Court Opinion

ID: 9484302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:47:47.748735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:09.147494
License: Public Domain

SHADUR, Senior District Judge,
dissenting.
Judge Cummings has done an admirable job of explaining why the majority believes that the normal principles long ago taught by such cases as The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U.S. 22, 25, 33 S.Ct. 410, 411, 57 L.Ed. 716 (1913) and St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 288-89, 58 S.Ct. 586, 590-91, 82 L.Ed. 845 (1938) should not give plaintiff Shaw and his counsel a second bite at the apple. Without question Shaw has no real call on our equitable conscience (except to the extent that the majority’s holding affords him less than equal rights, a matter dealt with later in this opinion). And perhaps the goal of efficiency may be advanced by not sending Shaw back for what might well be a state judge’s decision to dismiss his case on the substantive FIFRA preemption issue.1
But subject matter jurisdiction is not a matter of equity or of conscience or of efficiency. It is rather one of the lack of judicial power to decide a controversy. Both the Supreme Court as the ultimate authority and this court as its spokesperson have consistently announced that subject matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred or waived even by express consent (see, e.g., Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 398, 95 S.Ct. 553, 556, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975)) or conduct (see, e.g., Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U.S. 237, 244, 55 S.Ct. 162, 165, 79 L.Ed. 338 (1934)) or estop-pel (see, e.g., American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 17-18, 71 S.Ct. 534, 541-542, 95 L.Ed. 702 (1951)). As 13 Charles Wright, Arthur Miller & Edward Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure: Jurisdiction 2d § 3522, at 66-68 (2d ed. 1984) (footnotes and numerous citations omitted) has summarized those immutable principles:
The general rule is that the parties cannot confer on a federal court jurisdiction that has not been vested in that court by the Constitution and Congress. This means *372that the parties cannot waive lack of jurisdiction by express consent, or by conduct, or even by estoppel; the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal court is too basic a concern to the judicial system to be left to the whims and tactical concerns of the litigants.
And so it is that the opening boilerplate jurisdictional statement that Shaw’s lawyer included at the outset of his initial brief in this court (quoted at page 3 of the majority opinion), a statement that was made before we brought the jurisdictional question to counsel’s attention (as was our duty — see, among the host of cases so holding, Mitchell, 293 U.S. at 244, 55 S.Ct. at 165 (“An appellate court must satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also of that of the lower courts in a cause under review”), cannot control here. Once Shaw’s counsel was asked to address the matter specifically, he unequivocally negated the potential existence of the minimal jurisdictional amount. And he did so not in purely conclusory terms, but for a specific reason tied to his own knowledge of his client’s actual damages and of the size of verdicts returned in the area where counsel practices. Appellate courts are not factfin-ders, and we are not really in a position to reject such an informed valuation on our own.
With regret, then, I am constrained to express my view that the majority opinion in this case has done violence (not purposefully, of course) to one or more of the most fundamental principles of federal jurisdiction. And what may perhaps be more regretful (though in jurisprudential terms, what can be more serious than the exercise of power that does not exist?) is that the infliction of such wounds is really not needed to protect the right of any defendant to remove a properly-removable case from the state to the federal court.
In our system of federalism, a plaintiff surely has just as great a right to bring and retain his, her or its action in a state court where federal jurisdiction is lacking as a defendant has to remove a state-filed case to a federal court where federal jurisdiction does exist.2 It is no accident that it was in the course of deciding a subject matter jurisdictional question that Justice Holmes stated the now-famous aphorism in The Fair, 228 U.S. at 25, 33 S.Ct. at 411:
Of course, the party who brings a suit is master to decide what law he will rely upon, and therefore does determine whether he will bring a “suit arising under” the patent or other law of the United States by his declaration or bill. That question cannot depend upon the answer, and accordingly jurisdiction cannot be conferred by the defense, even when anticipated and replied to in the bill.
That notion of the plaintiff, and not of the defendant, as “the master” of the choice of law upon which to sue is reinforced by the “powerful doctrine” (Franchise Tax Bd. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 9, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2846, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983)) of the “well-pleaded complaint” rule that originated in such cases as Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 152, 29 S.Ct. 42, 43, 53 L.Ed. 126 (1908) and that was discussed at length in Franchise Tax Bd. itself.
