Declining Supplemental Jurisdiction

Declining Supplemental Jurisdiction

Power over a claim does not oblige a federal court to use it. Once a claim clears § 1367(a) and escapes the diversity-only bars in § 1367(b), subsection (c) adds one more question: the district courts “may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim under subsection (a)” when a listed circumstance is present.¹ The statute names four. The claim may raise a novel or complex issue of state law; it may substantially predominate over the claims within original jurisdiction; the court may have dismissed all claims over which it had original jurisdiction; or, in exceptional circumstances, there may be other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.²

The second step exists because the first is so broad. Subsection (a) reaches every claim in the same constitutional case, which lets a plaintiff keep a whole dispute in one forum. The same breadth lets a plaintiff ask a federal court to decide state-law questions that belong more naturally in a state court. Discretion lets the court send those claims away while keeping the ones whose retention saves the parties a second trial. Gibbs supplied the model, calling pendent jurisdiction “a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff's right” and resting it on judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to litigants.³ Section 1367(c) turns that discretion into a list, and a list does two jobs: it tells the trial judge which reasons count, and it gives a reviewing court something to measure the choice against.

Congress codified the second holding in Gibbs in § 1367(c), with four grounds that are similar to, but not quite the same as, the considerations discussed in the second half of that opinion.⁴ Once the court has constitutional and statutory authority over the related claim, it decides, on the discretionary factors in subsection (c), whether to hear it. An exam answer should therefore name the statutory ground first and then use the Gibbs considerations of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity to explain why the ground applies on the facts. The discretion reaches every claim under subsection (a), in federal-question and diversity actions alike, because subsection (c) speaks of any such claim and says nothing about the source of the anchor.⁵

Subsection (c) differs from the diversity bars in a way that decides how a problem is sorted. A claim caught by subsection (b) lies outside the statutory grant, because the district courts “shall not have” supplemental jurisdiction over it, so the court has no choice to make.⁶ A claim that triggers subsection (c) lies inside the grant, and the court weighs whether to keep it. Each ground therefore operates on a claim over which the court has power, and the only question is whether to use that power. The four grounds follow in the statute's order.

Novel or Complex State Law

The first ground permits a district court to decline supplemental jurisdiction when “the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law.”⁸ It carries into the statute the comity concern in Gibbs: needless decisions of state law should be avoided, both as a matter of comity and to give the parties “a surer-footed reading of applicable law.”⁹

The reason for hesitation follows from who has the last word on state law. A federal court must apply state law to the claim, as Erie requires, so a federal judge facing a question the state's highest court has never answered can only forecast what that court would say.¹⁰ The forecast binds no state court and may prove wrong. Keeping the claim also means the state's highest court may never have the chance to address the issue.

The two adjectives point at different difficulties. Novelty concerns whether the state's authoritative courts have spoken, as with a recently enacted statute that no appellate court has construed. Complexity concerns how hard the question is to answer even with some guidance. Routine questions pose neither problem, so the ground reaches hard questions and not state-law claims generally. When the governing doctrine is settled, the federal judge applies what the state's courts have already said, the ruling cannot diverge from a state decision, and nothing is taken from the state's courts. Sending such a claim away would cost the parties a second lawsuit over the same events and protect no comity interest in return.

Both state claims share a nucleus of fact with the federal claim, and the court has power over each, so relatedness cannot explain the different answers. What moves the result is whether the state's own courts have already answered the question the claim presents. Every supplemental claim rests on state law, so state law alone cannot trigger the ground; the question the claim raises must be new or hard.

A court that faces a novel question decides whether to keep the claim by asking whether the considerations that justify supplemental jurisdiction, judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to litigants, are present, and whether comity counsels leaving the question to the state's own courts.¹¹

The ground confers a choice, so an unsettled question never compels dismissal. A court may keep a novel claim when other considerations favor retention, such as a state claim so closely tied to questions of federal policy that the argument for exercising jurisdiction is particularly strong.¹² A claim declined on this ground goes to state court, and a later section takes up how the statute protects the plaintiff's limitations period when that happens.

State Claims That Predominate

The second ground permits a district court to decline supplemental jurisdiction when “the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which the district court has original jurisdiction.”¹⁴ The wording is comparative. The question is how the supplemental claim weighs against the anchor claims, and “substantially” tells the court that a modest imbalance is not enough. The statute does not say how to measure the imbalance; Gibbs did. If it appears that the state issues substantially predominate, “whether in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the remedy sought,” the state claims may be dismissed without prejudice and left for resolution to state tribunals.¹⁵

Each measure looks at a different part of the lawsuit. Proof concerns the trial itself: which claim will consume the witnesses, the documents, and the hours of testimony. The scope of the issues concerns the legal and factual questions each claim raises, so a state claim that brings in several doctrines and several disputed events weighs more than a federal claim that turns on one narrow question. The comprehensiveness of the remedy concerns what the plaintiff seeks, and a state claim that opens the door to far larger or broader relief can overshadow a federal claim with a limited recovery. Because the Gibbs formulation is disjunctive, any one measure can show predominance, though a court is most persuaded when proof, issues, and remedy all favor the state side.

