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No.
THINGS REMEMBERED, INC., PETITIONER v.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[
Justice
Section 1452(b) broadly provides for district court remand of claims related to bankruptcy cases "on any equitable ground," and declares that the remanding order is "not reviewable by appeal or otherwise." [n.1] Congress, when it added §1452 to the Judicial Code chapter on removal of cases from state courts--a chapter now comprising 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441-1452--meant to enlarge, not to rein in, federal trial court removal/remand authority for claims related to bankruptcy cases. The drafters, it bears emphasis, expressly contemplated that remand orders for claims related to bankruptcy cases "would not be appealable"; in particular, they reported that bankruptcy forum remands would be unreviewable "in the same manner that an order of the United States district court remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise." H. R. Rep. No. 95-595, p. 51 (1977) (emphasis added). [n.2]
The lawmakers chose the capacious words "any equitable ground" with no hint whatever that they meant by their word choice to recall premerger distinctions between law and equity, and thereby to render reviewable bankruptcy case remand orders based on "law." In legal systems that never separated pleadings and procedure along law/equity lines, and not infrequently in our own long merged system, "equitable" signals that which is reasonable, fair, or appropriate. Dictionary definitions of "equitable" notably include among appropriate meanings: "just and impartial," American Heritage Dictionary 622 (3d ed. 1992); also "dealing fairly and equally with all concerned," Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 421 (1983). As Circuit Judge Easterbrook observed:
"[T]he distinction between law and equity was abolished long ago in federal cases. Nothing in the history of the bankruptcy code suggests that Congress wanted to resuscitate it. Courts must separate `legal' from `equitable' grounds in 1789 on command of the seventh amendment. This task has little but the sanction of history to recommend it and is possible only because law versus equity was an intelligible line in the eighteenth century. In 1978, when Congress enacted the predecessor to §1452, there was no law equity distinction. `Equitable' in §1452(b) makes more sense if it means `appropriate.' " Hernandez v. Brakegate, Ltd., 942 F. 2d 1223, 1226 (CA7 1991).
Cf., e.g., Hilton Davis Chemical Co. v. Warner Jenkinson Co., 62 F. 3d 1512, 1521 (CAFed 1995) ("The term `equitable' can have many meanings. . . . [I]n doctrine of equivalents cases, this court's allusions to equity invoke equity in its broadest sense--equity as general fairness."); United States v. BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg), S. A., 46 F. 3d 1185, 1189, 1190 (CADC 1995) (rejecting the argument that Congress used the expression "legal right, title, or interest" in 18 U.S.C. § 1963(l)(6)(A) "to draw the ancient, but largely ignored, distinction between technically legal and technically equitable claims in forfeiture challenges") (emphasis in original).
It seems to me entirely appropriate--and, in that sense, equitable--to remand a case for failure promptly to remove. Indeed, counsel for petitioner recognized the potential for manipulation inherent in his proffered distinction between statutory time limits ("legal" limits) on the one hand and, on the other, court made determinations that a procedural move is untimely because pursued without due expedition ("equitable" assessments). At oral argument, the following exchange occurred:
"QUESTION: Suppose the judge in this case said, I'm not 100 percent sure about strict time limit, but I think you should have come here sooner, so for equitable reasons I'm remanding this because I think you dawdled--an equitable notion like laches . . .--that would not be reviewable, right?
"MR. CUNDRA: That is correct.
"QUESTION: So it's the judge's label, what he wants to put on it. He can make it immune from review if he says, laches.
"MR. CUNDRA: Yes.
"QUESTION: But it's reviewable if he says, time bar under the statute.
"MR. CUNDRA: Yes." Tr. of Oral Arg. 15-16.
As Circuit Judge Gee remarked in relation to this very issue, it "make[s] little sense" to rest reviewability vel non on the tag the trial court elects to place on its ruling. Sykes v. Texas Air Corp., 834 F. 2d 488, 492 (CA5 1987).