In the context of removal jurisdiction, two refinements have been added that really reinforce the seminal doctrines announced in The Fair and in the “well-pleaded complaint” cases. One of those refinements is what has come to be known as the “artful pleader” doctrine, in which a state court plaintiff may not simply omit from the complaint the words that would expressly call federal questions into play, in an effort to escape the reality that the plaintiffs lawsuit necessarily implicates federal questions (see, e.g., Feder*373ated Dept. Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 397 n. 2, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 2427 n. 2, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981), quoting the “artful pleading” phrase from what is now (in the current edition) 14A Wright, Miller & Cooper § 3722, at 266 (2d ed. 1985)). And the other is the situation under which “Congress may so completely pre-empt a particular area that any civil complaint raising this select group of claims is necessarily federal in character” (Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 63-64, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 1546, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987)) — a concept that the Supreme Court has applied only to the “unique pre-emptive force of ERISA” (id. at 65) and, before that, to “the pre-emptive force of § 301 f of the LMRA, which] is so powerful as to displace entirely any state cause of action ‘for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization’ ” (Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U.S. at 23, 103 S.Ct. at 2853, speaking of Avco Corp. v. Machinists, 390 U.S. 557, 88 S.Ct. 1235, 20 L.Ed.2d 126 (1968)).
On that score, it should be noted before turning to the major issue here that Dow Brands’ late-tendered assertion that a comparable field preemption has been created by FIFRA is wholly without foundation. Even while the Supreme Court announced its exceptional and narrowly-circumscribed holding in Metropolitan Life, the Court there reconfirmed the teaching of Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Mottley and Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U.S. 109, 57 S.Ct. 96, 81 L.Ed. 70 (1936) as establishing the universal rule that governs in the absence of the special statutory language and legislative history that has led to the unique treatment of LMRA and ERISA (481 U.S. at 63, 107 S.Ct. at 1546):
Federal pre-emption is ordinarily a federal defense to the plaintiffs suit. As a defense, it does not appear on the face of a well-pleaded complaint, and, therefore, does not authorize removal to federal court.
That scotches any argument of federal-question jurisdiction based on notions of federal preemption in this case, for there is no way in which FIFRA approaches — let alone matches — the “powerful” and “unique” preemptive status of LMRA § 301 or ERISA.
Those basic principles of the boundaries of federal and state judicial power, and of the litigants’ rights to control which power they may properly call into play, apply with equal force to diversity jurisdiction. There too the burden is on the party that seeks to invoke federal jurisdiction to establish its existence. When a suit is originally filed in federal court, that burden is plaintiffs. And to forestall the unwarranted entry of any plaintiff into the federal court, the plaintiffs burden is not automatically satisfied by simply saying that more than $50,000 is in controversy3 — -instead there must be a colorable basis for that assertion. In that respect still another seminal — and still the leading — decision, St. Paul Mercury Indemnity, 303 U.S. at 288-89, 58 S.Ct. at 590 (footnotes omitted), teaches:
The rule governing dismissal for want of jurisdiction in cases brought in the federal court is that, unless the law gives a different rule, the sum claimed by the plaintiff controls if the claim is apparently made in good faith. It must appear to a legal certainty that the claim is really for less than the jurisdictional amount to justify dismissal. The inability of plaintiff to recover an amount adequate to give the court jurisdiction does not show his bad faith or oust the jurisdiction. Nor does the fact that the complaint discloses the existence of a valid defense to the claim. But if, from the face of the pleadings, it is apparent, to a legal certainty, that the plaintiff cannot recover the amount claimed, or if, from the proofs, the court is satisfied to a like certainty that the plaintiff never was entitled to recover that amount, and that his claim was therefore colorable for the purpose of conferring jurisdiction, the suit will be dismissed.
On the other hand, where the plaintiff has originally gone into a state court and defen*374dant then seeks to remove to the federal court, the burden of establishing the existence of federal jurisdiction becomes defendant’s. Once again the burden is not satisfied by defendant’s merely pointing to plaintiffs boxcar ad damnum. If that ad damnum is not colorable, so that it is plain that the requisite jurisdictional amount is not in controversy, the attempted removal does not confer federal jurisdiction — something that results in the loser’s ability to force the parties back to square one in the state court, even post-judgment and even on appeal (Ross v. Inter-Ocean Ins. Co., 693 F.2d 659, 663 (7th Cir.1982)).
In still another variant on the scenario, if a plaintiff deliberately seeks to recover less than the jurisdictional amount, The Fair’s ■concept of the plaintiffs mastery of the complaint precludes the defendant from bringing the case into federal court by saying that the plaintiff could have tried to obtain a larger recovery. Thus a plaintiff may simply choose to sue in the state court for less than the federal jurisdictional amount and be assured of the protection of his, her or its right to remain there. St. Paul Mercury Indemnity, 303 U.S. at 294, 58 S.Ct. at 593 has put the matter succinctly and unequivocally:
If he [the plaintiff] does not desire to try his case in the federal court he may resort to the expedient of suing for less than the jurisdictional amount, and though he would be justly entitled to more, the defendant cannot remove.
