If preemption were an independent basis for federal subject matter jurisdiction, almost all of our drug, device, and vaccine product liability litigation would be in federal court. We’ve long been resigned that preemption is a defense, not grounds for jurisdiction. E.g., Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 811 (1986). A
We’ve posted twice recently about the potential jurisdictional benefits of the congressionally expanded “federal officer” basis for federal jurisdiction in tort litigation: 28 U.S.C. §1442 (a)(1). Our first post cited in passing Griffin v. Optum, Inc., ___ F.4th ___, 2026 WL 1239289 (8th Cir. May 6, 2026), as an example of courts already applying
Today’s guest post from Justin Kadoura, a Holland & Knight product liability and toxic tort litigator, concerns a Supreme Court decision on an issue that might seem unrelated to the sort of case we cover at the DDL Blog. However, federal officer removal does come up in our cases and we have covered it
The Supreme Court recently issued a unanimous decision resolving a circuit split on an important question of federal subject matter jurisdiction: Whether a district court’s erroneous dismissal of a nondiverse party before final judgment can cure a jurisdictional defect that existed when a case was removed to federal court. You might think this is a
Removal-rama continues. Art (if that is what you can call blogposting) mimics life. We have not just been blogging about removal cases lately, we’ve also been removing cases to federal court with startling frequency. And it’s been working. Twice, even with a removal basis that might be characterized as a jump ball, plaintiffs have not
Today’s guest post is from Dechert’s Chris McKeon who updates us on a rare application of the political question doctrine. As always, our guest posters deserve 100% of the praise (and any of blame) for their posts. Not that we expect the latter.
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In our earlier post, we explored whether the political question
Mulitdistrict litigations – both federal MDLs and their state-court equivalents – sound like noble endeavors. The concept is simple: consolidate similar lawsuits under one judge to streamline proceedings. This, in theory, avoids contradictory rulings and saves court resources. But when you pan out past the injured plaintiffs and mountains of medical records, you’ll spot one
When a defendant removes a case to federal court on the basis that the case presents federal questions, what happens if the plaintiff amends the complaint to remove all references to federal law, leaving only state-law claims? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that once the plaintiff amends to delete all federal claims, a federal
We have written many times, as recently as Tuesday, that the practice of plaintiff lawyers to include patently inapplicable claims among a laundry list of causes of action asserted in complaints is lazy, if not problematic. It is rare to see a plaintiff self-regulate and cull down an overbroad pleading without a defense motion
Federal officer jurisdiction is the quiet middle child of the federal jurisdiction family. We all came out of law school fully versed in federal question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction (and we also vividly recall our civil procedure professor using Wyoming and Colorado for all his hypotheticals on diversity of citizenship because those were the only