Opinion ID: 2813318
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of SMI’s Motion to Remand

Text: “We review the denial of a motion to remand to state court de novo.” 7 Under this standard, “[a]ny underlying findings of fact are subject to review for clear error.” 8
The district court considered SMI’s motion to remand by evaluating the Original Petition for grounds for removal. SMI asserts that the district court should have considered SMI’s amended complaint (“Amended Complaint”), in which SMI dropped its conversion claim and deleted language accusing Defendants of copying VaultWorks. Defendants counter that removal is assessed according to the time-of-filing rule. “[J]urisdictional facts are determined at the time of removal, and consequently post-removal events do not affect that properly established jurisdiction.” 9 It is this court’s established precedent that once a case is 6 Id. at . 7 Energy Mgmt. Servs., LLC v. City of Alexandria, 739 F.3d 255, 257 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Roland v. Green, 675 F.3d 504, 511 (5th Cir. 2012)). 8 Camsoft Data Sys., Inc. v. S. Elecs. Supply, Inc., 756 F.3d 327, 333 (5th Cir. 2014). 9 Louisiana v. Am. Nat. Prop. & Cas. Co., 746 F.3d 633, 636 (5th Cir. 2014). 5 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 6 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 properly removed, the district court retains jurisdiction even if the federal claims are later dropped 10 or dismissed. 11 In Brown v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., we held that “[w]hen a defendant seeks to remove a case, the question of whether jurisdiction exists is resolved by looking at the complaint at the time the petition for removal is filed.” 12 We noted that “when there is a subsequent narrowing of the issues such that the federal claims are eliminated and only pendent state claims remain, federal jurisdiction is not extinguished.” 13 We wrote a thorough and definitive explanation of this issue in Hook v. Morrison Milling Co.: Before analyzing our appellate jurisdiction over this appeal, we first note that the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction was proper at all times. To begin with, this case was properly removed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1446. Hook’s original petition alleged, inter alia, that she was wrongfully discharged in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim. . . . MMC’s removal of Hook’s claims was unquestionably proper. Furthermore, Hook’s subsequent deletion of her wrongful discharge claim does not render MMC’s removal improper. We have stated on several occasions that a post-removal amendment to a petition that deletes all federal claims, leaving only pendent state claims, does not divest the district court of its properly triggered subject matter jurisdiction. In a jurisdictional inquiry, we look at the complaint as it existed at the time the petition for removal was filed, regardless of any subsequent amendments to the complaint. 14 Nothing cited by SMI disturbs this conclusion. First, SMI relies on 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), which requires a district court to remand an action “[i]f at any 10 See, e.g., Lone Star OB/GYN Assocs. v. Aetna Health Inc., 579 F.3d 525, 528 (5th Cir. 2009) (“Once the case is removed, a plaintiff’s voluntary amendment to a complaint will not necessarily defeat federal jurisdiction . . . .”); Brown v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., No. 9910092, 2000 WL 1701739, at  n.1 (5th Cir. Oct. 31, 2000) (unpublished). 11 See, e.g., Giles v. NYLCare Health Plans, Inc., 172 F.3d 332, 339 (5th Cir. 1999) (“A district court, in its discretion, may remand supplemental state law claims when it has dismissed the claims that provide the basis for original jurisdiction.”). 12 901 F.2d 1250, 1254 (5th Cir. 1990) (emphasis added). 13 Id. (emphasis added). 14 38 F.3d 776, 779–80 (5th Cir. 1994) (emphases added) (footnotes omitted) (citations omitted). 6 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 7 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction.” 15 But this “any time” language regarding jurisdictional defects must be read in tandem with the first sentence of the subsection, which requires that motions to remand on the basis of procedural defects be brought within thirty days of removal. When § 1447(c) is read in its entirety, it is clear that this rule does nothing more than specify the time in which remands for jurisdictional or procedural defects may be instituted; it contains no substantive provisions whatsoever. Second, SMI quotes the Supreme Court’s decision in Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Group, L.P. as limiting the time-of-filing rule to diversity cases, 16 but nothing in that case suggests that the rule is not equally applicable to federal question cases. And again, SMI ignores our direct precedent catalogued above. Third, SMI relies on the Third Circuit’s decision in New Rock Asset Partners, L.P. v. Preferred Entity Advancements, Inc., which held that, in a case in federal court solely because of the involvement of the Resolution Trust Corporation (“RTC”), subsequent dismissal of the RTC did affect federal jurisdiction. 