All of those principles, because their nature is to define the presence or absence of subject matter jurisdiction, cannot of course be bent or broken. It remains only to discuss the application of those principles in the situation when, as here, a plaintiff is forbidden by state law to state a specific ad dam-num in the complaint.
Illinois’ Code of Civil Procedure, like corresponding legislation in some other states, includes this provision (Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 110, ¶ 2-604, redesignated as of January 1, 1993 as 735 ILCS 5/2-604 (“Section 2-604”)):
Every complaint and counterclaim shall contain specific prayers for the relief to which the pleader deems himself or herself entitled except that in actions for injury to the person, no ad damnum may be pleaded except to the minimum extent necessary to comply with the circuit rules of assignment where the claim is filed.... In actions for injury to the person, any complaint filed which contains an ad damnum, except to the minimum extent necessary to comply with the circuit rules of assignment where the claim is filed, shall be dismissed without prejudice forthwith upon motion of a defendant or upon the court’s own motion.
Under the compulsion of that statutory mandate, all that Shaw’s lawyer was able to include in each count of his Complaint was that defendants’ conduct was “to the damage of Plaintiff in sums of money in excess of $15,000.”
Under those circumstances, by definition the defendant who is confronted with such a claim cannot tell — except by sheer surmise— the amount in controversy: Is it more than $15,000 but not more than $50,000 (so that there is no federal jurisdiction), or is it more than $50,000 (so that such jurisdiction exists)? And remember that such a statute expressly forbids the plaintiffs exercise of the right that is just as expressly granted to him or her by St. Paul Mercury Indemnity: the ability to sue for a specific amount less than the threshold jurisdictional level and thereby to be assured of staying in the state court.
But the selfsame statute that creates the plaintiffs dilemma in that respect (at least under the majority’s analysis) also provides the solution for preserving, unimpaired, a defendant’s right of removal where it truly exists. Here is how that statute concludes:
Nothing in this Section shall be construed as prohibiting the defendant from requesting of the plaintiff by interrogatory the amount of damages which will be sought.
And counsel for Shaw, when the issue was posed in the course of oral argument, confirmed the regular availability and use by practicing lawyers of that opportunity to obtain information about the real-world nature of a plaintiffs claim (a practice so prevalent that we might well take judicial notice of it, although that approach is needless given the record here).
*375This case really epitomizes the inappropri■ateness, in jurisdictional terms, of permitting any case to be removed from a state to a federal court based on the amorphous guess of a defense lawyer. Complaints in personal injury cases regularly repeat a formulaic recital of the assertedly grievous harms suffered by plaintiffs, without giving a clue as to how much is really in controversy. When before oral argument in this case we posed to the parties the jurisdictional issue that the parties had not addressed ip their original briefs, Shaw’s experienced counsel filed an affidavit in which he swore that he had evaluated his client’s case (one in which there were no permanent injuries) and the level of verdicts in the economically depressed area where the case was brought, and that he had concluded that the federal jurisdictional amount was not in controversy. Here is paragraph 5 of his affidavit (emphasis in original):
5. Affiant is familiar with the medical records and bills relating to Plaintiffs claimed injury. Affiant is also cognizant of Plaintiffs medical condition prior to the alleged injury. Affiant is familiar with verdicts and settlements of personal injury lawsuits in the region and area of the original venue of this case (Massac County, Illinois).4 Based upon all relevant considerations, Affiant believes that verdict in this case in its original and proper venue would not exceed $50,000.
Both from oral argument and from that affidavit, it is thus clear that Shaw’s lawyer is a knowledgeable practitioner in the personal injury field who knows all about his case— the extent of his client’s injuries, the fact that his client is fully recovered, and the effect of the locale of the action on the size of jury verdicts. In light of his sworn belief, he could not have filed suit in the federal district court without actually violating both the subjective and the objective branches of Fed. R.Civ.P. 11.5 And our decisions in In re Amoco Petroleum Additives Co., 964 F.2d 706 (7th Cir.1992) and In re Shell Oil Co., 970 F.2d 355 (7th Cir.1992) (per curiam) .(which carry forward the teaching of St. Paul Mercury Indemnity, 303 U.S. at 289-90, 58 S.Ct. at 590-91 in that respect) mean that if defense counsel were nevertheless permitted to remove the case to federal court, Shaw’s counsel could not then, by post-removal filings that would set out his acknowledgement that the verdict if he won the case would not exceed $50,000, cause the case to be sent back to the state court — the place where it belongs because federal jurisdiction is assuredly- lacking.
On the other side of the controversy, Dow’s lawyer — who under the majority’s view of 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b) (“Section 1446(b)”) had to act to remove within 30 days after receiving the complaint, on pain of losing the right to remove — filed his notice of removal at a time that he knew nothing about the case except for the recitals in the Complaint (and was particularly unaware of plaintiffs current condition). As the now-claimed predicate for that removal, defense counsel has tendered to us (although he never submitted to the district court) excerpts from a jury verdict reporter, reflecting that some juries in some other places around the country — dealing with wholly different facts — have delivered verdicts of over $50,000 (sometimes many times over that, where extremely serious permanent injuries are involved).
