Opinion ID: 4027030
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Athena Venture’s Jurisdictional

Text: Statement To support their argument that a district court should “look through” a motion to vacate and examine the subject matter of the underlying arbitration, the Goldmans principally rely upon an opinion that our Court issued after the District Court dismissed the motion to vacate. That opinion, from a case called Goldman, Sachs & Co. v. Athena Venture Partners, L.P., included a footnote indicating that a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction over a § 10 motion to vacate “pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 15 U.S.C. § 78aa(a) because the underlying arbitration included federal securities law claims.” 803 F.3d 144, 147 n.5 (3d Cir. 2015). Were that statement of law binding on us, the Goldmans would be correct that the District Court had jurisdiction over their motion to vacate. But we are not bound to follow Athena Venture, for two independently sufficient reasons. First, a summary and unexplained jurisdictional ruling like the one in that case has no precedential effect. Using a 14 colloquialism, we have previously observed that “[a] drive-by jurisdictional ruling, in which jurisdiction has been assumed by the parties, and assumed without discussion by the court, does not create binding precedent.” United States v. Stoerr, 695 F.3d 271, 277 n.5 (3d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation and editorial marks omitted). “We therefore are not bound by the bald jurisdictional statement” in a prior opinion of our Court. Id. That understanding comports with similar instruction from the Supreme Court, reaching back to Chief Justice Marshall, who held that there is nothing binding in “a prior exercise of jurisdiction in a case where it was not questioned and it was passed sub silentio.” United States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 38 (1952); see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 91 (1998) (“We have often said that drive-by jurisdictional rulings ... have no precedential effect.”). The Athena Venture footnote represents just such an unexamined exercise of jurisdiction and so is without precedential effect. Jurisdiction was not disputed, and the case instead revolved entirely around a merits question of whether constructive knowledge of an arbitrator’s misrepresentation could trigger forfeiture of a misconduct claim in a subsequent motion to vacate. See Athena Venture, 803 F.3d at 147-48. The jurisdictional footnote was merely a recapitulation of the jurisdictional statement from the appellants’ brief, which was itself unaddressed by the appellees. Compare id. at 147 n.5 with Brief of Appellants at 1, Goldman, Sachs & Co. v. Athena Venture Partners, L.P., 803 F.3d 144 (3d Cir. 2015) (No. 13-3461), 2014 WL 1315263. Had the adversarial process properly put jurisdiction in issue, we doubt that the jurisdictional ruling 15 would have been the same. Indeed, it could not have been,9 which is the second reason that Athena Venture does not bind us on the question of jurisdiction: it is contrary to our own prior precedent. “In the unique circumstance when our panel decisions conflict and our Court has not spoken en banc, ... the earlier decision is generally the controlling authority.” United States v. Tann, 577 F.3d 533, 541 (3d Cir. 2009). Long before Athena Venture, in a case called Virgin Islands Housing Authority v. Coastal General Construction Services Corp., we applied the well-pleaded complaint rule to a § 10 motion to vacate and refused to look through to the claims in the underlying arbitration, so that jurisdiction would not lie where the allegations “did not include any reference to a federal statute other than the Arbitration Act.” 27 F.3d at 915. “[N]ot only must federal jurisdiction exist aside from the Arbitration Act, but the independent basis must appear on the face of the complaint.” Id. We found jurisdiction lacking where the pleadings did not “contain allegations sufficient under the well-pleaded complaint rule to support a finding of a substantial federal question.” Id. Therefore, even if the Athena Venture jurisdictional statement were anything more than our Court’s unexplained acceptance of the parties’ representations about jurisdiction, it would nonetheless be trumped by the prior holding in Coastal General. 9 That is not to say that the Court could not have determined there was jurisdiction on some other theory, only that it could not have relied on the look-through theory. 16