17 But New Rock stands for the very limited proposition that 12 U.S.C. § 1441a(l)(1), which allowed removal of cases when the RTC was a party, could not support retaining jurisdiction once the RTC ceased to be a party. 18 The decision makes no pronouncements as to that case’s applicability 15 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). 16 541 U.S. 567, 570–71 (2004) (“This time-of-filing rule is hornbook law (quite literally) taught to first-year law students in any basic course on federal civil procedure. It measures all challenges to subject-matter jurisdiction premised upon diversity of citizenship against the state of facts that existed at the time of filing—whether the challenge be brought shortly after filing, after the trial, or even for the first time on appeal.” (footnote omitted)). 17 101 F.3d 1492, 1495, 1503 (3d Cir. 1996). 18 12 U.S.C. § 1441a(l)(1) was repealed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 111-203, § 364(b), 124 Stat. 1376, 1555 (2010). 7 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 8 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 to other federal question cases. 19 Moreover, the Third Circuit is in the minority on this issue, 20 and, in an analogous case involving the FDIC, we firmly rejected New Rock’s very small exception to the time-of-filing rule. 21 We conclude that the district court was correct to consider only the Original Petition when deciding SMI’s motion to remand. SMI has conflated the question whether the initial removal was proper—which follows the timeof-filing rule—with the question whether the district court should, in its discretion, remand the case when the federal claims disappear as the case progresses. 22 SMI’s motion sought remand under § 1447(c) and contended that removal had been improper, so the relevant record was the Original Petition.
We turn now to the question whether the Original Petition provided a basis for federal jurisdiction. Defendants removed this case on the ground that 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), which establishes the exclusivity of the federal Copyright Act, completely preempts SMI’s claims. Although preemption is usually a defense and thus not a basis for removal, when “the pre-emptive force of a [federal] statute is so ‘extraordinary’ that it converts an ordinary state common-law complaint into one stating a federal claim for purposes of the wellpleaded complaint rule,” removal is proper. 23 In GlobeRanger Corp. v. 19 Furthermore, the Third Circuit went on to allow continued supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. See New Rock, 101 F.3d at 1510–11. 20 See Adair v. Lease Partners, Inc., 587 F.3d 238, 242 (5th Cir. 2009) (“In the minority is the Third Circuit, which holds that original federal jurisdiction ceases with the dismissal of a FIRREA federal corporation and only supplemental jurisdiction remains.”). 21 See Bank One Tex. Nat’l Ass’n v. Morrison, 26 F.3d 544, 547–48 (5th Cir. 1994) (per curiam). 22 See Giles v. NYLCare Health Plans, Inc., 172 F.3d 332, 339 (5th Cir. 1999); Bentley v. Tarrant Cty. Water Control & Improvement Dist. No. One, No. 94-41044, 1995 WL 534726, at  (5th Cir. 1995) (unpublished). 23 GlobeRanger Corp. v. Software AG, 691 F.3d 702, 705 (5th Cir. 2012) (quoting Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 393 (1987)) (internal quotation mark omitted). 8 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 9 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 Software AG, we held that § 301(a) “completely preempts the substantive field.” 24 We use a two-part test to determine whether a state law claim is preempted by the Copyright Act: First, the claim is examined to determine whether it falls “within the subject matter of copyright” as defined by 17 U.S.C. § 102. And second, “the cause of action is examined to determine if it protects rights that are ‘equivalent’ to any of the exclusive rights of a federal copyright, as provided in 17 U.S.C. § 106.” 25 A claim must satisfy both prongs of this test to be preempted. 26 If any claim is preempted, however, the entire action may be removed. 27 Applying this test, the district court held that SMI’s TTLA and conversion claims were at least partially preempted by § 301(a). It then exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the remainder of SMI’s state law claims.