To permit removal under those circumstances turns jurisdiction on its head. If the majority view were correct, we would have a situation in which a federal court'is without jurisdiction at the behest of the plaintiff (who knows the facts) but has jurisdiction at the behest of the defendant (who does not). It *376takes no more than a statement of that proposition to demonstrate its unaeceptability.
If a defendant is not driven by the majority-announced rule, the answer is easy. Any defendant who has not received a demand from plaintiff before suit is filed6 and who is then confronted with the indefinite “more than $15,000” recital in a complaint such as Shaw’s, and who is therefore unable to know whether plaintiff is really seeking more than $50,000 (so that the 30-day clock of Section 1446(b) has not begun to tick), need only direct a few well-chosen interrogatories to plaintiff as specifically authorized by the last sentence of Section 2-604. For example:
1. State the amount of the damages actually being sought in this action.
2. State whether you are prepared to agree that the damage award will in no event exceed $50,000.7
If both of those answers reflect a commitment on plaintiffs part that no more than $50,000 is in controversy, it must follow under the teaching of St. Paul Mercury Indemnity that defendant has no right to remove the case (and plaintiff and defendant are thus placed on an equal footing in federal jurisdictional terms, as must be the case). But if plaintiff is unwilling to commit to the limitation requested in the second interrogatory, defendant then knows that plaintiff has acknowledged that more than $50,000 may be in dispute. And if defendant has the kind of information to support a good faith belief to the same effect, defendant then has the full 30-day period within which to remove the case, for only then does the time clock begin to run under the express provisions of Section 1446(b):
If the case stated by the initial pleading is not removable, a notice of removal may be filed within thirty days after receipt by the defendant, through service or otherwise, of a copy of an amended pleading, motion, order or other paper from which it may first be ascertained that the case is one which is or has become removable, except that a case may not be removed on the basis of jurisdiction conferred by section 1332 of this title more than 1 year after commencement of the action.8
All of this has seemed so self-evident to me that I fear that my earlier rulings (issued while wearing my more accustomed robe as a district judge), which consistently require such a showing by defendant as a predicate for removal, may have been more cryptic than they should have been (see, e.g., Navarro v. LTV Steel Co., 750 F.Supp. 928 (N.D.Ill.1990); Maki v. Keller, Inc., 761 F.Supp. 66 (N.D.Ill.1991)). But the same principles appear equally self-evident to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Confronted with the identical problem some months ago (for Nevada has a statute similar to the provision in the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure), that court swiftly dispatched a defendant’s removal as ill-founded in a per curiam opinion grounded squarely on St. Paul Mercury Indemnity and on the principles that have been set forth at greater length here (Gaus v. Miles, Inc., 980 F.2d 564 (9th Cir.1992) (per curiam)).
And what I have set out in this analysis is also squarely supported by the views of the *377judges on both sides of the dispute that had divided the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the now vacated decision in Kliebert v. Upjohn Co., 915 F.2d 142 (5th Cir.1990).9 To the original Kliebert majority, the precise kind of showing that has been offered here by Dow Brands — a defendant’s generalized presentation of damage awards that had been obtained in other cases, with no showing of their, comparability to plaintiffs case— could not be permitted to override the plaintiffs counsel’s evaluation of his own case. Hence the majority had ordered that the case be remanded as having been removed without jurisdiction (id. at 146-47). To dissenting Judge Jolly, that conclusion was wrong because it is impermissible to apply differing standards to plaintiffs and defendants in determining a case’s removability (id. at 147). But what I have outlined here meets the concerns of both the majority and dissent in Kliebert, for it actually provides a level playing field for the litigants (Judge Jolly’s concern) while at the same time preserving the integrity of both federal and state jurisdiction. By sharp contrast, what the majority does here is at odds with both the Kliebert majority and the dissent, for it is directly opposed to the majority view and it also conflicts directly with Judge Jolly’s view of equal justice by conferring greater rights on the less-informed defendant than on the better-informed plaintiff.
Finally, in one of the instances of serendipity that mark the judicial process with surprising frequency, an April 15, 1993 opinion from the Fifth Circuit (Asociacion Nacional de Pescadores a Pequena Escala o Artesanales de Colombia (ANPAC) v. Dow Quimica de Colombia S.A., 988 F.2d 559 (5th Cir.1993)) has come to my attention just as this opinion was literally at the printer. There the Fifth Circuit required the remand of a removed case under circumstances much akin to those involved here.10 Although it is of course possible to say that there are some factual distinctions between that case and this one (something that is ahvays possible, see Edward Levi, Introduction to Legal Reasoning), the lesson that the Fifth Circuit teaches there is clearly consistent with the position that is urged here, while it does not fit comfortably (if at all) with the position taken in the majority opinion in our ease. Certainly neither the initial conclusory jurisdictional statement in Shaw’s brief nor Dow’s generalized assertions later tendered to us, both so squarely at odds with the particularized sworn statement that Shaw’s lawyer has provided to us negating the jurisdictional amount, would pass muster under the Fifth Circuit’s analysis.