Two reasons stand behind the ground, and both explain why the measures look to practical weight. The first is economy. Gibbs found the justification for supplemental jurisdiction in judicial economy, convenience, and fairness to litigants, and it said that when those are absent a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims.¹⁶ A joint proceeding saves effort when the federal and state claims draw on the same proof, because one factfinder hears the story once. When the state claim dominates the proof, the issues, and the relief, the anchor claim adds little that a state court would not already conduct, so the saving shrinks while the federal court still decides a large body of state law. The second reason is protection against manipulation. The anchor claim is the ticket that admits the case, and if a thin federal claim could carry a large state dispute, a plaintiff could bring a state-law case into federal court by attaching a minor federal count. Gibbs answered that a federal court's wide latitude to decide ancillary questions of state law “does not imply that it must tolerate a litigant's effort to impose upon it what is in effect only a state law case.”¹⁷

Gibbs itself shows a claim that did not predominate. The federal § 303 claims ultimately failed, and the only recovery was on the state claim, the pattern that invites a predominance argument. Yet the state and federal claims arose from the same nucleus of operative fact and reflected alternative remedies: state law allowed compensatory and punitive damages for both secondary and primary activity, and the verdict sheet authorized only one award, so recovery could not be given separately on each claim.¹⁸ The § 303 claims relating to Grundy had gone to the jury, which returned verdicts against the union that were set aside only on the union's motion for a directed verdict and judgment n.o.v., and the District Judge considered the haulage-contract claim proved as to liability and held that it failed only for lack of proof of damages. The Court therefore could not say that the federal issues were so remote, or played so minor a role at trial, that in effect only the state claim was tried.¹⁹ A broader state remedy together with a federal loss does not establish predominance; the question is how much the federal claim shaped the proceeding.

The opposite pole is the case Gibbs described in general terms: once it appears that a state claim “constitutes the real body of a case, to which the federal claim is only an appendage,” the state claim may fairly be dismissed.²⁰ The federal claim in such a case may still be real in the jurisdictional sense, so the court's power over the state claim remains; what has changed is the federal claim's place in the lawsuit.²¹ Predominance therefore asks a different question than the substantiality requirement taught earlier in this chapter. Substantiality asks whether the anchor claim is a genuine basis for jurisdiction at the outset, and predominance asks how much of the lawsuit the anchor claim accounts for.

The count of claims runs five to one against the federal claim in the first scene, yet the state counts do not predominate, because a single body of proof and a single remedy answer every count. In the second scene one state claim outweighs the federal claim on proof, scope of issues, and remedy, so the court may dismiss it without prejudice and leave the employee to state court. Predominance is judged by practical weight, and a student who tallies claims will reverse both answers. The numbers can mislead in the other direction as well, since a complaint with two federal claims and one state claim can still be dominated by the state claim if that claim carries the proof and the money.

Predominance does not always show on the face of the complaint. A court that acts after the litigation has run part of its course should take account of what has already been done, which is a real cost of dismissal, yet Gibbs recognized that dismissal of the state claim might be merited even then.²² It may appear, for example, that the plaintiff was well aware of the nature of his proofs and the relative importance of his claims from the start.²³ The ground is therefore available whenever the imbalance becomes apparent.

The ground permits a court to decline and does not require it, and a court that declines dismisses the state claim without prejudice so that the plaintiff may pursue it in state court.²⁴ The Gibbs considerations of economy, convenience, and fairness supply the standard for measuring whether keeping or dismissing the claim serves the justification for supplemental jurisdiction.²⁵

Federal Claims Dismissed

The third ground applies when “the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction.”²⁷ A change in the case itself triggers this ground: the anchor claim that carried the state claim into federal court has left. Gibbs anticipated the event, observing that if the federal claims are dismissed before trial, “even though not insubstantial in a jurisdictional sense, the state claims should be dismissed as well.”²⁸ That phrase separates two events that students often run together. A federal claim that was substantial enough to confer jurisdiction and then lost leaves the court's power over the related state claim intact and raises only a question of discretion. A claim that never supported jurisdiction means the action was never one of which the court had original jurisdiction, and § 1367(a) then has nothing to operate on.²⁹

The reason for the ground follows from what justified hearing the state claim in the first place. Gibbs located that justification in “judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants,” and said that when those considerations are absent a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims.³⁰ Each consideration depended on a federal claim the court had to decide anyway. One proceeding spared the parties a second trial of the same events, and the state claim rode along at little added cost. Once the anchor claim is gone, the federal court would be deciding only questions of state law, which the state's own courts can decide with final authority, and the comity concern favoring a state forum operates with no federal interest pulling the other way. Early in a case little federal effort has gone into the state claim, so declining wastes little, and the plaintiff keeps the claim because a dismissal on this ground is without prejudice and leaves the plaintiff free to sue in state court.³¹ A later section explains how the statute protects the limitations period when that happens.

