Opinion ID: 187068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District Court Authority

Text: WMATA advances two arguments that the district court erred by remanding this case to Superior Court; First, the court was not authorized to remand a case on the ground that Superior Court would be a more congenial forum for. Barksdale's counsel; second, section 81 of the Compact grants WMATA unreviewable discretion to proceed in a federal forum, as a result of which the federal courts are without authority to remand a case to state court over WMATA's objections. We do not reach WMATA's second point because we agree with its first pointalthough not with all its analysis; the district court simply does not have the power to remand a case to a state or D.C. court for the convenience of counsel. WMATA, quoting Thermtron, 423 U.S. at 342, 96 S.Ct. 584, argues that a case removed under § 1441 `may be remanded only in accordance with § 1447.' Because § 1447 recognizes only procedural defect and lack of subject matter jurisdiction as grounds for remand and, the argument goes, neither ground was applicable in this case, the remand was improper. Thermtron's reading of § 1447 is not by itself dispositive, however, of the district court's authority. Subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court establish that a district court also may remand a case on certain grounds not expressly authorized by the statute. In Carnegie-Mellon University v. Cohill, the Court held when a [district] court has discretionary jurisdiction over a removed [pendant] state-law claim and the court chooses not to exercise its jurisdiction, remand is an appropriate alternative to dismissal because it would not make sense to bar, and neither § 1447 nor any other statute expressly bars, a district court from remanding a claim on a ground upon which it might instead have dismissed the claim. 484 U.S. 343, 353-57, 108 S.Ct. 614, 98 L.Ed.2d 720 (1988) (explaining the district court in Thermtron could not properly have eliminated the case from its docket, whether by a remand or by a dismissal. . . . [A]n entirely different situation is presented when the district court has clear power to decline to exercise jurisdiction.), Similarly, in Quackenbush the Court held a district court may remand a case if it might instead dismiss it based upon abstention principles. 517 U.S. at 730-31, 116 S.Ct. 1712. Considering Thermtron together with Carnegie-Mellon and Quackenbush, we conclude the district court lacked the power to remand this case. The district court relied neither on a ground specified in § 1447 nor on any ground upon which it might instead have dismissed the case. Rather, the district court remanded the case simply because Barksdale's counsel said Superior Court would be a more congenial forum for him, much as the district court in Thermtron had remanded that case merely because the district court considered] itself too busy to try it. 423 U.S. at 344, 96 S.Ct. 584. Hence, we hold the district court erred in remanding Barksdale's case to Superior Court.