Opinion ID: 675128
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jurisdictional Bar of Sec. 1447(d) and the FSIA

Text: 10 Subsection (c) of Sec. 1447 provides in pertinent part that: If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded. 8 Subsection (d) of that same section provides: An order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise. 9 The Supreme Court has made abundantly clear that subsection (d) operates as an absolute bar to appellate review, stating that Sec. 1447(d) speaks in terms of an unmistakable command so as to preclude review of remands for grounds stated in Sec. 1447(c) by appeal, mandamus, or otherwise. 10 11 Albeit under distinguishable circumstances, we addressed the relationship between the FSIA and the jurisdictional bar of Sec. 1447(d) in Mobil Corp. v. Abeille General Insurance Co. 11 Mobil had sued several insurance companies in a declaratory judgment action in state court. One of those insurance companies, the Insurance Company of Ireland (ICI), claimed that it was an instrumentality of a foreign state under the FSIA and removed to federal court. Presumably because it was engaged in a commercial activity in the United States, ICI made no claim to immunity 12 ; ICI nonetheless contended that its status as an instrumentality of a foreign state entitled it to a bench trial in a federal forum under the FSIA and 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1441(d). The district court disagreed, concluding that ICI was not an instrumentality of a foreign state, and consequently remanded to the state court--at least in part--for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 13 12 On appeal, ICI argued that the FSIA fell within an exception to Sec. 1447(d). Specifically, it claimed that the decision on FSIA immunity is typically a substantive one that would terminate the litigation before remand if immunity were granted. ICI also observed that denials of sovereign immunity are subject to interlocutory appeal. ICI thus reasoned that unique FSIA concerns justified reviewing the district court's substantive decision denying foreign-state status. 14 13 In Mobil we flatly rejected ICI's argument. We first stated that Congress enacted Sec. 1447(d) so that state court actions could proceed without delay if the district court remanded for lack of jurisdiction--regardless of the correctness of the district court's jurisdictional decision. 15 We then rejected any attempt to cloak an FSIA jurisdictional call with a substantive mantel, stating that [a]lthough the existence of removal jurisdiction may depend on substantive matters, the absence of removal jurisdiction is a procedural defect governed by Sec. 1447(c). 16 We concluded with the recognition that even though an unreviewed remand may--as a practical matter--work a deprivation of immunity, such a risk was implicit in Congress's decision not to create in the FSIA an express exception to non-reviewability. 17 14