Lead Opinion
Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge TRAXLER wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY concurred.
Judge DUNCAN wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.
ExxonMobil Corporation (“Exxon”) and John R. Hicks (together, “Defendants”) appeal a district court order abstaining from exercising jurisdiction under the Colorado River doctrine in a case brought against Defendants. See Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States,
I.
In June 2004, hundreds of residents of Fallston, Maryland, filed a putative class action (the “Koch ” action) against Defendants in Maryland state court. The complaint alleged several state law causes of action for the contamination of their properties by gasoline and the gasoline additive methyl tertiary-butyl (“MTBE”) from an Exxon station that Hicks operated.
Exxon later removed the case by invoking federal officer jurisdiction, see 28 U.S.C. § 1442(а), and it was transferred to the Multidistrict Litigation Panel and assigned to the Southern District of New York. See In re MTBE Prods. Liab. Litig.,
In February 2010, the state-court judge granted the Koch Plaintiffs’ request for class certification. On June 16, 2011, however, the judge reconsidered sua sponte his earlier grant of certification and decer-tified the class. On October 26, 2011, the state-court judge met with counsel in chаmbers and asked the Koch Plaintiffs to
On November 18, 2011, the court informed the parties that it would “issue, at some point, some sort of an Order of Consolidation” that combined the two cases. J.A. 136. Ten days later, the court told counsel that it had delayed issuing the consolidation order only because it was still considering certain questions concerning the logistics of trial.
On November 29, 2011, Defendants removed Ackerman from state court under authority of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub L. No. 109-58, § 1503, 119 Stat. 594, 1076 (2005), which authorizes the removal of MTBE-related claims and actions filed after August 8, 2005. On December 1, 2011, the Koch Plaintiffs then amended their state-court complaint to add all the individual plaintiffs named in Ackerman. After the Koch complaint was amended to add the Ackerman plaintiffs, the Defendants did not remove Koch or ask the state court to strike the amendment.
The same day the Koch Plaintiffs amended their state-court complaint, the Ackerman Plaintiffs filed a motion in federal court seeking to remand that case to state court, arguing that removal was time-barred and that the Defendants waived their right to remove by litigating for several years in state court. Alternatively, the Ackerman Plaintiffs requested that the district court abstain under the Colorado River doctrine, which permits federal courts, under exceptional circumstances, to refrain from exercising jurisdiction in deference to pending, parallel state proceedings. See Colorado River,
The district court denied the remand motion, see Ackerman v. ExxonMobil Corp.,
The Defendants now appeal, arguing that the district court erred by granting the Plaintiffs’ motion to abstain. The Plaintiffs have not cross-appealed the deni
II.
“Despite what may appear to result in a duplication of judicial resources, the rule is well recognized that the pendency of an action in the state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the same matter in the Federal court having jurisdiction.” McLaughlin v. United Va. Bank,
The duty to exercise jurisdiction, however, is not absolute; “federal courts may decline to exercise their jurisdiction, in otherwise exceptional circumstances, where denying a federal forum would clearly serve an important countervailing interest.” Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co.,
At issue in this ease is the form of abstention approved by the Court in Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States,
The threshold question in a Colorado River inquiry is whether the pending state and federal suits are parallel. See Chase Brexton Health Servs., Inc. v. Maryland,
Because Colorado River abstentiоn is premised on consideration of “wise judicial administration” rather than the “weightier considerations of constitutional adjudication and state-federal relations” underpinning other abstention doctrines, Colorado River,
III.
The Defendants challenge the court’s decision to abstain, arguing that the district court erred by finding the Koch and Ackerman actions parallel. The Defendants challenge only the district court’s threshold determination that the Koch action was parallel to Ackerman. They do not challenge the court’s balancing of the Colorado River factors, and they conсede that if this court concludes that the state and federal actions are parallel, then the district court’s decision to abstain should be affirmed. See Brief of Appellants at 42-43 & n.135.
State and federal actions are parallel “if substantially the same parties litigate substantially the same issues in different forums.” Chase Brexton,
A.