Having said all of this, I repeat that it is not difficult to understand the majority’s lack of sympathy with the effort of Shaw and his attorney to attack subject matter jurisdiction where they have nothing to lose and possibly something to gain — in this instance they would have the opportunity to persuade another court (a state court) to take a different tack on the. substantive question of FIFRA preemption. But with all respect, that is not at all unusual where subject matter jurisdiction is at issue. Thus the Supreme Court in American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Finn, 341 U.S. 6, 71 S.Ct. 534, 95 L.Ed, 702 (1951) allowed defendants who had removed the case' to federal court, and had then successfully resisted plaintiffs attempts to remand the case (id. at 7-8, 71 S.Ct. at 537), to raise — and to win on — the absence of subject matter jurisdiction after plaintiff had obtained a verdict at trial (id. at 16-18, 71 S.Ct. at 541-542; and see 13 Wright, Miller & Cooper § 3522, at 68 n. 10 for numerous eases to the identical effect). Given the Supreme Court’s adherence to that principle in a case that evokes far less sympathy for the party that challenges federal jurisdiction post-removal, the solicitude of the majority here for Dow’s perceived dilemma pales by comparison..
What is ultimately troublesome in light of the difficulties that the majority finds with my suggested approach — despite the fact that the opinion finds that suggestion to be “eminently sensible” and “recommend[s] it to *378removal-minded defendants in Illinois” — is that the majority does not adopt a stance that would meet its concerns for Dow in this specific case while at the same time assuring a level playing field in all future removal cases: Why not announce a prospective rule, to control the subject matter jurisdictional determinations in all such future cases, under which the removing diversity defendant must submit to the district court either (1) a showing of the plaintiffs dollar demand (something that in my experience happens in almost all cases before suit is filed) or (2) the result of a quantifying interrogatory to plaintiff — with either of those showings to serve as a precondition to the establishment of the amount in controversy and hence as a precondition to removal? After all, this question of the jurisdictional amount is a regularly recurring problem, one that is presented in every Illinois-based diversity personal injury case because of the state law prohibiting a specific ad damnum in the complaint. Such a rule would promote every legitimate identifiable interest while prejudicing no one:
1. For defendants, every element of uncertainty would be eliminated. Because of Illinois’ statutorily mandated ambiguity as to the amount at issue, the 30-day time clock for removal would not begin to tick until plaintiff has committed himself or herself to a real-world identification of the amount in controversy. When a plaintiff either specifies his or her demand or refuses to acknowledge that it is not over $50,-000, the 30 days allowed for removal will begin under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b), and the standard identified at footnote 2 of the majority opinion could apply.
2. For plaintiffs, there is no risk of being thrust improperly into federal court where no more than $50,000 is really at stake — a result that is at odds with The Fair and St. Paul Mercury Indemnity (among other cases). As the majority opinion correctly points out at pages 367 and 368, once the case is actually lodged in the federal court it is too late for the plaintiff to correct the record (Shell Oil strongly implies that). Again in realistic terms, a plaintiffs lawyer will rarely (if ever) give up a client’s potentially larger recovery just to escape the perceived perils of a federal court — Shaw’s situation is the extraordinary exception, because at the point that he came before us he had nothing to lose and possibly something to gain by going back to the state court for a second chance. And as this opinion has already pointed out, it is really unfair to deprive any plaintiff of a legitimate entitlement to conduct his or her lawsuit in the state court — a right that is just as important as either party’s right to litigate in the federal court if we do have jurisdiction.
3.Importantly, the kind of procedure suggested here would be helpful to the district courts. It would establish a bright-line rule that would eliminate all questions of timeliness of removal and all (or nearly all) potential disputes about the amount in controversy. It would also tend to lessen any risk of our taking a case on removal, only to discover later on that jurisdiction was lacking — thus forcing the litigants to begin afresh in the state court.
Unfortunately the very fact that makes removal improper in this case — the comparatively small amount that is at stake — renders it unlikely that plaintiffs counsel can carry the case farther. And it would take a brave lawyer indeed to file the same lawsuit again in a state court and ask it to ignore as a nullity this court’s ruling as having been rendered without jurisdiction. So the practical result is that the majority’s action has sanctioned the creation of federal jurisdiction where it does not exist. I respectfully dissent.11

