Opinion ID: 7011483
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellate Jurisdiction to Review Remand of First Action

Text: The threshold question raised on this appeal concerns our appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s order remanding the first action to the state court because of the district court’s determination that there was a lack of complete diversity, and thus, that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action. For the reasons discussed below, we dismiss the appeal in the first action for lack of appellate jurisdiction. Our review of the district court’s remand is circumscribed by 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), which provides, in pertinent part: “An order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise .... ” Id. As the Supreme Court has instructed, this provision “must be read in pari materia with § 1447(c), so that only remands based on grounds specified in § 1447(c) are immune from review under § 1447(d).” Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 711-12, 116 S.Ct. 1712, 135 L.Ed.2d 1 (1996) (quoting Things Remembered, Inc. v. Petrarca, 516 U.S. 124, 127, 116 S.Ct. 494, 133 L.Ed.2d 461 (1995)). The two categories of remand orders described in § 1447(c) are those based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction or on defects in the removal procedure. Therefore, the district court’s remand for lack of diversity fits squarely within § 1447(c). LCA concedes that remand orders based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction are generally not reviewable. LCA claims, however, that “even a remand based on a lack of-subject matter jurisdiction cannot be insulated from review where the finding of lack of subject matter jurisdiction is based on a separate finding which involves the merits of the action.” The exercise of appellate jurisdiction in such cases is often referred to as permissible under the collateral order doctrine. The collateral order doctrine allows an appellate court to hear an otherwise nonappealable judgment “if the order conclusively determined the disputed question, resolved an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Sierra Rutile Ltd. v. Katz, 937 F.2d 743, 748 (2d Cir.1991) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have not found a single case in which this Court has invoked the collateral order doctrine to confer appellate jurisdiction where the district court’s remand order was based on a determination that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Cf. Munafo v. Metro. Transp. Auth., 285 F.3d 201, 210 (2d Cir.2002) (applying collateral order doctrine to denial of summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity); Minot v. Eckardt-Minot, 13 F.3d 590, 593 (2d Cir.1994) (applying collateral order doctrine where district court based order on abstention doctrine); Travelers Ins. Co. v. Keeling, 996 F.2d 1485, 1488 (2d Cir.1993) (applying collateral order doctrine in part where district court determination regarding forum selection clause “conclusively determine[d] [a collateral] disputed question”). Here, the district court based its lack of subject matter jurisdiction determination on its finding that Excimer, a party whose joinder would defeat complete diversity, was a necessary and indispensable party in the first action. Cabrini 197 F.R.D. at 94-95. This determination does not come •within the collateral order doctrine because it does not “conclusively determine the disputed question.” Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978). In other words, the district court’s conclusion that Excimer was necessary to the action is not separate from the question of the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction. The Third Circuit has articulated this distinction as follows: If the court looks to an issue for the purpose of determining subject matter jurisdiction, the issue is not separable because it cannot be said to have preceded the remand decision “in logic and in fact.” If, however, ... the issue has independent relevance in adjudging the rights of the parties (i.e., relevance beyond determining the existence of federal subject matter jurisdiction), the decision is separable ... even if it also happens to have an incidental effect on the court’s jurisdiction. Powers v. Southland Corp., 4 F.3d 223, 228 (3d Cir.1993) (citing City of Waco v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 293 U.S. 140, 143, 55 S.Ct. 6, 79 L.Ed. 244 (1934)). In the case before us, the district court’s conclusion that Excimer is a necessary and indispensable party has no relevance independent of the court’s determination that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the first action. Moreover, “ § 1447(d) prohibits review of all remand orders issued pursuant to § 1447(c) whether erroneous or not.” Thermtron Prods. Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U.S. 336, 343, 96 S.Ct. 584, 46 L.Ed.2d 542 (1976) (emphasis added); see also Gravitt v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 430 U.S. 723, 97 S.Ct. 1439, 52 L.Ed.2d 1 (1977). Accordingly, even if the district court erroneously found Excimer to be a necessary and indispensable party, we lack appellate jurisdiction to review its remand of the first action to the state court.