The statutory basis for complete copyright preemption is found in 17 U.S.C. § 301(a), which states: [A]ll legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright as specified by section 106 in works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and come within the subject matter of copyright as specified by sections 102 and 103, whether . . . published or unpublished, are governed exclusively by this title. Thereafter, no person is entitled to any such right or equivalent right in any such work under the common law or statutes of any State. 28 Section 102(a) extends federal copyright protection to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” 29 Section 102(b) 24Id. at 706. 25Carson v. Dynegy, Inc., 344 F.3d 446, 456 (5th Cir. 2003) (footnote omitted) (citation omitted) (quoting Daboub v. Gibbons, 42 F.3d 285, 289 (5th Cir. 1995)). 26 See id. 27 See GlobeRanger, 691 F.3d at 706. 28 17 U.S.C. § 301(a) (emphasis added). 29 Id. § 102(a). 9 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 10 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 excludes from copyright protection “any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.” 30 The parties dispute whether § 301(a) preemption extends to all works satisfying the requirements of § 102(a), even those that also contain noncopyrightable material as defined in § 102(b). SMI asserts that it carefully defined its trade secrets to include only “know-how, ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, and concepts,” thus excluding them from the subject matter of copyright. Defendants counter that the first element of the preemption analysis focuses not on the copyrightability of the expression at issue, but on whether the alleged work is the type of work described in 17 U.S.C. § 102. According to Defendants, the relevant inquiry is whether the property at issue—in this case, a software program—is an original, fixed work under § 102(a). If it is, then it does not matter if it also contains elements that are unprotected under § 102(b). We have never definitively addressed this interaction of § 301(a) and § 102. GlobeRanger, our most recent foray into copyright preemption, appears to touch on the issue, but the claims in that case involved actual physical acts, not just software: The current case contains plausible allegations that extend beyond software. For example, one part of GlobeRanger’s petition alleges that “Defendants could see how GlobeRanger went about actually deploying on site, how it set up its readers, how it tagged its product, how it incorporated business process into the design of the warehouse, and how it had trained sailors.” 31 30 Id. § 102(b). Section 103, which is not relevant to this case, extends copyright protection to compilations and derivative works. Id. § 103. 31 GlobeRanger, 691 F.3d at 708 (emphasis added). 10 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 11 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 We thus held that at least some of the plaintiff’s claims were not preempted. 32 But GlobeRanger did not squarely address the question whether processes and systems that had been fixed in a tangible medium of expression are included in the subject matter of copyright. 33 Neither do our other copyright preemption cases shed much light on the instant question. Many of our decisions rest on the second (“equivalency”) element of the preemption test, 34 sometimes because the parties concede the subject-matter element. 35 In fact, only two of our cases discuss the subject matter of copyright at any length. First, Alcatel USA, Inc. v. DGI Technologies, Inc. came close to concluding that “the use of uncopyrightable information . . . contained within . . . copyrightable works” does not prevent preemption. 36 Second, we held in Brown v. Ames that a musician’s name and likeness do not fall within the subject matter of copyright because a persona is not an original work produced by an author. 37 The distinguishing feature of Brown was that the misappropriation claim involved the use of a fundamentally intangible concept. 38 32See id. at 709. 33There is some limited Fifth Circuit support for the idea that § 301(a) preempts more than the Copyright Act protects. See Real Estate Innovations, Inc. v. Hous. Ass’n of Realtors, Inc., 422 F. App’x 344, 348–49 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (unpublished) (“Though perhaps counter-intuitive, it is settled that the absence of a copyright registration does not preclude the application of the doctrine of preemption that exists under the Copyright Act.”). 