Court Opinion

ID: 9401302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-12 18:00:46.221682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:51.985965
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-30377        Document: 00516782849             Page: 1      Date Filed: 06/12/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit                                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                              Fifth Circuit

                                     ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                        June 12, 2023
                                       No. 22-30377                                    Lyle W. Cayce
                                     ____________                                           Clerk

   Ina Laborde,

                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   American Federation of State County & Municipal
   Employees; Louisiana Public Employees Council 17 A F S
   C M E A F L - C I O; Dorothy Townsend; Lloyd Permaul,

                                              Defendants—Appellees.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Western District of Louisiana
                               USDC No. 1:20-CV-318
                     ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Stewart and Douglas, Circuit
   Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
         Hidden behind this labor dispute is a jurisdictional thicket. After
   clearing the underbrush, we find that we lack jurisdiction and thus
   DISMISS this appeal.

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-30377      Document: 00516782849          Page: 2    Date Filed: 06/12/2023

                                    No. 22-30377

          Ina Laborde sued various labor organizations and officials in state
   court, alleging they breached a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”)
   when they fired her. Defendants removed this action to federal court under
   Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (“LMRA”). See 29
   U.S.C. § 185(a) (granting federal jurisdiction over claims involving a contract
   between an employer and a labor organization). They then moved to dismiss
   for lack of jurisdiction, claiming the CBA expired before Laborde’s
   termination. The district court agreed, determined it lacked subject matter
   jurisdiction as a result, and remanded the case back to state court.
          Laborde now asks us to reverse that order. Our more immediate
   concern is, however, whether the federal removal statute forbids us from
   reviewing Laborde’s appeal at all. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). We asked the
   parties to submit supplemental briefs on this issue, and they have now done
   so. Though both parties agree the removal statute does not bar our review,
   we find that it does. Martinez-Guevara v. Garland, 27 F.4th 353, 359 (5th Cir.
   2022) (explaining that we may address jurisdiction on our own motion even
   when the parties do not contest it).
                                          I.
          We lack jurisdiction over Laborde’s appeal. The removal statute
   prevents us from reviewing “[a]n order remanding a case to the State court
   from which it was removed.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). Read in conjunction with
   § 1447(c), this bar prevents us from reviewing remand orders which, as here,
   are “premised on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” BP P.L.C. v. Mayor
   of Baltimore, 141 S. Ct. 1532, 1541 (2021). That is so “no matter how plain
   the legal error in ordering the remand.” Kircher v. Putnam Funds Tr., 547
   U.S. 633, 642 (2006) (citation omitted).
          Seeking to skirt this jurisdictional bar, the parties urge us to construe
   the district court’s order into something else entirely: a discretionary

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                                    No. 22-30377

   remand. Laborde separately claims the district court’s order was “not a
   decision made on lack of jurisdiction.”
          We are not persuaded. True, a non-§ 1447(c) remand order, such as
   a discretionary remand, is reviewable on appeal. See Brookshire Bros. Holding
   v. Dayco Prods., 554 F.3d 595, 600 (5th Cir. 2009). But that is only where the
   district court “clearly and affirmatively” remands on that basis. Certain
   Underwriters at Lloyd’s v. Warrantech Corp., 561 F.3d 568, 572 (5th Cir.
   2006); see Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Servs., 551 U.S. 224, 234 (2007)
   (“[W]hen . . . the District Court relie[s] upon a ground that is colorably
   characterized as subject-matter jurisdiction, appellate review is barred by §
   1447(d).”).
          Here, the district court did anything but. It found the CBA expired
   and, as a result, “divest[ed] [the court] of subject matter jurisdiction”—a §
   1447(c) ground for remand. Nowhere in the order did the district court
   ‘clearly or affirmatively’ rely on any other basis in remanding the case. See
   Heaton v. Monogram Credit Card Bank, 231 F.3d 994, 998 (5th Cir. 2000).
   Right or wrong, the order is thus beyond our review. Linton v. Airbus Indus.,
   30 F.3d 592, 600 (5th Cir. 1994).
          The parties next argue that even if the remand order is not appealable,
   we may nonetheless review the district court’s findings that preceded the
   remand. Though they do not cite to any authority, the parties appear to rely
   on a narrow exception to § 1447(d) for pre-remand rulings that are
   “separable” from the remand and are “independently reviewable through a
   mechanism such as the collateral order doctrine.” Dahiya v. Talmidge Int’l,
   Ltd., 371 F.3d 207, 210 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). A ruling is
   separable if it (1) preceded the remand order “in logic and in fact” such that
   it was “made by the district court while it had control of the case”; and

