Opinion ID: 7011523
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jurisdiction Over the City’s Claim

Text: The Board argues that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the City’s claim for recovery of workers’ compensation benefits because that claim arises under a state workers’ compensation law and, therefore, 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c) bars removal to federal court. We disagree. The court had original jurisdiction over the subject matter of the litigation because the action involves Amtrak and the United States owns a majority of the capital stock of Amtrak. 28 U.S.C. § 1331; Hollus v. Amtrak N.E. Corridor, 937 F.Supp. 1110, 1113-14 (D.N.J.1996). Removal was available because the district court would have had original jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). 5 We next assume, without deciding, that the City’s claim is one “arising under” California’s workers’ compensation law. Even if § 1445(c) otherwise applies, in the unusual circumstances of this case the availability of removal is unaffected by its terms. As we noted, the City did not serve its state-court complaint in intervention on the Board before the action was removed to federal court, After removal, the City did not perfect timely service, resulting in the district court’s dismissal of the City’s complaint without prejudice. That dismissal placed the City in the same procedural posture that it would have occupied had it never brought a claim against the Board. See Mendez v. Elliot, 45 F.3d 75, 78 (4th Cir.1995) (“The ‘without prejudice’ condition permits a plaintiff to refile the complaint as if it had never been filed.”); 4 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1056, at 253 (3d ed. 2002) (“A dismissal for failing to make service in timely fashion leaves the plaintiff in the same position as if the action never had been commenced....”); 128 Cong. Rec. H9848 (daily ed. Dec. 15, 1982) (statement of Rep. Edwards), reprinted in 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4434, 4442 (“A dismissal without prejudice does not confer upon the plaintiff any rights that the plaintiff does not otherwise possess and leaves a plaintiff whose action has been dismissed in the same position as if the action had never been filed.”). Thereafter, the City filed an amended complaint in intervention in federal court and served it on the Board. In these circumstances, the City’s amended complaint may be properly viewed as having initiated the City’s claim against the Board in federal court. This convoluted procedural history is relevant because 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c) proscribes only the removal of claims arising under state workers’ compensation statutes. The statute does not prohibit plaintiffs from filing such actions directly in federal court: “A civil action in any State court arising under the workmen’s compensation laws of such State may not be removed to any district court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c) (emphasis added); see also Horton v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 367 U.S. 348, 352, 81 S.Ct. 1570, 6 L.Ed.2d 890 (1961) (“Congress used language specifically barring removal of such cases from state to federal courts and at the same time left unchanged the old language which just as specifically permits civil suits to be filed in federal courts in cases where there are both diversity of citizenship and the prescribed jurisdictional amount.”). In other words, a plaintiff may choose either a state or (where otherwise permissible) a federal forum for a claim arising under the workers’ compensation laws of a state. The nonremovability provision of § 1445(c) simply protects the plaintiff, and nonconsenting defendants, from having the plaintiffs choice of a state-court forum disturbed. 6 We need not decide in this case whether § 1445(c) would bar removal of the City’s claim against the Board, because that claim was never removed but, instead, was first properly filed in federal court. Thus, § 1445(c) does not apply to the claim and does not divest the district court of jurisdiction. Our analysis is complicated by the fact that the City did properly serve the original state-court complaint on the other Defendants before the action was removed to federal court. However, no other party joined the Board’s motion or otherwise objected in any way to the district court’s proceeding to consider the City’s claim. Even if § 1445(c) otherwise applies here, its bar against removal of workers’ compensation claims is nonjurisdic-tional and may be waived. See Williams v. AC Spark Plugs Div. of Gen. Motors Corp., 985 F.2d 783, 786 (5th Cir.1993) (holding that § 1445(c)’s “statutory restriction against removal is not a matter of substantive jurisdiction, but rather a procedural defect that Williams waived”); see also 16 James Wm. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal Practice § 107.17[4][b], at 107-143 (3d ed. 2000)(“The statutory prohibition against removal of actions arising under state workers’ compensation laws is not a matter of the federal court’s substantive jurisdiction, but rather has been characterized as a procedural matter.”); cf. Morris v. Princess Cruises, Inc., 236 F.3d 1061, 1069 (9th Cir.2001) (allowing waiver of statutory prohibition on removal of admiralty claims because “the federal court would have had original jurisdiction over the claim in the first instance; only the removal proceedings, which are in the nature of process, were defective” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). By failing to object in a timely manner to federal jurisdiction, the other parties waived their right to remand the City’s claim to state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c)(“A motion to remand the case on the basis of any defect other than lack of subject matter jurisdiction must be made within 30 days after the filing of the notice of removal .... ”); N. Cal. Dist. Council of Laborers v. Pittsburg-Des Moines Steel Co., 69 F.3d 1034, 1038 (9th Cir.1995) (explaining that the statute “requires that a defect in removal procedure be raised in the district court within 30 days after the filing of the notice of removal”). Because the City’s claim against the Board was first filed in federal court and because the other parties waived their right to seek a remand, 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c) does not preclude the district court from exercising jurisdiction over the City’s claim.