34 See Carson v. Dynegy, Inc., 344 F.3d 446, 456 (5th Cir. 2003); Comput. Mgmt. Assistance Co. v. Robert F. DeCastro, Inc., 220 F.3d 396, 404 (5th Cir. 2000); Taquino v. Teledyne Monarch Rubber, 893 F.2d 1488, 1501 (5th Cir. 1990). 35 See Real Estate Innovations, 422 F. App’x at 349; Daboub v. Gibbons, 42 F.3d 285, 289 (5th Cir. 1995). 36 166 F.3d 772, 786 (5th Cir. 1999) (emphasis omitted). But, in Alcatel, the plaintiff “consistently framed its misappropriation count in the context of [the defendant’s] use of its firmware, operating system software and DSP manuals”—all tangible media—and failed to object to the district court’s jury instruction on the defendant’s “use of these works” rather than on the “specific pieces of information contained in them.” Id. 37 201 F.3d 654, 658 (5th Cir. 2000). 38 See id. at 659 (comparing names and likenesses to vocal styles, which are also fundamentally unfixed and not copyrightable). 11 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 12 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 Looking to other circuits, we find a clear and lopsided split. The Second, 39 Fourth, 40 Sixth, 41 and Seventh Circuit, 42 as well as the Ninth Circuit en banc, 43 all recognize that, for the purpose of preemption under § 301(a), ideas fixed in tangible media fall within the subject matter of copyright. Only the Eleventh Circuit disagrees, holding that “[i]deas are substantively ineligible for copyright protection and, therefore, are categorically excluded from the subject matter of copyright” even if “expressed in a tangible medium.” 44 The venerable treatise Nimmer on Copyright agrees with the majority of circuits: “Though the matter is not without controversy, [Nimmer] concludes that the better view is that ideas do fall within the subject matter of copyright for purposes of pre-emption (albeit pre-emption may still be avoided on the basis of lack of equivalence).” 45 This treatise notes that “the majority position in the courts comports with legislative history.” 46 Furthermore, Nimmer points to two policy justifications for this position: (1) Congress made a policy decision to exclude ideas from federal copyright protection, so “state laws that 39 Forest Park Pictures v. Universal Television Network, Inc., 683 F.3d 424, 430 (2d Cir. 2012); see also Nat’l Basketball Ass’n v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F.3d 841, 849 (2d Cir. 1997) (“Copyrightable material often contains uncopyrightable elements within it, but Section 301 preemption bars state law misappropriation claims with respect to uncopyrightable as well as copyrightable elements.”). 40 U.S. ex rel. Berge v. Bd. of Trustees of the Univ. of Ala., 104 F.3d 1453, 1463 (4th Cir. 1997). 41 Stromback v. New Line Cinema, 384 F.3d 283, 300 (6th Cir. 2004); Wrench LLC v. Taco Bell Corp., 256 F.3d 446, 455 (6th Cir. 2001). 42 ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447, 1453 (7th Cir. 1996). 43 Montz v. Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc., 649 F.3d 975, 979 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (“[S]tate-law protection for fixed ideas falls within the subject matter of copyright and thus satisfies the first prong of the statutory preemption test, despite the exclusion of fixed ideas from the scope of actual federal copyright protection.”). 44 Dunlap v. G&L Holding Grp., Inc., 381 F.3d 1285, 1297 (11th Cir. 2004). 45 1 MELVILLE B. NIMMER & DAVID NIMMER, NIMMER ON COPYRIGHT § 1.01[B][2][c] (Matthew Bender, Rev. Ed.). 46 5 NIMMER, supra note 45, § 19D.03[A][2][b]. 12 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 13 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 protect fixed ideas trench upon” this deliberate exclusion; and (2) “if ideas were deemed outside the ‘scope’ of copyright protection—so that state laws protecting them could never be considered pre-empted—the result would be that state law could be used to protect . . . even those ideas embodied in published literary works.” 47 The Fourth Circuit’s explanation in U.S. ex rel. Berge v. Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama aligns with Nimmer. 