Opinion ID: 2759790
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Remand of the Entire Action

Text: Appellants do not contest the District Court’s determination that they lacked standing with respect to Count I. They argue, however, that given that finding, the Court should have remanded the entire matter to state court. Appellants never raised this argument before now; thus, we are left without any analysis to review. As we have held, “It is axiomatic that arguments asserted for the first time on appeal are deemed to be 4 waived and consequently are not susceptible to review in this Court absent exceptional circumstances.” Tri-M Grp., LLC v. Sharp, 638 F.3d 406, 416 (3d Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We do, however, retain discretion to address such arguments, as “the waiver principle is only a rule of practice and may be relaxed whenever the public interest or justice so warrants.” Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). Appellants have made no attempt to explain why they failed to raise this argument before the District Court. Thus, we may consider it waived. Even if they had not waived the argument, however, it is clearly foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent and, therefore, unavailing. Title 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) provides: “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” When read literally, the statute could support Appellants’ argument in favor of remand. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected any such reading of § 1447(c). In Wisconsin Department of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381, 391-93 (1998), defendants removed a case to federal court, and then claimed that certain claims brought against the State were barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Plaintiff argued that, pursuant to § 1447(c), “if the ‘district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction’ over any claim, then every claim, i.e., the entire ‘case’ must be ‘remanded’ to the state court.” Id. at 391 (quoting § 1447(c)). The Supreme Court rejected plaintiff’s interpretation of § 1447(c), holding that “the statute refers to an instance in which a federal court ‘lacks subject 5 matter jurisdiction’ over a ‘case,’ and not simply over one claim within a case.” Id. at 392. It held that the proper assertion of an Eleventh Amendment bar as to certain claims “does not destroy removal jurisdiction over the remaining claims,” and noted that the purpose of § 1447, which was to specify procedures for remand where removal is defective, did not favor plaintiff’s interpretation. Id. Similarly, here, Appellees’ successful challenge to Count I on the basis of standing did not destroy jurisdiction over the remaining claims. This was not a case, for example, in which a claim was dismissed because it was discovered that it had been brought against a non-diverse party, thus destroying diversity jurisdiction.2 Therefore, for the same reasons the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s reading of § 1447(c) in Schacht, we reject Appellants’ interpretation of § 1447(c) as requiring remand of the entire case. See also Shaw v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., 605 F.3d 1039, 1044 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (applying Schacht and holding that remand of an entire case to state court was not warranted where some, but not all, plaintiffs were found to have lacked standing); Lee v. Am. Nat’l Ins. Co., 260 F.3d 997, 1006 (9th Cir. 2001) (applying Schacht and rejecting the argument that because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over one claim, the entire case must be remanded). 2 For the first time in their reply brief, Appellants argue that the dismissal of Count I may have affected the basis for removal because it may have impacted the amount in controversy. (See Reply Br. at 3-4.) The Notice of Removal, however, calculated the amount in controversy based on Count II, which alone created a sufficient basis for the $75,000 threshold. 6