Interpreting §1452(b) as fully in sync with §1447(d) on the nonreviewability of remand orders, we stress, secures the uniform treatment of all remands, regardless of the party initiating the removal or the court from which the case is removed. Cf. Pacor, Inc. v. Higgins, 743 F. 2d 984, 991-992 (CA3 1984) (refusing to apply §1447(d) in bankruptcy cases because, i.a., removals under §§1441-1447 may be initiated only by defendants and are from state courts only, while §1452 authorizes removals by "a party" and applies to cases originally filed in federal as well as state tribunals). A restrictive definition of what is "equitable" could invite wasteful controversy over the reviewability of bankruptcy case remand orders that are not reached by §1447 and rest on grounds a common law pleader might type "legal." It would show little respect for the legislature were courts to suppose that the lawmakers meant to enact an irrational scheme. Cf. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust and Sav. Bank, 510 U. S. --, -- (1993) (slip op., at 7) (Court's examination of statutory language is "guided not by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look[s] to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy. ") (internal quotations omitted) (quoting Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 51 (1987)); Deal v. United States, 508 U. S. --,-- (1993) (slip op., at 3) (It is a "fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used.").
Moreover, even if jurisdictional and procedural defects were excluded from the "equitable ground" category, that would not force a construction of §1452(b) calling for different results depending on the party initiating the removal or the court from which a claim is removed. The phrase "any equitable ground" in §1452(b) sensibly can be read to relate not to the basis for the district court's refusal to entertain a case (as my discussion up to now has assumed), but rather to the basis for remanding. Ordinarily, a district court unable to hear a claim, because of lack of jurisdiction or some other legal hindrance, has no choice but to dismiss. Section 1452(b), under the construction advanced in this paragraph, provides an alternative to dismissal (as well as an alternative to proceeding with the case though all the legal requirements are met), by authorizing remands as fairness warrants, i.e., when a remand would be-equitable."
In sum, a "strong congressional policy against review of remand orders," Sykes, 834 F. 2d, at 490, underlies §§1447(d) and 1452(b). Courts serve the legislature's purpose best by reading §1452(b) to make sense and avoid nonsense, and to fit harmoniously within a set of provisions composing a coherent chapter of the Judicial Procedure part of the U. S. Code. Cf. United Sav. Assn. of Tex. v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd., 484 U.S. 365, 371 (1988) (statutory term "that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme," for example, when "only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law") (internal citations omitted). Thus the Sixth Circuit, I conclude, correctly ruled that neither §1452(b) nor §1447(d) permits the assertion of appellate jurisdiction in this case.
Notes
1 This case concerns, and I address in this opinion, only orders remanding claims "related to" bankruptcy cases. Section 1452(b) also encompasses decisions "to not remand" claims related to bankruptcy cases. The §1452(b) coverage of decisions "to not remand" resembles a prescription in 28 U.S.C. § 1334 (1988 ed. and Supp. V), the root jurisdictional provision governing "Bankruptcy cases and proceedings." Section 1334(c)(2) renders unreviewable district court decisions "to abstain or not to abstain" from adjudicating state law claims merely "related to" a bankruptcy case, i.e., claims that do not independently qualify for federal court jurisdiction.
Of course, every federal court, whether trial or appellate, is obliged to notice want of subject matter jurisdiction on its own motion. See, e.g., Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U.S. 379, 382 (1884). An interlocutory decision "to not remand," therefore, although not per se reviewable, would leave open for eventual appellate consideration--also and earlier for district court reconsideration--any question of the court's subject matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., Sykes v. Texas Air Corp., 834 F. 2d 488, 492, n. 16 (CA5 1987) ("When the district court decides to retain a case in the face of arguments that it lacks jurisdiction, the decision itself is technically unreviewable; but of course the appellate court reviewing any other aspect of the case must remand for dismissal if the refusal to remand was wrong, i.e., if there is no federal jurisdiction over the case.") (emphasis in original).
2 After the Court held inconsonant with Article III the Bankruptcy Act's broad grant of jurisdiction to bankruptcy judges, see Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 87 (1982), Congress transferred supervisory jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases to Article III courts and retained for the district courts the broad removal/remand authority the Act initially gave to bankruptcy courts. See Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-353, 98 Stat. 333.