GRUPO DATAFLUX v. ATLAS GLOBAL GROUP, L. P., ET AL.
No. 02-1689
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 2004-Decided May 17, 2004
541 U.S. 567
Roger B. Greenberg argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief was Gerardo Garcia.
JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a party‘s post-filing change in citizenship can cure a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction that existed at the time of filing in an action premised upon diversity of citizenship. See
I
Respondent Atlas Global Group, L. P., is a limited partnership created under Texas law. In November 1997, Atlas filed a state-law suit against petitioner Grupo Dataflux, a Mexican corporation, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The complaint contained claims for breach of contract and in quantum meruit, seeking over $1.3 million in damages. It alleged that “[f]ederal jurisdiction is proper based upon diversity jurisdiction pursuant to
On November 18, before entry of the judgment, Dataflux filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the parties were not diverse at the time the complaint was filed. See
On appeal, Atlas did not dispute the finding of no diversity at the time of filing. It urged the Court of Appeals to disregard this failure and reverse dismissal because the Mexican partners had left the partnership in a transaction consummated the month before trial began. Atlas argued that, since diversity existed when the jury rendered its verdict, dismissal was inappropriate. The Fifth Circuit agreed. 312 F. 3d 168, 174 (2002). It acknowledged the general rule that, for purposes of determining the existence of diversity
“(1) [A]n action is filed or removed when constitutional and/or statutory jurisdictional requirements are not met, (2) neither the parties nor the judge raise the error until after a jury verdict has been rendered, or a dispositive ruling has been made by the court, and (3) before the verdict is rendered, or ruling is issued, the jurisdictional defect is cured.” 312 F. 3d, at 174.
The opinion strictly limited the exception as follows: “If at any point prior to the verdict or ruling, the issue is raised, the court must apply the general rule and dismiss regardless of subsequent changes in citizenship.” Ibid.
The jurisdictional error in the present case not having been identified until after the jury returned its verdict; and the postfiling change in the composition of the partnership having (in the Court‘s view) cured the jurisdictional defect; the Court reversed and remanded with instructions to the District Court to enter judgment in favor of Atlas. Ibid. We granted certiorari. 540 U. S. 944 (2003).
II
It has long been the case that “the jurisdiction of the court depends upon the state of things at the time of the action brought.” Mollan v. Torrance, 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824). This time-of-filing rule is hornbook law (quite literally 2)
We have adhered to the time-of-filing rule regardless of the costs it imposes. For example, in Anderson v. Watt, 138 U. S. 694 (1891), two executors of an estate, claiming to be New York citizens, had brought a diversity-based suit in federal court against defendants alleged to be Florida citizens. When it later developed that two of the defendants were New York citizens, the plaintiffs sought to save jurisdiction by revoking the letters testamentary for one executor and alleging that the remaining executor was in fact a British citizen. The Court rejected this attempted postfiling salvage operation, because at the time of filing the executors included a New Yorker. Id., at 708. It dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, even though the case had been filed about 5 1/2 years earlier, the trial court had entered a decree ordering land to be sold 4 years earlier, the sale had been made, exceptions had been filed and overruled, and the case had come to the Court on appeal from the order confirming the land sale. Id., at 698. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Fuller adhered to the principle set forth in Conolly v. Taylor, 2 Pet. 556, 565 (1829), that “jurisdiction depending on the condition of the party is governed by that condition, as it was at the commencement of the suit.” “[J]urisdiction,” he reasoned, “could no more be given ... by the amendment than if a citizen of Florida had sued another in
It is uncontested that application of the time-of-filing rule to this case would require dismissal, but Atlas contends that this Court “should accept the very limited exception created by the Fifth Circuit to the time-of-filing principle.” Brief for Respondents 2. The Fifth Circuit and Atlas rely on our statement in Caterpillar, supra, at 75, that “[o]nce a diversity case has been tried in federal court ... considerations of finality, efficiency, and economy become overwhelming.” This statement unquestionably provided the ratio decidendi in Caterpillar, but it did not augur a new approach to deciding whether a jurisdictional defect has been cured.
