Opinion ID: 2618
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: A Concluding Observation.

Text: Writing almost ninety ago, a wise and revered judge noted that statutes are designed to meet the fugitive exigencies of the hour. Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 83 (1921). Because they are enacted under such circumstances, he concluded that it sometimes happens that gaps appear between the statutory language and the facts presented by a given case. In such situations, he asserted that judges, in order to reach decisions, have the discretion to apply the statutory language in a manner which effectively adds to or subtracts from the existing text as if the judge were acting as a legislator. He cautioned, however, that judges should not get carried away in this regard: In countless litigations, the law is so clear that judges have no discretion. They have the right to legislate within gaps, but often there are no gaps. We shall have a false view of the landscape if we look at the waste spaces only, and refuse to see the acres already sown and fruitful. Id. at 129. I believe the application of CAFA to the facts of the instant case leads to the straightforward conclusion that the district court correctly held that the case should be remanded to state court. In other words, no gap exists. By contrast, I believe that the majority has ignored the plain terms of CAFA, created its own waste space, and filled in the resulting gap with an unwarranted exercise of legislative power. I must therefore respectfully dissent.