Court Opinion

ID: 9476083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:47:04.391287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:07.090055
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
The petition for rehearing questions the conclusion in the panel’s opinion that there is diversity jurisdiction over the contractual dispute between the parties. The conclusion was based on our reading of the parties’ post-argument briefs on jurisdiction, submitted at our request; but the petition for rehearing argues forcefully, and with evidentiary support, that the parties were not of diverse citizenship when the suit was brought.
We take most seriously our obligation to confine our jurisdiction to the limits established by the Constitution and Congress; and though litigation must have an end, a suit that is outside the subject-matter jurisdiction of the federal courts must be dismissed whenever the absence of jurisdiction appears, up until the time when the suit becomes final in the sense of all appellate remedies having been exhausted.
In our opinion, however, we left open the question whether the contractual dispute may have been within federal subject-matter jurisdiction as a pendant to the plaintiffs’ federal copyright claim. In reply to the petition for rehearing, the plaintiffs argue most vigorously that it is indeed within our pendent jurisdiction. We agree. The Post’s objective in bringing the suit, which clearly alleges jurisdiction under federal copyright law, was to prevent Rumble-seat from making unauthorized derivative works from copyrighted illustrations. Such copying if proved would violate not only the copyright law but the licensing agreement, and it was a detail on which basis the Post obtained relief. As the litigation developed the Post decided to proceed first under the arbitration clause of the agreement, and through this route it was able to obtain complete relief including conveyance to it of the copyrights taken out by Rumbleseat. The invocation of federal copyright law was not pretextual, and it therefore supported the pendent claim for breach of the agreement. Cf. Effects Associates, Inc. v. Cohen, 817 F.2d 72 (9th Cir.1987). Indeed, the judicial economies served by the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction are well illustrated by this case. The petition for rehearing is therefore DENIED.