The statute's words are “all claims,” so the ground has no application while a single claim within original jurisdiction remains in the case. A court that has dismissed one of two federal claims must find a different ground, such as predominance, before it can decline the state claim. The ground also creates discretion without creating an obligation. Gibbs described the power over a state claim as one that “need not be exercised in every case in which it is found to exist,” because supplemental jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion and not of the plaintiff's right.³² The usual exam error is to announce that the dismissal of the federal claim strips the court of power, when the court still has power and the question is whether to use it.

Timing sets the strength of the presumption in favor of declining. A court that loses its anchor claim early will presumptively dismiss the state claims. A court that loses it late may reach the opposite result, because on the eve of trial considerations of efficiency and judicial economy argue against a dismissal that would require the parties to start over in state court.³³ Gibbs took a similar view of a state claim that has become the real body of the case: the completed course of the litigation matters, but dismissal of the state claim might be merited even then.³⁴

The ground also leaves the power analysis untouched. Under § 1367 a court first asks whether Article III permits the claim, which depends on a proper claim within federal jurisdiction and a related claim arising from the same nucleus of operative facts, and that inquiry is the same as it was before the statute was enacted.³⁵ Only then does the court decide whether to use the power, and the third ground comes into play only after the federal claims have been dismissed.

Exceptional Circumstances

The fourth and last ground permits a district court to decline supplemental jurisdiction when “in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.”³⁷ It catches what the first three miss. Those grounds name specific situations: a novel or complex issue of state law, a claim that substantially predominates, and the dismissal of every claim within original jurisdiction.³⁸ A list of specific grounds can describe only situations that can be identified in advance, and claims reach federal court attached to anchor claims in more ways than any list can anticipate. The fourth ground is the narrow safety valve for the case that fits none of the three descriptions but still gives a court a serious reason to send a claim elsewhere.

The statute's wording is demanding, and the demand keeps the safety valve narrow. A court must identify exceptional circumstances, meaning something about the case that sets it apart from the ordinary supplemental claim, and it must find reasons that are compelling, meaning reasons with real weight.³⁹ The word other points to reasons beyond those the first three grounds already name, so a court that finds state law settled and the state claim modest cannot relabel the same reservations as exceptional. The narrowness also protects the design of the grant, because § 1367(a) says the district courts “shall have supplemental jurisdiction” over qualifying claims.⁴⁰ Declining departs from that default, and the most open-ended ground for departing is drafted in the most restrictive terms.

A claim that asks a United States court to apply another country's patent law illustrates the kind of reason the ground is meant to catch. The district courts have exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over cases involving a U.S. patent under 28 U.S.C. § 1338, so a holder suing on a U.S. patent has an anchor claim.⁴¹ If the holder adds claims for infringement of patents that other countries granted, those claims have no basis of their own and can enter the case only through § 1367, so the question becomes whether the court should decline them. This is an illustration of reasoning, not a statutory test. Comity, the respect one sovereign's courts show for the legal systems of others, could supply a compelling reason of this kind. A patent is a grant made by one country under its own law, and each country has its own system for enforcing it. A U.S. court that decides infringement of a foreign patent takes over work that the other country's system is built to perform, and a district court could reasonably treat that intrusion as an exceptional circumstance that outweighs the convenience of a single lawsuit. None of the first three grounds describes the problem, because the first speaks only of state law and the concern here is respect for other nations.

The instinct that loses points on this ground is to read it as general permission to decline any claim a judge would rather not hear.

In the foreign-patent setting the reason for declining concerns respect for the legal systems of other nations, a concern that a single convenient trial does nothing to answer. In the battery scene the reason is only the cost that every supplemental claim imposes to some degree, and the joint trial that carries the cost still spares the parties a second proceeding over the same arrest. If added trial time sufficed, the fourth ground would swallow the others, and the grant in § 1367(a) would hold only for claims that cost the court nothing. A judge with a real reason, such as an unsettled question of state law or a state claim that dominates the case, can still decline under the first or second ground.

A separate question is whether the considerations Gibbs identified still guide the choice. Gibbs found the justification for supplemental jurisdiction in “judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants” and said that when those are absent a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims.⁴² Congress wrote four grounds into § 1367(c) that are similar to, but not quite the same as, the considerations Gibbs discussed, and the text of the subsection does not mention those considerations.⁴³ A court that finds a ground present can therefore still ask whether keeping the claim serves the economy, convenience, and fairness that justified supplemental jurisdiction in the first place, and the answer gives an appellate court something to review. The fourth ground leaves the most room for that inquiry, since a court weighing a claimed compelling reason, as in the foreign-patent example, sets economy, convenience, and fairness against comity. An exam answer should name the ground first and then use those considerations to show why it applies. The next section takes up what happens to the plaintiff's limitations period once a court declines a claim on any of the four grounds.