Opinion ID: 64035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Laurents

Text: In Laurents, employees of a chemical plant owned by Arcadian Corporation filed a class action lawsuit against the company and others (collectively Arcadian) in state court, alleging a host of state law tort and contract claims involving the collective bargaining agreement between Arcadian and the Lake Charles Metal Trades Council. 1995 WL 625394, at . Arcadian removed the case to federal court on the theory that federal question jurisdiction existed under the federal Labor Relations Management Act of 1947. Id. The district court denied the employees' motion to remand. Id. On appeal, the employees argued that the district court abused its discretion by failing to remand the entire case to state court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) because the state law issues overwhelmingly predominate any preempted claims. Id. at  (internal quotation marks omitted). We squarely rejected this argument, holding that the district court had no authority to remand claims that conferred removal jurisdiction: Although the district court had discretion to remand state law claims that were removed along with one or more federal question claims, it may not remand the component claims that are conclusively deemed to have arisen under federal law, absent a defect in the removal procedure or circumstances rendering the retention of jurisdiction inappropriate. Id. To the extent Laurents conflicts with the later-decided Metro Ford, we are bound to follow Laurents. See United States v. Walker, 302 F.3d 322, 324-25 (5th Cir.2002) (noting this circuit's rule that one panel may not overrule a prior panel opinion and the earlier precedent controls). We are thus compelled to conclude, irrespective of the arguments advanced by the parties' very able counsel, that the district court in the present case was without authority to remand Poche's FLSA claim. Having so concluded, we leave the disposition of Poche's state law claims and TAC's counterclaims to the discretion of the district court.