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Abstract

On January 15, 2025, a unanimous Supreme Court announced a decision about the nature and scope of supplemental jurisdiction that some commentators claim ran contrary to decades of precent from the Supreme Court itself, as well as from every federal appellate circuit to have considered the issue presented in the case, declaring how a federal district court can be forfeited of subject matter jurisdiction by a voluntary amendment to a plaintiff’s pleadings in a properlyremoved complaint.

Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger had been through the district court twice, though the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on the same number of occasions, each time with widely different results, before finally reaching the Supreme Court for resolution of what the Court termed as a “split” among the federal circuit courts.

It is proposed by the author that a “split” is hardly an accurate description of the state of the circuit court decisions, since prior to Royal Canin every federal appellate circuit that had considered the question of the effect of post-removal changes to the plaintiff’s pleadings, be it for the amount in controversy, the domicile of adverse parties, or an abandonment of the federal claims that had supported the case’s removal, had no impact on the federal courts’ retention of valid subject matter jurisdiction.

This paper begins by reviewing the foundations of ancillary, pendant and supplemental jurisdiction, the incorporation of those concepts in revisions to Title 28 of the United States Code and continues with a review of the decisions of the various federal appellate circuits that preceded Royal Canin, reaching opposite conclusions from that case on the effect of postremoval activity upon the federal courts’ jurisdiction. In doing so, the author will opine that Royal Canin represents a sea change in the concept of subject matter jurisdiction, the full impact of which is yet to be seen.

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