Under § 1446(d), removing defendants must promptly provide written notice of the removal to opposing parties and to the state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d). The statute specifies that removal is effected by the filing of the notice of removal with the state-court clerk, at which point “the State court shall proceed no further unless and until the case is remanded.” Id. (emphasis added). Defendants argue that under § 1446(d), any post-removal action taken by the state court is void. Although the Defendants have not sought an order invalidating the amendment from the state court or the district court, they argue that, even absent any injunction, the amendment to the Koch complaint was void ab initio because “[t]he § 1446(d) bar is self-acting.” Brief of Appellants at 32.
Because § 1446(d) explicitly states that “the State court shall proceed no further” once removal is effected, 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d), we agree with the Defendants that the statute deprives the state court of further jurisdictiоn over the removed case and that any post-removal actions taken by the state court in the removed case action are void ab initio. See South Carolina v. Moore,
Section 1446(d), however, speaks only in terms of the removed case. See 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d) (“Promptly after the filing of such notice of removal of a civil action ....” (emphasis added)); id. (“[T]he State court shall proceed no further unless and until the case is remanded.” (emphasis added)). Because the statute focuses only on the removed case, it deprives the state court of jurisdiction and restricts the state court’s actions only as to the removed case. See Kansas Pub. Emps. Ret. Sys. v. Reimer & Koger Assocs., Inc. (“KPERS ”),
B.
Contrary to the Defendants’ argument, our conclusion that § 1446(d) does not invalidate the amendment of the Koch complaint does not change when the Anti-Injunction Act is added to the mix. Before addressing the merits of this argument, we will first sketch out the basics of the Anti-Injunction Act and thе district court’s approach to the issue.
(1)
The Anti-Injunction Act provides that “[a] court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments.” 28 U.S.C. § 2283. The Act “is an absolute prohibition against enjoining state court proceedings, unless the injunction falls within one of [the] three specifically defined exceptions.” Atlantic Coast Line R.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs,
At issue in this case is the Act’s “expressly authorized” exception. A federal statute expressly authorizes an injunction of state-court proceedings when the statute creates “a specific and uniquely federal right or remedy, enforceable in a federal court of equity, that could be frustrated if the federal court were not empowered to enjoin a state court proceeding.” Mitchum v. Foster,
Although this court has yet to address the issue, other courts have concluded that, under certain circumstances,
As the Ninth Circuit has observed, “[i]t would be of little value to enjoin continuance of a state case after removal and then permit the refiling of essentially the same suit.” Lou,
The district court here began its analysis of the abstention with the question of whether the actions were parallel, which turned on whether the Koch Plaintiffs successfully amended their complaint or whether the amendment was void ab ini-tio. See Ackerman,
[T]he Defendants have not sought, nor has this Court granted, an injunction of the Koch proceedings. Thus, nothing prohibits the state court from amending the Koch complaint to include the Plaintiffs here. Although the Plaintiffs concede that Koch was amended after the removal of this action “to blunt” the perceived “dilatory tactics of the Defendants,” the amendment was not an attempt to fraudulently undermine the removal statutes. The Plaintiffs told the state court and the Defendants weeks before removal that Koch would be amended. Koch was not amended to obtain a favorable decision on an issue this Court has аlready decided, nor have the Plaintiffs misled the Court about the existence and amendment of Koch. Absent fraud, a secondary state action should not be enjoined.
The primary purposes of amending Koch were not to fraudulently defeat this Court’s jurisdiction, but to comply with the state court’s instructions and to ease administration of the litigation after class decertification. The parties had already extensively litigated the matter in state court.... After decertification, the state court asked the Koch plaintiffs to amend Koch and file new actions for the former class members, which thecourt planned to consolidate after determining the budget, location, and other logistics of trial.
Id. at 817-18 (citations omitted). The district court further explained that, even if an injunction were permissible under the Anti-Injunction Act, it would not exercise its discretion to enjoin proceedings in Koch-. “[E]ven if an injunction were permissible, the Court would not be bound to issue it. In light of the unusual circumstances of this litigation, the Court finds that enjoining the Koch amendment would undermine the important goal of preserving an effective dual system of federal and state courts.” Id. at 818 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
(2)
The Defendants contend that the amendment of the Koch complaint was a clear attempt by the Plaintiffs to subvert removal jurisdiction and that an injunction barring proceedings on the amended complaint would be permissible under the “expressly authorized” exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. And in the Defendants’ view, the fact that the amendment was enjoinable means that the amendment is void:
[I]f a state-court proceeding is prohibited by § 1446(d), that proceeding is automatically null [and] absolutely void, ... whether enjoined or not. Thus, if a district court has the power to еnjoin a nearly-but-not-quite-identical action filed in state court with intent to subvert the district court’s jurisdiction over a previously removed action ... then that second action, even though captioned differently and assigned a different docket number, must also be null [and] void. . . .
