United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 00-1387
BENJAMIN CHRISTOPHER,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
STANLEY-BOSTITCH, INC.,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. William G. Young, Chief U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Chief Judge,
Lynch and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Arthur J. Broadhurst, with whom John F. Lakin and Broadhurst,
Lakin & Lakin, were on brief, for appellant.
Christopher A. Duggan, with whom Kristen M. DeAngelo and Smith &
Duggan, LLP, were on brief, for appellee.
February 27, 2001
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Per Curiam. Plaintiff appeals from the denial of his motion
to reconsider an order issued on August 11, 1998, by the federal
district court, remanding the case to the state court. Plaintiff's
real argument on appeal is with that portion of the order which
purported to hold that the plaintiff was "judicially stopped," when the
case was on remand to the state trial court, from recovering more than
$75,000 in damages. We conclude we have jurisdiction to review that
portion of the order and hold that once the district court concluded it
lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case, it did not retain
jurisdiction to make such an estoppel determination. We order the
estoppel language only stricken from the August 11, 1998, remand order.
I.
This is a case that was originally filed in Massachusetts
state court, Essex County, on June 15, 1998. Plaintiff Benjamin
Christopher alleged that injuries suffered to his ankle as a result of
an accident with a nail gun were attributable to Stanley-Bostitch,
Inc., the manufacturer of the gun. Specifically, Christopher charged
Stanley-Bostitch with failing to exercise reasonable care in the design
of the nail gun, in breach of implied and/or express warranties of
fitness and merchantability. While claiming "severe and permanent
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damages" in the complaint, Christopher did not quantify his damages
with a dollar amount.1
On June 23, 1998, the Essex County Superior Court remanded
the action to the district court of Lawrence, Massachusetts, because
Christopher had failed to allege special damages in excess of $25,000.
Christopher promptly moved to re-transfer the case to superior court,
a motion that was again denied for failure to allege special damages.
Christopher filed a motion for reconsideration of the denial of the
motion to re-transfer, this time attaching a photograph and x-ray of
the injured ankle and a report from a treating physician. The report
stated that permanent damage had been done to the ankle which caused
chronic pain and rendered Christopher permanently disabled from the
type of work that he had performed prior to his injury. On July 23,
1998, the court granted the motion for reconsideration, and the case
was transferred back to superior court.
While these events unfolded in the state courts, on July 20,
1998, Stanley-Bostitch filed a notice of removal to federal court
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Stanley-Bostitch claimed federal
jurisdiction under diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, alleging
1 Christopher did not allege specific monetary damages in accordance
with Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 231, § 13B (West 2000): "No complaint in
any civil action shall contain an ad damnum or monetary amount claimed
against any defendant, unless such ad damnum or monetary amount claimed
indicates damages which are liquidated or ascertainable by calculation
. . . ."
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that Christopher was a citizen of Massachusetts and that Stanley-
Bostitch was a citizen of Delaware (incorporation) and Rhode Island
(principal place of business). As evidence that the amount in
controversy exceeded $75,000, Stanley-Bostitch offered that Christopher
had received workers' compensation benefits in excess of $85,000 for
his ankle injury.
In response to Stanley-Bostitch's removal action, Christopher
filed an "opposition to defendant's request for removal" (effectively
a motion to remand, 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c)). Christopher's motion claimed
that Stanley-Bostitch had not met its burden of proof that the amount
in controversy exceeded $75,000. Christopher made several assertions
designed to imply that the value of the case did not exceed $75,000.
First, he attached the superior court notice remanding the case to
Lawrence District Court, characterizing that action as based on a
"factual determination [by the superior court judge] that the
plaintiff's damages could not exceed $25,000." Christopher also
pointed out that the information regarding the workers' compensation
settlement that had been cited by Stanley-Bostitch was not attributed
to any source, reliable or otherwise. Finally, Christopher made the
legal assertion that recovery of any lost wages that may have been part
of the workers' compensation claim was barred by Mass. Gen. Laws Ann.
ch. 152, § 15 (West 2000).
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Stanley-Bostitch opposed Christopher's motion to remand.
First, Stanley-Bostitch revealed the omissions and misstatements made
by Christopher regarding the superior court's remand of the case to
Lawrence District Court. For example, despite Christopher's citation
to the superior court's "factual determination," the only factor
motivating the court's remand was Christopher's failure to provide a
statement regarding special damages. Christopher neglected to mention
that, following remand, Christopher had twice petitioned the superior
court to re-transfer the case to superior court on the grounds that
"damages have greatly exceeded $25,000.00." Most importantly,
Christopher did not reveal to the federal district court that the case
had been re-transferred to the superior court from the state district
court five days before Christopher filed his motion to remand. Put in
this context, Christopher's statement that the superior court had made
a "factual determination" that the case was not worth more than $25,000
was, at best, misleading and demonstrated a questionable lack of
forthrightness to the federal court.