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                                           No. 22-30377

   (2) was “conclusive—that is, functionally unreviewable in state courts.”
   Warrantech Corp., 461 F.3d at 577 (cleaned up).
           The parties’ claim flounders on the second prong: the district court’s
   pre-remand findings were not conclusive. This court has repeatedly held that
   “when a district court makes a determination in the process of remanding a
   case for lack of jurisdiction, that determination is jurisdictional and can be
   revisited by a state court upon remand.”1 Dahiya, 371 F.3d at 210–11
   (collecting cases); see Warrantech Corp., 461 F.3d at 577. Thus, in Dahiya, we
   declined to review the district court’s determinations concerning the validity
   of an arbitration agreement because the court made these findings in the
   process of determining whether it had jurisdiction under the Convention on
   the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, 9 U.S.C.
   § 205. 371 F.3d at 208-211. We applied the same logic in Heaton and declined
   to review the district court’s pre-remand ruling regarding the determination
   of whether a financial institution was a “state bank” under the Federal
   Deposit Insurance Act. 231 F.3d at 1000. In both cases, the underlying
   determinations were jurisdictional and therefore not conclusive.
           The same goes here. The district court found the CBA expired “in
   the process of ascertaining whether it had subject matter jurisdiction.”
   Dahiya, 371 F.3d at 211. As such, this determination is not conclusive; the
   ruling “has no preclusive effect in state court.” Id.; see Warrantech Corp.,

           _____________________
           1
             Other circuits are also in accord. See Lyons v. Alaska Teamsters Emplr. Serv. Corp.,
   188 F.3d 1170, 1173 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding that “any consideration of the merits of the
   preemption defense was in the context of determining jurisdiction” and therefore not
   preclusive); Nutter v. Monongahela Power Co., 4 F.3d 319, 322 (4th Cir. 1993) (“[A] district
   court’s findings incident to an order of remand have no preclusive effect.”); Baldridge v.
   Kentucky-Ohio Transp., Inc., 983 F.2d 1341, 1349-50 (6th Cir. 1993) (explaining that where
   the district court’s collateral findings were jurisdictional, the parties could raise the issue
   again in state court).

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                                    No. 22-30377

   461 F.3d at 577 (declining to review the district court’s pre-remand order
   granting partial summary judgment to defendants on their res judicata and
   collateral estoppel defenses); Linton, 30 F.3d at 597 (“In light of the district
   court’s ultimate conclusion that the entire case had to be remanded for lack
   of subject matter jurisdiction, the district court’s determination that the
   [Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act] is inapplicable . . . can be deemed a
   jurisdictional finding” and is “therefore not ‘conclusive’”) (citing cases).
          Defendants lastly contend the removal statute does not apply to labor
   disputes that have been removed under the LMRA. In support, they state
   the removal procedures of the LMRA serve important federal interests,
   including the need to “fashion a uniform body of law regarding [CBAs] and
   other labor contracts.” Trevino v. Ramos, 197 F.3d 777, 779 (5th Cir. 1999)
   (citing Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 103 (1962)). But that is not
   enough: “[a]bsent a clear statutory command to the contrary,” we may not
   “ignore a clear jurisdictional statute” that divests our jurisdiction. Powerex,
   551 U.S. at 237. That is so even where this prohibition may lead to
   “undesirable consequences” in cases that may involve important
   countervailing federal interests. Id.
                                           II.
          We find § 1447(d) bars our review and that no exception applies.
   Thus, we DISMISS this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

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