Reply Brief at 6 (emphasis added; footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted).
We disagree. As discussed above, § 1446(d) invalidates post-removal actions taken in state court in the removed case, but it does not reach (and therefore does not invalidate) actions taken in cases other than the removed case. Section 1446(d) may serve as the statutory authority for an injunction against a separately filed copycat action, see, e.g., KPERS,
When an exception to the Anti-Injunction Act is present, a district court may issue an injunction, but it is not required to do so. Because “principles of comity, federalism, and equity always restrain federal courts’ ability to enjoin state court proceedings,” In re Diet Drugs Prods. Liab. Litig.,
C.
For the reasons explained above, we reject the Defendants’ claim that the amendment of the Koch complaint was void, whether by operation of § 1446(d) alone or by operation of § 1446(d) in con
The determination that the Koch amendment is not void effectively ends the inquiry into parallelism. The Defendants did not ask the state court or the district court to strike the amendment or to enjoin the Plaintiffs from proceeding on the amended Koch complaint, nor do they argue on appeal that the district court should have enjoined the Koch proceedings sua sponte. Because the amendment is not void under § 1446(d), we therefore have no basis to disregard the otherwise valid state-court amendment of the Koch complaint. Accordingly, because the action now pending in state court is the Koch action as amended to include the Ackerman plaintiffs, the district court properly concluded that the actions are parallel for purposes of Colorado River abstention.
And the determination that the Koch and Ackerman actions are parallel effectively ends our inquiry into the court’s decision to abstain. As previously noted, the Defendants explicitly do not challenge the district court’s balancing of the Colorado River factors and concede that if the Koch amendment is not void, “the district court’s decision to abstain and stay should be upheld.” Brief of Appellant at 43 n.135.
IV.
In the course of arguing that the amendment of the Koch complaint was void, the Defendants identify certain errors in the district court’s analysis of the Anti-Injunction Act. They argue that the district court improperly required a tort-like intent to deceive, when all that is required to enjoin a copycat action is the intеnt to subvert removal jurisdiction, which the Defendants contend was conclusively established by the Plaintiffs’ concession before the district court that the amendment was intended to “blunt” the effect of the removal. The Defendants thus contend that the court clearly erred by finding as a factual matter that the Plaintiffs had no intent to subvert jurisdiction and erred by concluding that the “expressly authorized” exception was inapplicable.
As the Defendants argue, the Plaintiffs’ conceded intent to blunt the removal might well be sufficient to establish the intent to subvert jurisdiction necessary to authorize an injunction under the Anti-Injunction Act. See, e.g., KPERS,
The issue in this case, however, is a bit more complicated than the Defendants would like it to be. As the district court noted, see Ackerman,
In the end, however, we do not think it necessary in this case to decide whether the court clearly erred when concluding that the Plaintiffs did not intend to subvert jurisdiction or otherwise erred when analyzing the scope of the “expressly authorized” exсeption to the Anti-Injunction Act, because the asserted errors in the district court’s analysis of the exception played no role in the district court’s resolution of the issues raised on appeal.
Although the district court indicated that the “expressly authorized” exception would not apply to this case, the court’s analysis did not stop there. The court also explained that even if an injunction were permissible under the Anti-Injunction Act, it would decline to issue one. See Acker-man,
Moreover, the errors identified by the Defendants have no bearing on the only abstention issue the Defendants raise on appeal — whether the Koch amendment was void, such that the state and federal actions were not parallel. Even if we assume that § 1446(d) authorizes an injunction of separate actions filed for the purpose of subverting federal jurisdiction and that the amendment here was indisputably an attempt to subvert federal jurisdiction, those assumptions only establish that an injunction would be permissible under the “expressly authorized” exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. But as we hаve already explained, the abstract enjoinability of the Koch amendment does not establish that the amendment was void.