Caterpillar broke no new ground, because the jurisdictional defect it addressed had been cured by the dismissal of the party that had destroyed diversity. That method of curing a jurisdictional defect had long been an exception to the time-of-filing rule. “[T]he question always is, or should be, when objection is taken to the jurisdiction of the court by reason of the citizenship of some of the parties, whether ... they are indispensable parties, for if their interests are severable and a decree without prejudice to their rights may be made, the jurisdiction of the court should be retained and the suit dismissed as to them.” Horn v. Lockhart, 17 Wall. 570, 579 (1873).
Caterpillar involved an unremarkable application of this established exception. Complete diversity had been lacking at the time of removal to federal court, because one of the plaintiffs shared Kentucky citizenship with one of the defendants. Almost three years after the District Court denied a motion to remand, but before trial, the diversity-destroying defendant settled out of the case and was dismissed. The case proceeded to a 6-day jury trial, resulting in judgment for the defendant, Caterpillar, against Lewis. This Court unanimously held that the lack of complete diversity at the time of removal did not require dismissal of the case.
The sum of Caterpillar‘s jurisdictional analysis was an approving acknowledgment of Lewis‘s admission that there was “complete diversity, and therefore federal subject-matter jurisdiction, at the time of trial and judgment.” 519 U. S., at 73. The failure to explain why this solved the problem was not an oversight, because there was nothing novel to explain. The postsettlement dismissal of the diversity-destroying defendant cured the jurisdictional defect just as the dismissal of the diversity-destroying party had done in Newman-Green. In both cases, the less-than-complete diversity which had subsisted throughout the action had been converted to complete diversity between the remaining parties to the final judgment. See also Horn, supra, at 579.
While recognizing that Caterpillar is “technically” distinguishable because the defect was cured by the dismissal of a diversity-destroying party, the Fifth Circuit reasoned that
III
To our knowledge, the Court has never approved a deviation from the rule articulated by Chief Justice Marshall in 1829 that “[w]here there is no change of party, a jurisdiction depending on the condition of the party is governed by that condition, as it was at the commencement of the suit.” Conolly, 2 Pet., at 565 (emphasis added). Unless the Court is to manufacture a brand-new exception to the time-of-filing rule,
Apart from breaking with our longstanding precedent, holding that “finality, efficiency, and judicial economy” can justify suspension of the time-of-filing rule would create an exception of indeterminate scope. The Court of Appeals sought to cabin the exception with the statement that “[i]f at any point prior to the verdict or ruling, the [absence of diversity at the time of filing] is raised, the court must apply the general rule and dismiss regardless of subsequent
It is unsound in principle because there is no basis in reason or logic to dismiss preverdict if in fact the change in citizenship has eliminated the jurisdictional defect. Either the court has jurisdiction at the time the defect is identified (because the parties are diverse at that time) or it does not (because the postfiling citizenship change is irrelevant). If the former, then dismissal is inappropriate; if the latter, then retention of jurisdiction postverdict is inappropriate.
Only two escapes from this dilemma come to mind, neither of which is satisfactory. First, one might say that it is not any change in party citizenship that cures the jurisdictional defect, but only a change that remains unnoticed until the end of trial. That is not so much a logical explanation as a restatement of the illogic that produces the dilemma. There is no conceivable reason why the jurisdictional deficiency which continues despite the citizenship change should suddenly disappear upon the rendering of a verdict. Second, one might say that there never was a cure, but that the party who failed to object before the end of trial forfeited his objection. This is logical enough, but comes up against the established principle, reaffirmed earlier this Term, that “a court‘s subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be expanded to account for the parties’ litigation conduct.” Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 456 (2004). “A litigant generally may raise a court‘s lack of subject-matter jurisdiction at any time in the same civil action, even initially at the highest appellate instance.” Id., at 455. Because the Fifth Circuit‘s attempted limitation upon its new exception makes a casualty either of logic or of this Court‘s jurisprudence, there is no principled way to defend it.
And principled or not, the Fifth Circuit‘s artificial limitation is sure to be discarded in practice. Only 8% of diversity cases concluded in 2003 actually went to trial, and the median time from filing to trial disposition was nearly two years.
“[T]here is no difference in efficiency terms between the jury verdict and, for example, the moment at which the jury retires. Nor, for that matter, is there a large difference between the verdict and mid-way through the trial. ... Indeed, in complicated cases requiring a great deal of discovery, the parties and the court often expend tremendous resources long before the case goes to trial.” 312 F. 3d, at 177.
