Opinion ID: 3010882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Dismissal of Annulli's Pendent

Text: State Law Claims Rejecting Annulli's civil RICO claims leaves his pendent state law claims against the Panikkars for breach of contract and those against the Wrights and Evergreen for intentional interference with contract. As noted above, the District Court dismissed these pendent claims after it granted summary judgment on Annulli's touchstone federal claims. Annulli argues that this decision was in error. The supplemental jurisdiction statute governs our review. The statute provides that [t]he district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim if the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. S 1367(c)(3). This administrative decision is left to the sound discretion of the district court, and we review such determinations for abuse of discretion, focusing on whether the dismissal of the pendent claims best serves the principles of judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity. See Queen City Pizza, Inc. v. Domino's Pizza, Inc., 124 F.3d 430, 444 (3d Cir. 1997); cf. Carnegie-Mellon University v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 357 (1988) (suggesting comity inquiry in analogous situation). _________________________________________________________________ preserve his objection. Id. at 511. Pastore mentioned a possible exception to the affidavit requirement in cases in which the non-moving party constructively made a Rule 56(f) motion in his papers opposing summary judgment. Id. Annulli made no mention of a discovery insufficiency in his papers; in fact, he claimed that clear evidence established the existence of criminal acts of mail and wire fraud. This clear evidence of course proved illusory, see supra note 10, and Annulli's eagerness to rest on it effectively waived any Rule 56(f) claim. 20 Annulli argues that two years of litigation, fifteen pages of court docket, 1,800 pages of deposition testimony, and 2,800 pages of discovery documents militate in favor of retaining jurisdiction over his case, especially as he was on the eve of trial when the Defendants filed their motion for summary judgment. Although district courts have chosen to retain pendent jurisdiction in similar situations,12 courts of appeals have acknowledged the authority of district courts to refuse to do so.13 Here, we do the same. Although Annulli has spent a great deal of time engaged in discovery, as the Defendants point out, Annulli can use this evidence to pursue his state law claims currently pending in state court. Therefore, the judicial economy and convenience factors do not suggest that the Court's decision was an abuse of discretion. As for the fairness factor, Pitchell, supra note 13, is instructive: _________________________________________________________________ 12. See, e.g., Doddy v. Oxy USA, Inc., 101 F.3d 448, 455-56 (5th Cir. 1996) (holding that district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to remand pendent claims, where lawsuit had been in litigation for more than two years, trial date was less than one month away, parties had filed more than 300 pleadings, most parties had prepared extensive discovery disclosures, summary judgment motions were pending, and remaining causes of action did not raise any novel or unsettled issues of state law); Timm v. Mead Corp., 32 F.3d 273, 276-77 (7th Cir. 1994) (accord, on similar facts). 13. In Kennedy v. Schoenberg, Fisher & Newman, Ltd., 140 F.3d 716, 728 (7th Cir. 1998), for example, the court of appeals held that it would not second-guess the district court's discretionary decision to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state law claims after plaintiff's federal claims were dismissed, even though the district judge was familiar with both the facts and law of the case and the parties had undertaken discovery. The court described the district court's decision as  `almost unreviewable,' especially when all federal claims have been dropped from the case before trial and only state law claims remain. Id. (citation omitted). Similarly, in Pitchell v. Callan, 13 F.3d 545, 549 (2d Cir. 1994), the court of appeals upheld the district court's decision, made shortly before trial, to dismiss plaintiff's pendent claims after it had disposed of plaintiff's federal claims. The court explained this result, writing that it was not persuaded by [plaintiff's] argument that he is being prejudiced by the delay resulting from the necessary pursuit of his state-law claims in state court. . . . When [plaintiff] brought his statelaw claims in federal court, he must have realized that the jurisdiction he invoked was pendent and possibly tentative. Id. (citation omitted). 21 Annulli and his lawyers knowingly risked dismissal of his pendent claims when they filed suit in federal district court and invoked the Court's discretionary supplemental jurisdiction power. Lastly, comity favors allowing the state court to hear Annulli's state law claims. On review of these factors, we find no abuse of discretion and accordingly affirm the Court's decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction under S 1367(c).14 The judgment of the District Court will be affirmed. A True Copy: Teste: Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit _________________________________________________________________ 14. In an attempt to avoid this result, Annulli cites our decision in Growth Horizons, Inc. v. Delaware County, 983 F.2d 1277 (3d Cir. 1993). Annulli's reliance on that case is misplaced. In Growth Horizons, the district court had already held a trial on the merits and heard all of the evidence necessary to reach a decision on plaintiff's state law claim. See id. at 1285. Before rendering judgment on this claim, the district court mistakenly dismissed it along with the underlying federal claim for want of subject matter jurisdiction. See id. at 1284. We reversed this decision, held that plaintiff's federal law claims were without merit, and instructed the district court to exercise its discretion under 28 U.S.C. S 1367(c) to determine whether judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to the parties dictated that the district court decide plaintiff's surviving pendent claims. See id. In passing, we suggested that  `if the dismissal of the main claim occurs late in the action, . . . knocking[the dependant claims] down with a belated rejection of supplemental jurisdiction may not be fair.'  Id. at 1285 (citation omitted). We did not say that on the facts presented, however, the district court must hear the pendent claims given these fairness concerns. In Annulli's case, a trial has not been had, and the District Court cannot render judgment on Annulli's state law claims without further litigation. Moreover, the Court has already exercised its judgment and decided that a trial on the state claims is not warranted. 22