Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)

391

Opinion of the Court

the lower court opinions rest. A case such as this one is
more closely analogous to cases in which a later event, say,
the change in the citizenship of a party or a subsequent re-
duction of the amount at issue below jurisdictional levels,
destroys previously existing jurisdiction.
In such cases, a
federal court will keep a removed case. See St. Paul Mer-
cury Indemnity Co., supra, at 293–295; Phelps v. Oaks, 117
U. S. 236, 240–241 (1886); Kanouse v. Martin, 15 How. 198,
207–210 (1854). See also Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill,
484 U. S. 343, 350, and n. 7 (1988) (federal court may exercise
jurisdiction over remaining state-law claims under supple-
mental jurisdiction, if all federal-law claims are eliminated
before trial). Here, too, at the time of removal, this case fell
within the “original jurisdiction” of the federal courts. The
State’s later invocation of the Eleventh Amendment placed
the particular claim beyond the power of the federal courts
to decide, but it did not destroy removal jurisdiction over
the entire case.

III

We must consider one further argument that respondent
has made. That argument is not based upon an analogy but
upon the speciﬁc language of a particular statutory provision,
28 U. S. C. § 1447(c). The provision says: “If at any time be-
fore ﬁnal judgment it appears that the district court lacks
subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.”
Ibid. Respondent argues that, at least after the State as-
serted its Eleventh Amendment defense, the federal court
“lacked subject matter jurisdiction.” Brief for Respondent
19. He points out that the statute says that the entire “case
shall be remanded” to the state court. That is to say, he
contends that, if the “district court lacks subject matter ju-
risdiction” over any claim, then every claim, i. e., the entire
“case,” must be “remanded” to the state court.

Even making the assumption that Eleventh Amendment
immunity is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction—a ques-
tion we have not decided—we reject respondent’s argument