IV
The dissenting opinion rests on two principal propositions: (1) the jurisdictional defect in this case was cured by a change in the composition of the partnership; and (2) refusing to recognize an exception to the time-of-filing rule in this case wastes judicial resources, while creating an exception does not. We discuss each in turn.
A
Unlike the dissent, our opinion does not turn on whether the jurisdictional defect here contained at least “minimal diversity.” 6 Regardless of how one characterizes the ac-
This equation of a dropped partner with a dropped party is flatly inconsistent with Carden. The dissent in Carden sought to apply a “real party to the controversy” approach to determine which partners counted for purposes of jurisdictional analysis. The Carden majority rejected that ap-
There was from the beginning of this action a single plaintiff (Atlas), which, under Carden, was not diverse from the sole defendant (Dataflux). Thus, this case fails to present “two adverse parties [who] are not co-citizens.” State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 531 (1967). Contrary to the dissent‘s characterization, then, this is not a
The incompatibility with prior law of the dissent‘s attempt to treat a change in partners like a change in parties is revealed by a curious anomaly: It would produce a case unlike every other case in which dropping a party has cured a jurisdictional defect, in that no judicial action (such as granting a motion to dismiss) was necessary to get the jurisdictional spoilers out of the case. Indeed, judicial action to that end was not even possible: The court could hardly have “dismissed” the partners from the partnership to save jurisdiction. 9
B
We now turn from consideration of the conceptual difficulties with the dissent‘s disposition to consideration of its practical consequences. The time-of-filing rule is what it is precisely because the facts determining jurisdiction are subject to change, and because constant litigation in response to that change would be wasteful. The dissent would have it that the time-of-filing rule applies to establish that a court has jurisdiction (and to protect that jurisdiction from later destruction), but does not apply to establish that a court lacks jurisdiction (and to prevent postfiling changes that perfect jurisdiction). Post, at 583-584. But whether destruction or perfection of jurisdiction is at issue, the policy goal
The dissent argues that it is essential to uphold jurisdiction in this and similar cases because dismissal followed by refiling condemns the parties to “an almost certain replay of the case, with, in all likelihood, the same ultimate outcome.” Post, at 595. But if the parties expect “the same ultimate outcome,” they will not waste time and resources slogging through a new trial. They will settle, with the jury‘s prior verdict supplying a range for the award. Indeed, settlement instead of retrial will probably occur even if the parties do not expect the same ultimate outcome. When the stakes remain the same and the players have been shown each other‘s cards, they will not likely play the hand all the way through just for the sake of the game. And finally, even if the parties run the case through complete “relitigation in the very same District Court in which it was first filed in 1997,” post, at 598, the “waste” will not be great. Having been through three years of discovery and pretrial motions in the current case, the parties would most likely proceed promptly to trial.
Looked at in its overall effect, and not merely in its application to the sunk costs of the present case, it is the dissent‘s proposed rule that is wasteful. Absent uncertainty about jurisdiction (which the dissent‘s readiness to change settled law would preserve for the future), the obvious course, for a litigant whose suit was dismissed as Atlas‘s was, would have been immediately to file a new action. That is in fact what
Atlas and Dataflux have thus far litigated this case for more than 6 1/2 years, including 3 1/2 years over a conceded jurisdictional defect. Compared with the one month it took the Magistrate Judge to apply the time-of-filing rule and Carden when the jurisdictional problem was brought to her attention, this waste counsels strongly against any course that would impair the certainty of our jurisdictional rules and thereby encourage similar jurisdictional litigation.
* * *
We decline to endorse a new exception to a time-of-filing rule that has a pedigree of almost two centuries. Uncertainty regarding the question of jurisdiction is particularly undesirable, and collateral litigation on the point particularly wasteful. The stability provided by our time-tested rule weighs heavily against the approval of any new deviation. The judgment of the Fifth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE SOUTER, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
When this lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in 1997, diversity of citizenship was incomplete among the adverse parties: The plaintiff partnership, Atlas Global Group (Atlas), had five members, including a general partner of Delaware citizenship and two limited partners of Mexican citizenship, App.