At bottom, this case is about abstention, not the Anti-Injunction Act. The Defendants did not ask the district court to enjoin the Koch proceedings, do not argue on appeal that the district court erred by not issuing an injunction sua sponte, and do not ask us to issue an injunction of the state-court proceedings. The Anti-Injunction Act came into the case only indirectly, when the Defendants opposed Plaintiffs’ abstention request by arguing that the amendment was void, and the Defendants pursue the issue on appeal only in the context of their claim that the enjoinability of the Koch amendment renders it void. Under these circumstances, we believe it prudent to leave the questions about the precise scope and applicability of the “еxpressly authorized” exception for another case where the issues are properly presented.
V.
To summarize, we hold that 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d) affects only the jurisdiction of
AFFIRMED
Notes
. Upon, learning of the proceedings in this case, the state court sua sponte stayed all proceedings in Koch pending resolution of this appeal.
. All of the plaintiffs in Ackerman are plaintiffs in Koch, but the seven named plaintiffs in Koch are not plaintiffs in Ackerman. Because the claims of all plaintiffs can be resolved in the state proceeding, the fact that the federal action includes seven fewer plaintiffs than the state action does not prevent the actions from being parallel for Colorado River purposes. See Chase Brexton Health Servs., Inc. v. Maryland,
. The Defendants understandably do not argue that the temporary stay by the state court of proceedings in Koch pending resolution of this appeal prevents Koch from being parallel to Ackerman.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in the judgment:
I admire the majority’s deft circumnavigation of serious errors of fact and law in pursuit of an ultimately defensible result. I write separately because the district court’s errors were so many and of such significance that I cannot share the majority’s confidence that they did not contribute to that result. More importantly, I believe that leaving those errors not only unaddressed but unacknowledged will allow, if not encourage, their repetition.
My fundamental concern with the majority’s opinion is that in its magnanimity to a profoundly flawed disposition below, it omits critical facts at the expense of our well-established obligation to exercise the jurisdiction that we have. See Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States,
By way of further example, I fully agree with the majority’s conclusion that the removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d), is not self-acting, and that the Koch amendment was not void ab initio. See Majority Op. at 249-50. However, I feel compelled to point out what the majority does not: the futility of Defendants’ seeking an injunction to bar the amendment, when the district court erroneously believed it lacked authority to grant one. Indeed, Defendants had no reason to request such an injunction in advance of Plaintiffs’ motion, and instead had every reason to believe there was no need to seek one because the statе court action had been stayed.
I concur in the judgment because of my respect both for my colleagues and for our deferential standard of review. However, I set forth the district court’s errors in some detail here because I believe it to be incumbent upon us to provide such guidance and in the hope that it will discourage their reoccurrence.
I.
A. Error of Fact
I believe the district court’s finding of fact regarding the propriety of Plaintiffs’ amendment of the Koch complaint is clearly erroneous. The district court concluded that “[t]he primary purposes of amending Koch were not to fraudulently defeat this Court’s jurisdiction, but to comply with the state court’s instructions and to ease administration of the litigation after class decertification.”
B. Errors of Law
1.
I fully understand the majority’s preference for avoiding dealing with the district court’s view of its authority (or lack thereof) under the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2283 (the “AIA”). I am far less sanguine that the court’s confusion in that regard did not contribute to its ultimate conclusion. I therefore feel the issue requires consideration.
To start, nothing in the text of the AIA rеquires that a defendant request an injunction issued under one of its exceptions. Rather, the AIA states simply: “A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments.” 28 U.S.C. § 2283 (emphasis added). The plain meaning of this language is that one circumstance in which the district court may enjoin a state court proceeding arises when the court has been “expressly authorized” to do so by Congress,
As the Supreme Court has explained, the AIA “is a necessary concomitant of the Framers’ decision to authorize, and Congress’ decision to implement, a dual system of fedеral and state courts. It represents Congress’ considered judgment as to how to balance the tensions inherent in such a system.” Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp.,
Furthermore, interpreting the AIA in other contexts, the Supreme Court has made clear that, where it is not barred by the Act, a federal court’s authority to enjoin a state court proceeding is bounded only by the court’s sound discretion, not by the precise procedural mechanism employed by a party to the action. See McFarland v. Scott,
The district court went on to say that even if it had the authority to grant an injunction, it would not have done so. Here, the district court’s analysis, although perhaps ultimately defensible in its conclusion, is troubling because it misconstrues the removal statute and ignores the policy goals behind that statute.