48 In noting that § 102(b) excludes ideas from protection but that § 301(a) preempts everything that falls within the scope of copyright, the court remarked simply that “scope and protection are not synonyms.” 49 It went on to observe that “the shadow actually cast by the Act’s preemption is notably broader than the wing of its protection.” 50 The position of the majority of circuits clearly delineates between the purpose of federal copyright preemption and that of federal copyright protection. Congress intended the Copyright Act to protect some expressions but not others, and it wrote § 301(a) to ensure that the states did not undo this decision: [O]ne function of § 301(a) is to prevent states from giving special protection to works of authorship that Congress has decided should be in the public domain, which it can accomplish only if “subject matter of copyright” includes all works of a type covered by sections 102 and 103, even if federal law does not afford protection to them. 51 47 Id. 48 104 F.3d 1453, 1463 (4th Cir. 1997). 49 Id. 50 Id. 51 Wrench LLC v. Taco Bell Corp., 256 F.3d 446, 455 (6th Cir. 2001) (quoting ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447, 1453 (7th Cir. 1996)). 13 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 14 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 Finding this reasoning is persuasive, 52 we join the majority position and hold that state law claims based on ideas fixed in tangible media are preempted by § 301(a). When we apply this principle to SMI’s claims, we see that the technical trade secrets found within VaultWorks fall within the subject matter of copyright. First, computer software is a tangible medium protected by the Copyright Act. 53 Second, SMI claims as trade secrets, inter alia, “the selection of categories of input data used by VaultWorks . . . [and] selection of categories of output data to be generated by VaultWorks.” Although some of these may be ideas, they are “fixed,” so to speak, in the VaultWorks software user interface. As the crux of SMI’s case is that ARGO stole its trade secrets by (1) enticing SMI to perform a demo of its software to ARGO, as part of an acquisition pitch, and (2) receiving screenshots of VaultWorks from BCS during the implementation of CIO, SMI cannot dispute that these ideas have appeared in a tangible medium. And as the tangible medium falls within the subject matter of copyright as defined in § 102(a), so do the specific trade secrets contained within it. b. Equivalency of Copyright Protection and State Law Claims Having established that SMI’s trade secrets fall within the subject matter of copyright, the next step in the complete preemption analysis is the equivalency test: We examine SMI’s causes of action “to determine if [they] protect[] rights that are ‘equivalent’ to any of the exclusive rights of a federal 52 Cf. Daboub v. Gibbons, 42 F.3d 285, 288 (5th Cir. 1995) (“Section 301(a) accomplishes the general federal policy of creating a uniform method for protecting and enforcing certain rights in intellectual property by preempting other claims.” (emphasis added)). 53 See Eng’g Dynamics, Inc. v. Structural Software, Inc., 26 F.3d 1335, 1341 (5th Cir. 1994), opinion supplemented on denial of reh’g, 46 F.3d 408 (5th Cir. 1995). 14 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 15 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 copyright.” 54 The district court held that SMI’s conversion and TTLA claims were completely preempted, and we agree. In the conversion section of the Original Petition, SMI claimed that it owned “certain physical property, documents, and confidential information pertaining to VaultWorks” and “certain trade secrets pertaining to [its] proprietary ideas, processes, and/or other methodologies of VaultWorks.” SMI then contended that Defendants “knowingly or intentionally, with malice, and without SMI’s consent, exercised dominion and control over SMI’s property.” To the extent that SMI’s claim alleges conversion of physical property, it is not preempted by § 301(a). 55 Physical property—as opposed to intellectual property fixed in a tangible medium—does not fall within the scope of interests protected by the Copyright Act. 56 As for intangible property, we have held “that claims for conversion of intangible property are preempted.” 