I
Chief Justice Marshall, in a pathmarking 1824 opinion, Mollan v. Torrance, 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824), instructed “that the jurisdiction of the court depends upon the state of things at the time of the action brought, and that, after vesting, it cannot be ousted by subsequent events.” He did not extract this practical time-of-filing rule from any constitutional or statutory text. In contrast, 18 years earlier, Marshall had derived the complete-diversity rule from the text of the 1789 Judiciary Act, and so stated in Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806). Compare State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 530-531 (1967) (complete-diversity rule is statutory), with 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3608, p. 452 (2d ed. 1984) (time-of-filing rule “represents a policy decision“).
The Court has long applied Marshall‘s time-of-filing rule categorically to postfiling changes that otherwise would de-
In contrast, the Court has not adhered to a similarly steady rule for postfiling party lineup alterations that perfect previously defective statutory subject-matter jurisdiction. Compare Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 207-208 (1993) (dismissing suit); Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Peoria & Pekin Union R. Co., 270 U. S. 580, 586 (1926) (same); Anderson v. Watt, 138 U. S. 694, 707-708 (1891) (same), with Caterpillar, 519 U. S., at 64 (not dismissing suit); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 837-838 (1989) (same); Mullaney v. Anderson, 342 U. S. 415, 416-417 (1952) (same); Horn v. Lockhart, 17 Wall. 570, 579 (1873) (same); Conolly v. Taylor, 2 Pet. 556, 565 (1829) (same). Instead, the Court has recognized that “untimely compliance,” Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U. S. 26, 43 (1998), with the complete-diversity rule announced in Strawbridge can operate to preserve an adjudication where (1) neither the parties nor the court raised the time-of-filing flaw until after resolution of the case by jury verdict or dispositive court ruling, and (2) prior to that resolution, the jurisdictional defect was cured. See Caterpillar, 519 U. S., at 64.
II
A
To state the background of this case in fuller detail, in November 1997, respondent Atlas, a limited partnership,
two of Atlas’ limited partners. 312 F. 3d, at 170; App. 35a; see Carden v. Arkoma Associates, 494 U. S. 185, 195-196 (1990) (federal court must look to citizenship of partnership‘s limited, as well as its general, partners to determine whether there is complete diversity). In addition, one of Atlas’ general partners at least arguably ranked as a Mexican citizen. See supra, at 585, n. 1.
In September 2000, several weeks before trial, and unrelated to the claims in suit, Atlas completed a transaction in which all Mexican-citizen partners withdrew from the partnership. App. 14a, 122a-123a, 126a-128a; Brief for Appellants in No. 01-20245 (CA5), p. 7. After that reorganization, it is not disputed, complete diversity existed between the adverse parties. Brief for Petitioner 2; Brief for Respondents 2.
Prevailing at a six-day trial, Atlas gained a jury verdict of $750,000. 312 F. 3d, at 170. Dataflux then promptly moved to dismiss the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, raising, for the first time, the original, but pretrial-cured, absence of complete diversity. App. 42a-49a. The District Court, which had not yet entered judgment on the jury‘s verdict, granted Dataflux‘s motion; simultaneously, the court “ordered that the statute of limitations for the claims alleged in this case [be] stayed from November 18, 1997, the date this case was filed, until ten days after the entry of this order [December 6, 2000], to allow plaintiff to refile this case in the appropriate forum.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a-22a (capitalization in original omitted). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court‘s judgment and remanded the case to that court. 312 F. 3d, at 173-174. Viewing Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826 (1989), as “instructive,” and Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61 (1996), as “compel[ling],” the Court of Appeals found it unnecessary and inappropriate to “erase the result of [the trial and verdict] by requiring [the parties] to relitigate their claims.” 312 F. 3d, at 171-174.
The case proceeded to a jury trial, which yielded a verdict and corresponding judgment for Caterpillar. Id., at 66–67. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Lewis prevailed. Id., at 67. Observing that, at the time of removal, diversity was incomplete, the appellate court accepted Lewis’ argument that dismissal of the case for want of subject-matter jurisdiction was obligatory. Ibid. In turn, this Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment: “[A] district court‘s error in failing to remand a case improperly removed,” this Court held unanimously, “is not fatal to the ensuing adjudication if federal jurisdictional requirements are met at the time judgment is entered.” Id., at 64.
