Court Opinion

ID: 9483654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:27:50.680503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:45.725847
License: Public Domain

BIRCH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
For the reasons that follow, I regret that I cannot join the majority. It is true that the district court asserted the following two sentences denominated as her “conclusion”:
Based on the foregoing, the court concludes that it is without jurisdiction of the original action, and that such action was improvidently removed. As set forth in the accompanying order, the original action shall be remanded to the Circuit Court of Winston County, Alabama.
Order of March 31, 1992 (emphasis added). However, the majority’s opinion does not indicate that between the district court’s finding that
[ujnder 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) when a separate and independent claim over which the court has original jurisdiction is joined with an otherwise nonremovable claim, the court has removal jurisdiction over the entire case. The court may, however, in its discretion, remand the underlying action to the state court.... For the reasons set forth below, however, the court finds that the main action is due to be remanded to the Circuit Court of Winston County....
and the above-stated “conclusion,” the district court set out a five-page discussion as to whether the “main action” was preempted by ERISA. Presumably this analysis was undertaken to determine whether that court could “remand all [such] matters in which State law predominates.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) (Supp.1992). Hence, a fair reading of the district court’s order could lead a reasonable attorney or jurist to conclude that had the district court concluded that the “main action” was preempted un*1375der ERISA, she would not have determined that State law predominates and would not have exercised her discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c) to remand such claims. The district court entered its order on March 31, 1992, and did not have the benefit of our court’s decision in Sanson v. General Motors Corp., 966 F.2d 618 (11th Cir.1992), which was published on July 15, 1992. Had the district court compared the “main action” asserted in this case with that in Sanson, she well may have concluded that such claim was preempted and not remanded the action.
Based upon the foregoing, the most logical conclusion is that remand in this case was made pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441 (c) and not pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447 (c). If this is so, then remand would arguably fall within the Thermtron exception (i.e., remand was not made pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 14J7(c)). As noted by the majority, under Thermtron only remands made pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) are immune from review. The fact that the district court alluded only to 28 U.S.C. § 1441 (c) as her basis for remand persuades me that we are not prohibited from reviewing her erroneous remand, despite her conclusion that she was “without jurisdiction of the original action” (a differently worded criteria than section 1447(c)’s “lacks subject matter jurisdiction”). Nowhere in her opinion did the district court even mention 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).