2.
This brings me to a second legal error apparent in the district court’s reasoning. As part of its misreading оf the removal statute, the district court concluded, in my view erroneously, that the Ackerman claims as amended to the Koch action would not be removable. This was apparently relevant to the district court’s analysis because it allowed the court to distinguish the Koch amendment from what it “may appear to be,” that is, “ ‘an end run around 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d),’”
The district court’s statements do not comport with my reading of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which the majority does not address at all. As it relates to MTBE cases, the Act memorializes certain Congressional findings regarding the role of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 in causing the fuel industry to make investments in MTBE production capacity and delivery of MTBE-containing gasoline to consumers. See Pub.L. No. 109-58, § 1502, 119 Stat. 594. The Act also allows for the removal of MTBE-related “claims and legal actions filed after the date of enactment.” Id. § 1503 (emphasis added).
As soon as the class of property owners in Koch was decertified, all of the non-named class members — the future Acker-man Plaintiffs — were effectively severed from any involvement in that action. Whether these individuals subsequently chose to file their claims as an amendment to the Koch action, as more than 750 individual actions, or as one separate action later consolidated with Koch, does not change the fact that these were newly filed claims.
3.
Though the limitations period for the Ackerman Plaintiffs’ claims was tolled by the pendency of the putative class action in Koch, their claims do not relate back to the original Koch filing. On this point the district court erred yet again. See
Indeed, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(3), the thirty-day removal window is revived for circumstances such as these, in which it may be ascertained from a party’s filing that a case has become newly removable. Thus, the plain language of both the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the removal statute bolsters the conclusion that the post-amendment Koch action would be removable. This in turn supports the exercise of federal jurisdiction over the Ackerman Plaintiffs’ claims.
Consequently, contrary to the district court’s determination, we cannot blame the creation of this procedural quagmire on Plaintiffs’ accidental misstep, nor some instruction of the state court, nor Defendants’ failure to explicitly request an injunction. Rather, responsibility lies with Plaintiffs’ deliberate manipulation of federal jurisdiction, which we ultimately permit, but unfortunately without an explanation of the serious concerns implicated.
II.
The removal process utilized by Defendants on the Ackerman Plaintiffs’ claims is consistent with the principles of comity embodied in the AIA, as well as the preference inherent in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to allow defendants to litigate MTBE claims filed after August 8, 2005 in federal court if they so choose. We have explained that this right of removal resulted from extensive Congressional negotiations, and represents a concerted effort to provide some benefit to MTBE defendants in recognition of Congress’s prior role in facilitating the widespread use of MTBE as a gasoline additive.
Unlike the majority, I am unable to conclude that these errors in the district court’s analysis played no role in its deсision to abstain, or in “the issues raised on appeal.” Majority Op. at 254. At the very least, if — as the majority asserts — “this is
Nonetheless, as the majority recognizes, the issuance of an anti-suit injunction is highly discretionary. See Chick Kam Choo,
Given the district court’s decision not to enjoin the amendment in state court, I cannot conclude that its decision to abstain constitutes an abuse of discretion. Because of the narrow scope of our appellate review, I would affirm on the narrowest possible grounds, and join only in the judgment of the majority.
. As the majority explains, it is well established that the removal statute provides the necessary express authorization in certain circumstances. See Majority Op. at 250-51. By establishing that removal is effected by a defendant’s filing a notice of removal in state court, and ordering that "the State court shall proceed no further unless and until the case is remanded,” 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d) expressly authorizes a federal court to enjoin the continued prosecution of the same case in state court after it is removed. See Mitchum v. Foster,
. Further support for viewing the district court’s authority to enjoin a state proceeding, where the court is "expressly authorized,” as inherent and independent rather than subservient to a party’s request, may be found in the All-Writs Act, which affirmatively grants federal courts license to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a). In this context, courts have recognized that injunctions exist outside of the traditional injunction framework governed by Fed.R.Civ.P. 65. See In re Baldwin-United Corp.,
. Initial drafts also included “a safe harbor provision retroactively limiting or even eliminating liability for MTBE producers and distributors.” In re MTBE Prods. Liab. Litig.,