Newman-Green concerned a state-law action filed in Federal District Court by an Illinois corporation against a Venezuelan corporation, four Venezuelan citizens, and a United States citizen domiciled in Venezuela. 490 U. S., at 828. After the District Court granted partial summary judgment for the defendants, the plaintiff appealed. Ibid. Sua
As in Caterpillar and Newman-Green, minimal diversity within Article III‘s compass existed in this case from the start. See
It bears clarification why this case, in common with Caterpillar and Newman-Green, met the constitutional requirement of minimal diversity at the onset of the litigation. True, Atlas’ case involves a partnership, while the diversity spoiler in Caterpillar was a corporation and in Newman-Green, an individual. See supra, at 587–588 and this page. In Carden v. Arkoma Associates, this Court held that, in determining a partnership‘s qualification to sue or be sued under
Notably, however, the Court did not suggest in Carden that minimal diversity, which is adequate for Article III purposes, would be absent when some, but not all, partners composing the “single artificial entity,” id., at 188, n. 1, share the opposing party‘s citizenship. To the contrary, the Court emphasized in Carden that Congress could, “by legislation,” determine which of the “wide assortment of artificial entities possessing different powers and characteristics . . . is entitled to be considered a ‘citizen’ for diversity purposes, and which of their members’ citizenship is to be consulted.” Id., at 197. Congress would be disarmed from making such determinations—for example, from legislating that only the citizenship of general partners counts for
B
Petitioner Dataflux maintains, and the Court agrees, see ante, at 573–574, that this case is not properly bracketed with Caterpillar, where the subtraction of a party yielded complete diversity; instead, according to Dataflux, this case should be aligned with those in which an individual plaintiff initially shared citizenship with a defendant, and then, post-commencement of the litigation, moved to another State. See Brief for Petitioner 12–14, and n. 9, 23–24; Tr. of Oral Arg. 8–11. In my view, this case ranks with Caterpillar and is not equivalent to the case of a plaintiff who moves to another State to create diversity not even minimally present when the complaint was filed.
It has long been clear that “if a citizen sue[d] a citizen of the same state, he [could not] give jurisdiction by removing himself, and becoming a citizen of a different state.” Conolly, 2 Pet., at 565.6 When that sole plaintiff files suit in federal court, there is no semblance of Article III diversity; his move to another State manufactures diversity of citizenship that did not exist even minimally at the outset. Caterpillar and Newman-Green, by contrast, involved parties who were minimally, but not completely, diverse at the time federal-court proceedings began. Caterpillar, 519 U. S., at 64–65;
The same holds true for Atlas. No partner moved. Instead, those that spoiled statutory diversity dropped out of the case as did the nondiverse parties in Caterpillar and Newman-Green. See supra, at 587–589. In essence, then, this case seems to me indistinguishable from one in which there is “a change in the parties to the action.” Ante, at 575.8 As the Court correctly states, the crux of our disagreement lies in whether to “treat a change in the composition of a partnership like a change in the parties to the action.” Ante, at 578. In common with Dataflux, the Court draws no distinction between an individual plaintiff who changes her citizenship and an enterprise composed of diverse persons, like Atlas, from which one or more original
C
Petitioner Dataflux sees Caterpillar as a ruling limited to removal cases, and Newman-Green as limited to court-ordered dismissals of nondiverse parties. See 312 F. 3d, at 173–174; Brief for Petitioner 23, 26–27; Reply Brief for Petitioner 11; Tr. of Oral Arg. 15–16. True, the court‘s attention may be attracted to the jurisdictional question by a motion to remand a removed case or a motion to drop a party. But, as the Fifth Circuit observed, “the principle of these cases is [not] limited to only the exact same procedural scenarios.” 312 F. 3d, at 173. It would be odd, indeed, to hold, as Dataflux‘s argument suggests, that jurisdictional flaws fatal to original jurisdiction are nonetheless tolerable when removal jurisdiction is exercised. Removal jurisdiction, after all, is totally dependent on satisfaction of the requirements for original jurisdiction. See
Moreover, by whatever route a case arrives in federal court, it is the obligation of both district court and counsel to be alert to jurisdictional requirements. See, e. g., Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U. S. 534, 541 (1986) (“every federal appellate court has a special obligation to satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review, even though the parties are prepared to concede it” (quoting Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244 (1934))); United Republic Ins. Co., in Receivership v. Chase Manhattan Bank, 315 F. 3d 168, 170–171 (CA2 2003) (“We have . . . urged counsel and district courts to treat subject matter jurisdiction as a threshold issue for resolution . . . .“); United States v. Southern California Edison Co., 300 F. Supp. 2d 964, 972 (ED Cal. 2004) (district courts have an “independent obligation to address [subject-matter jurisdiction] sua sponte” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Trawick v. Asbury MS Gray-Daniels, LLC, 244 F. Supp. 2d 697, 699 (SD Miss. 2003) (criticizing counsel for failing to do the “minimal amount of research” that would have revealed the absence of subject-matter jurisdiction). But cf. ante, at 580 (time-of-filing rule should be rigidly applied when “no judicial action . . . was necessary to get the jurisdictional spoilers out of the case“). That obligation is equally applicable to cases initially filed in federal court and cases removed from state court to federal court.
