Court Opinion

ID: 9476464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:56:38.392423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:20.066940
License: Public Domain

WALD, Chief Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I agree with the majority that the District Court properly dismissed this action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In reaching that result, I find it unnecessary, however, to adopt the Second Circuit’s restrictive test for determining the extent of federal jurisdiction over securities law claims involving international transactions. It seems clear that, even under the less strict approach adopted by the Third, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, AA-USA’s alleged misrepresentations or omissions of material fact were so insignificant and so indirectly related to the overall fraudulent scheme as set out in the complaint that no federal jurisdiction would exist over Zoelsch’s claims.
Furthermore, I cannot accept the majority’s rationale for rejecting the jurisdictional standard adopted by the Third, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits. The majority characterizes those courts as having improperly engaged in judicial activism by “broadening] federal court jurisdiction for reasons that are essentially legislative.” Maj. op. at 32. Those courts were faced, as we are, with a question of statutory interpretation for which the language of the statute and its legislative history provide little guidance. It is clear that “[fjifty years ago, Congress did not consider how far American courts should have jurisdiction to decide cases involving predominantly foreign securities transactions with some link to the United *37States.” Maj. op. at 30. In such circumstances, courts properly look to the overall purposes of the statute in resolving an issue of statutory construction. The majority may disagree with the policy rationales offered by the other circuits, but its criticism of them as engaging in ad hoc judicial legislation is misplaced. The decisions cited by the majority as examples of judicial lawmaking clearly indicate that the policies adopted are those the court perceives as most consistent with the intent of Congress in enacting the federal securities laws. See, e.g., SEC v. Kasser, 548 F.2d 109, 116 (3d Cir.) (“the antifraud provisions of the 1933 and 1934 Acts were designed to insure high standards of conduct in securities transactions within this country in addition to protecting domestic markets and investors from the effects of fraud”), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 938, 97 S.Ct. 2649, 53 L.Ed.2d 255 (1977). I therefore wish to distance myself from the majority’s labeling of these courts’ efforts as an attempt to usurp the role of Congress.