Opinion ID: 749863
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the litmus test

Text: 29 The foregoing articulations of complete preemption, the standard of review, and the artful pleading doctrine are helpful, but they do not tell us how certain a court must be that an artfully pleaded complaint contains a federal question before denying a motion to remand. Although our research has not revealed any ready-made solution to this dilemma, we conclude that the artful pleading doctrine permits a district court to recharacterize a putative state-law claim as a federal claim when a review of the complaint, taken in context, reveals a colorable federal question within a field in which state law is completely preempted. We summarize the reasoning that undergirds this conclusion. 30 As a matter of common practice, a district court confronted with a question of subject matter jurisdiction reviews a plaintiff's complaint not to judge the merits, but to determine whether the court has the authority to proceed. When conducting this inquiry, the court only asks whether the complaint, on its face, asserts a colorable federal claim. See Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U.S. 1, 7, 96 S.Ct. 2413, 2417, 49 L.Ed.2d 276 (1976) ([W]here federal jurisdiction is properly based on a colorable federal claim, the court has the right to decide all the questions in the case ....) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); Northeast Erectors Assoc. v. Secretary of Labor, 62 F.3d 37, 39 n. 1 (1st Cir.1995) (observing that federal question jurisdiction exists once the plaintiff has alleged even a colorable federal claim). As colorability is the litmus test for the existence vel non of federal question jurisdiction, we see no reason why a court should not apply precisely the same standard when called upon to determine whether a complaint demands recharacterization under the artful pleading doctrine. Indeed, because the critical inquiry when reviewing the denial of a motion to remand is whether the federal district court would have had original jurisdiction of the case had it been filed in that court, Grubbs, 405 U.S. at 702, 92 S.Ct. at 1347, the use of any other standard would be incongruous. 4 31 This formulation is reinforced by the principles articulated in Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 106 S.Ct. 3229, 92 L.Ed.2d 650 (1986). There, the Supreme Court stressed that determinations about federal jurisdiction require sensitive judgments about congressional intent, judicial power, and the federal system. Id. at 810, 106 S.Ct. at 3233. Employing the colorability standard soothes such sensitivities, for where there is complete preemption, there necessarily has been a triad of judicial determinations: that Congress intended federal law to occupy the whole of a regulatory field; that federal judicial power properly extends to actions originally filed in state courts to the extent that they touch upon that field; and that the exercise of such federal power does not offend principles of federalism. See Franchise Tax Board, 463 U.S. at 23, 103 S.Ct. at 2853-54.