federal injunction against state court proceedings should be resolved in favor of permitting the state courts to pr oceed. ” Smith v. Bayer Corp ., 131 S. Ct. 2368, 2375 (2011) (internal cit ations omitted). One reason why doubts must be resolved against a federal injunction is the word “ necessary ”

. Section 2283 leaves only limited opportunities for federal interve ntion. I n the main §2283 commits to the state court the que stion whether it would be prudent, benefic ial, or helpful to let the federal case go first.
According to the parties, In re VMS Securities Litigation

, 103 F.3d 1317 (7th Cir. 1996), shows that the district court’s injunction is proper. Not at all. In VMS Securities the district court issued an inj unction to protect the final decision in a class suit. That step was authorized by the relitigation exce ption to §2283 . What is more, the parties had failed to raise §2283 in the district court, and we held that this forfeited any entitlement to rely on it in the court of appeals. 103 F.3d at
1326 . Nothing in VMS Securities supports the propriety of an injunction while the federal case remains in process.No. 14

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A lthough the parties and Curts debate the significance of many decisions outside the Seventh Circuit, t hose opinions are so various that it would not be helpful to catalog them. It is enough to say that, to the extent any of them supports i njunctive relief before the settlement of a federal class action has become final, it fails to discuss the Supreme Cour t’s u nderstanding of “jurisdiction” and predates its reminder in Bayer that doubts must be resolved in favor of allowing state courts to proceed with litigation pending there.
Curts and the parties have locked horns on a number of additional questions, suc h as whether it is appropriate to certify a national class (as opposed to a number of state

specific classes) , whether the plaintiffs are adequate repr esentatives of a national class, and whether the settlement ought to be approved. Our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §1292(a) is limited to the injunction, however. Whatever

s cope remains for pendent appellate jurisdiction after Swint v. Chambers County Comm ’ n , 514 U.S. 35 , 43

– 51 (1995) , and Clinton v. Jones , 520 U.S. 681, 707 n.41 (1997), this is not an appropriate occasion for its exercise. Disputes about class certification and the terms of the settlement are independent of the injunction against state litigation. Anyone dissatisfied
with the district cour t ’ s final disposition is free to seek appe llate review; we will not try to resolve issues still under co nsideration in the district court

. Effective immediately, the district court ’ s injunction is stayed. Curts and the Missouri court are free to proceed. B ut our mandate will issue in the ordinary course, to preserve the parties ’ entitlement to seek rehearing.

R EVERSED