57 Thus, SMI’s conversion claim, to the extent it alleges conversion of intangible “confidential information” and “certain trade secrets,” is preempted. SMI’s TTLA claim, as advanced in its Original Petition, consists of three allegations: (1) Defendants “stole[] SMI’s physical property, documents, and confidential information”; (2) they “copied objects, materials, devices or substances, including writings representing SMI’s confidential information”; and (3) they “communicated and transmitted SMI’s confidential information.” Although we have never applied the equivalency test to claims under the Texas 54 Carson v. Dynegy, Inc., 344 F.3d 446, 456 (5th Cir. 2003) (quoting Daboub, 42 F.3d at 289). 55 See id. at 457. 56 See id. (noting that a state law protecting rights in physical property does not obstruct the purpose of the Copyright Act). 57 GlobeRanger Corp. v. Software AG, 691 F.3d 702, 709 (5th Cir. 2012) (citing Daboub, 42 F.3d at 289–90); see also Real Estate Innovations, Inc. v. Hous. Ass’n of Realtors, Inc., 422 F. App’x 344, 350 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (unpublished); Alcatel USA, Inc. v. DGI Techs., Inc., 166 F.3d 772, 786 (5th Cir. 1999); Taquino v. Teledyne Monarch Rubber, 893 F.2d 1488, 1501 (5th Cir. 1990). 15 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 16 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753 Theft Liability Act, one of our district courts has concluded that a TTLA claim “is preempted as to the theft of trade secrets that fall within the subject matter of copyright.” 58 The court did note that under Texas law, theft includes a mens rea requirement—“knowingly”—but relied on the well-established rule that “elements of knowledge do not establish an element that is qualitatively different from a copyright infringement claim” to hold that the plaintiff’s TTLA claim was nonetheless preempted. 59 And, SMI’s other allegations fall squarely within the exclusive rights protected by 17 U.S.C. § 106. Copying, communicating, and transmitting are equivalent acts to reproducing and distributing. 60 Thus, SMI’s TTLA claim is also preempted. 61 We conclude by affirming the district court’s denial of SMI’s motion to remand and holding that it properly exercised jurisdiction over this action as a result of complete preemption by the Copyright Act. 62 58 M-I LLC v. Stelly, 733 F. Supp. 2d 759, 791 (S.D. Tex. 2010). 59 Id. at 790–91. This conclusion is consistent with Nimmer: “[T]he mere fact that a state law requires scienter as a condition to liability, whereas the Copyright Act does not, cannot save the state law from pre-emption.” 1 NIMMER, supra note 45, § 1.01[B][1]. 60 17 U.S.C. § 106(a)(1), (a)(2). 61 The district court, having concluded that two of SMI’s claims were preempted, declined to consider whether its eight remaining claims were also preempted. Finding instead that all of SMI’s claims derive from the same nucleus of operative fact, it exercised supplemental jurisdiction over those remaining eight claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. This exercise of supplemental jurisdiction over the non-preempted claims was not error. 62 We do not decide the appropriate course of action for claims found to be completely preempted. As a general rule, when a claim is completely preempted, it is considered to be grounded in federal law even if pleaded in terms of state law. Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200, 207–08 (2004). That is the rationale behind allowing complete preemption to serve as an exception to the well-pleaded complaint rule. Yet that doctrinal theory does not answer the question, “What is the status of that claim?” District courts in this circuit are split. Most hold that “[c]omplete preemption results in dismissal of the state-law claim,” even though they “typically allow plaintiffs to replead and assert the dismissed state law claims as federal claims.” Encompass Office Sols., Inc. v. Ingenix, Inc., 775 F. Supp. 2d 938, 949 (E.D. Tex. 2011). Defendants, as well as the Second Circuit, urge this approach. See Briarpatch Ltd., L.P. v. Phx. Pictures, Inc., 373 F.3d 296, 308–09 (2d Cir. 2004). But at least one of our district courts does not dismiss the claim, instead treating it as having become a properly asserted federal claim and proceeding to adjudicate it on the merits. See Kersh v. UnitedHealthcare Ins. Co., 946 F. Supp. 2d 621, 630 (W.D. Tex. 2013). We have never 16 Case: 14-10753 Document: 00513100328 Page: 17 Date Filed: 06/30/2015 No. 14-10753