In short, the Fifth Circuit correctly comprehended the essential teaching of Caterpillar and Newman-Green: The generally applicable time-of-filing rule is displaced when (1) a “jurisdictional requiremen[t] [is] not met, (2) neither the parties nor the judge raise the error until after a jury verdict has been rendered, or a dispositive ruling [typically, a grant of summary judgment] has been made by the court, and (3) before the verdict is rendered, or [the dispositive] ruling
D
The “considerations of finality, efficiency, and economy” the Court found “overwhelming” in Caterpillar and Newman-Green have undiluted application here. Caterpillar, 519 U. S., at 75; see Newman-Green, 490 U. S., at 836–837. See also Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 191–192, and n. 5 (2000) (noting stricter approach to standing than to mootness in view of “sunk costs” once a “case has been brought and litigated“). In Newman-Green, this Court observed that rigid insistence on the time-of-filing rule, rather than allowing elimination of
The Court hypothesizes that Atlas and Dataflux will now settle to avoid fresh litigation costs. Ante, at 581. The majority‘s forecast, however, ignores the procedural history of
In two respects, there is stronger cause for departure from the time-of-filing rule in Atlas’ case than there was in Caterpillar. See supra, at 587 (discussing Caterpillar). First, the Caterpillar plaintiff, judgment loser in the federal trial court, had timely but fruitlessly objected to the defendant‘s improper removal. 519 U. S., at 74. The plaintiff in Caterpillar, this Court acknowledged, had done “all that was required to preserve his objection to removal.” Ibid. Though mindful of the “antecedent statutory violatio[n],” the Court declined to disturb the District Court‘s final judgment on the merits. Id., at 74–75. The defendant in this case, Dataflux, in seeking to erase the trial and verdict here, resembles the plaintiff in Caterpillar, except that Dataflux raised its subject-matter jurisdiction objection only after the parties had become completely diverse. Cf. 312 F. 3d, at 170. It is one thing to preserve jurisdictional objections so long as the jurisdictional flaw persists, see Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 455 (2004); Capron v. Van Noorden, 2 Cranch 126 (1804), quite another to tolerate such an objection after the initial flaw has disappeared from the case.
Nor would affirmance of the Fifth Circuit judgment entail a significant risk of manipulation in other cases. Rarely, if ever, will a plaintiff bring suit in federal district court, invoking diversity jurisdiction under
Also distinguishing the two cases, in Caterpillar, the removing defendant “satisfied with only a day to spare the statutory requirement that a diversity-based removal take place within one year of a lawsuit‘s commencement.” 519 U. S., at 65 (citing
In sum, the Court‘s judgment effectively returns this case for relitigation in the very same District Court in which it was first filed in 1997. Having lost once, Dataflux now gets an unmerited second chance, never mind “just how much time will be lost along the way.” Newman-Green, 490 U. S., at 837, n. 12 (internal quotation marks omitted). Nothing is gained by burdening our district courts with the task of replaying diversity actions of this kind once they have been fully and fairly tried. Neither the Constitution nor federal
The Court invokes “175 years” of precedent, ante, at 575, endorsing a time-of-filing rule that, generally, is altogether sound. On that point, the Court is united. See supra, at 583–584. For the class of cases over which we divide—cases involving a postfiling change in the composition of a multimember association such as a partnership—the Court presents no authority impelling the waste today‘s judgment approves. Even if precedent could provide a basis for the Court‘s disposition, rules fashioned by this Court for “the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination [of cases],”