. Incidentally, that issue is now pending before the Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari to the Nevada Supreme Court in Davidson v. Velsicol Chemical Corp., 108 Nev. 591, 834 P.2d 931 (1992), petition for cert. filed, 61 U.S.L.W. 3634 (U.S. Mar. 1, 1993) [Editor's Note: since opinion was filed, cert. was denied - U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1944, 123 L.Ed.2d 650.] It is also my understanding that other petitions are on their way up in Arkansas—Platte & Gulf Partnership v. Van Waters & Rogers, Inc., 981 F.2d 1177 (10th Cir.1993) and Papas v. Upjohn Co., 985 F.2d 516 (11th Cir.1993) (per curiam).

. At the outset of his 1992 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice William Rehnquist repeated his 1991 view on "how best to use and administer the limited resource that is the federal judiciary":
Thus, for example, my last year’s report was cautionary. I noted the commencement of the federal judiciary's long-range planning effort and urged that it include serious reexamination of the role federal courts should play in our nationwide system of justice. I cautioned against substantial rejection of traditional concepts of federalism and advocated a vision of the federal courts as distinctive forums of limited jurisdiction, meant to complement state courts rather than supplant them.

. Throughout this discussion it will be assumed that diversity of citizenship is shown by the complaint or (in the case of removal) by the notice of removal, and that no flaws such as those referred to in America's Best Inns, Inc. v. Best Inns of Abilene, L.P., 980 F.2d 1072, 1074 (7th Cir.1992) (per curiam) exist to defeat federal jurisdiction.

