Article III “Arising Under” Jurisdiction: Evading Federal Jurisdiction by Amending a Complaint After Removal to Delete Federal Claims,

This article previews the appeal in Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc and Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. v. Anastasia Wullschleger and Geraldine Brewer (Docket No. 23-677) to be argued on October 7, 2024. This appeal from the Eighth Circuit addresses whether a federal district court may decline to hear state claims after a defendant removes to federal court and the plaintiff then amends its complaint to eliminate originally pleaded federal claims. The defendant companies’ appeal involves four inter-related procedural issues: (1) federal question “arising under” jurisdiction, (2) removal jurisdiction, (4) post-removal amendment of a complaint, and (4) supplemental jurisdiction. The appeal also implicates the question concerning which complaint serves as the operative pleading for determining federal jurisdiction: the plaintiff’s original complaint or amended complaint. In deciding this appeal, the Court will consider received rules relating to Article III “arising under” federal question jurisdiction, removal jurisdiction, post-removal amendment of a pleading to eliminate references to federal law, and supplemental jurisdiction. The appeal returns the Court to further explicate longstanding competing federal question jurisprudential theories embodied in Smith v. Kansas City Title & Trust Co., 255 U.S. 180 (1921); Moore v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 291 U.S. 205 (1934); Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. (1986); and Grable & Sons Metal Prods., Inc v. Darue, 545 U.S. 308 (2005). The plaintiffs’ appellate brief focuses on an argument that the defendant companies do not even address, arguing that the Court should overturn its Grable decision that articulated a four-part test for arising under jurisdiction. Their brief is a lengthy attack at the vagueness, indeterminacy, and fuzziness of Grable’s four requirements for federal question jurisdiction: the need for a substantial federal issue, necessarily raised and actually disputed, that harms the balance of federal and state concerns.