. Massac County is at the very southeastern tip of the State of Illinois. Its county seat, Metropolis, has a population of some 7,000. In the federal Southern District of Illinois, cases from that county are heard in its Benton Division (as was true here).

. At page 368 the majority suggests that Shaw's counsel ought to be subject to sanctions for his "more than $50,000” jurisdictional statement in his opening brief before us. This court of course takes seriously the obligations of every lawyer to be candid. But a lawyer's mistaken view of subject matter jurisdiction has never inhibited this court (or any other) from applying the correct rule — hence the doctrine rejecting waiver, consent and estoppel in this .area of the law.

. If such a demand has been received and the amount sought is $50,000 or less, by definition there is no right to remove. Conversely, if the demand is for more than $50,000 and defendant has no good faith basis for viewing the demand as wholly unrealistic, by definition the right to remove exists at the outset of the litigation.

. It is worth noting parenthetically that before Section 2-604 forbade the inclusion of a specific ad damnum, when it was the consistent practice to include such a specific prayer in every complaint, early Illinois case law "held that an instruction on the question of damages is objectionable unless it confines the jury to such damages as are claimed in the complaint and shown to be the proximate result of defendant's negli-gcnce, and a failure so to limit the jury has been held to be reversible error” (15 I.L.P. Damages § 272 (1968) and cases cited there). What has been set out in the text is effectively the interrogatory counterpart, as expressly contemplated by Section 2-604, of thal earlier case law. It should be emphasized, though, that nothing in the analysis here hinges on whether that earlier case law remains viable under the current Illinois statute.

. No jeopardy is created for a defendant by that last clause's one-year limitation, which was added by the 1988 amendment to Section 1446(b). Defendant is free to transmit the appropriate interrogatories to plaintiff at the very outset of the case in the state court.

. En banc rehearing had been granted in Kliebert (923 F.2d 47 (5th Cir.1991) when the litigants then settled the case (947 F.2d 736 (5th Cir.1991)).

. Even more startlingly, the removing defendants in that case were Dow Chemical and one of its other subsidiaries, a Colombian corporation!

. In light of my views on the absence of jurisdiction, I believe that it would be inappropriate for me to deal with the substantive FIFRA question. Accordingly, my silence on that subject should not be mistaken for an indication that I dissent from the majority's resolution of that issue as well.