Stanley-Bostitch also provided an affidavit and a letter from
CIGNA Property & Casualty attesting to the $85,000 in workers'
compensation that was paid out for Christopher's injury. Stanley-
Bostitch argued that, despite Christopher's assertion to the contrary,
Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 152, § 15 (West 2000), does not prevent
recovery of Christopher's lost wages. If Christopher recovered lost
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wages from Stanley-Bostitch, CIGNA, the insurer, would be entitled to
reimbursement under § 15. Reimbursement, Stanley-Bostitch asserted,
would not affect the calculation of the amount in controversy for
purposes of determining diversity jurisdiction.
The day after Stanley-Bostitch filed its opposition, August
11, 1998, the district court issued the following order:
This case is ordered remanded to the
Massachusetts Superior Court sitting in and for
the County of Essex. The plaintiff due to the
position he has asserted herein, is judicially
stopped from recovering more than $75,000 in this
action.
On August 13, 1998, the notice of transfer of the records to Essex
Superior Courthouse was filed, and the parties found themselves back in
state superior court.
On November 23, 1999, more than one year after remand to
state court,2 Christopher filed a "Motion for Clarification" with the
superior court. The motion requested that the superior court disregard
the portion of the district court's remand order that stopped
Christopher from seeking more than $75,000 in recovery. As grounds for
this request, Christopher asserted that once the district court
2 Christopher has offered no explanation for the delay in requesting
review of the district court's remand order. Stanley-Bostitch has
pointed out that by waiting more than one year from the filing of the
complaint, Christopher has blocked Stanley-Bostitch from removing the
case again in the event that the "estoppel" portion of the order is
vacated. 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b) ("[A] case may not be removed on the
basis of jurisdiction conferred by section 1332 of this title more than
1 year after commencement of the action.").
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determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case, it
lacked the authority to prevent Christopher from seeking more than
$75,000. Stanley-Bostitch opposed the motion for clarification,
characterizing the district court's action as an estoppel order, and
arguing that the elements for judicial estoppel were present. After a
hearing, the superior court denied Christopher's motion for
clarification on February 29, 2000.
It was at this point, March 8, 2000, more than a year and a
half after the federal district court remanded the case to superior
court, that Christopher filed a motion for reconsideration of the
remand order with the federal district court. Christopher asked the
district court either to vacate the portion of the order limiting
damages or, in the alternative, to revoke the remand and allow the case
to proceed in federal court. In support of this motion, Christopher
stated that he had never argued that the case was worth less than
$75,000, but only that Stanley-Bostitch had failed to meet its burden
regarding the amount in controversy. In fact, according to
Christopher, "the Plaintiff has always contended that the value of this
case was over $75,000.00." As proof of this, Christopher attached his
motion filed in the superior court to re-transfer the case from the
Lawrence District Court, the very motion that Christopher had declined
to reveal to the federal court in his original motion to remand. The
next day, the district court denied Christopher's motion for
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reconsideration without elaboration. Christopher appeals the denial of
reconsideration to this Court.
II.
A. Appellate Jurisdiction
We start with the question about this court's jurisdiction
over such an appeal. The district court remanded the case to state
court. At the time that the court issued its order remanding the case,
the only ground pending for such a remand was lack of subject matter
jurisdiction, either because the amount in controversy was not met, or
because there was not a sufficient showing that it was met.3
Congress has expressly limited the jurisdiction of the courts
of appeal over remand orders, providing that "[a]n order remanding a
case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on
appeal or otherwise [excepting certain civil rights cases]." 28 U.S.C.
§ 1447(d). This limitation is intended to prevent prolonged litigation
of the remand issue, see United States v. Rice, 327 U.S. 742, 751
(1946), and to minimize interference in state court proceedings by the
federal courts, for reasons of comity, see In re La Providencia Dev.
Corp., 406 F.2d 251, 252 (1st Cir. 1969). This limitation on review
encompasses remands under § 1447(c) for lack of federal subject matter
jurisdiction, though appellate review may be available where the
3 Appellate review has been hampered by the lack of any explanation
of the district court's original remand order or of the denial of the
motion for reconsideration.
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district court remands on certain other grounds. See Thermtron Prods.,
Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U.S. 336, 343-46 (1976). Because the remand
order in this case is based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction,
under § 1447(d) there is no appellate jurisdiction to review the remand
determination.
However, that leaves the interpretation of the second
sentence of the order, in which the court stated that the plaintiff was
"judicially stopped" from seeking more than $75,000 in damages. We
understand this sentence to purport to determine the estoppel question
in the state court proceeding. Section 1447(d) does not allow district
courts to insulate separate and severable concurrent orders from review
merely by attaching those orders to a remand order. Where the
concurrent order of the court is severable from the remand order "in
logic and in fact," that order may be reviewable. See City of Waco v.
United States Fidelity & Guarantee Co., 293 U.S. 140 (1934); Carr v.
American Red Cross, 17 F.3d 671, 674-75 (3d Cir. 1994) ("[W]e have
embraced the principle that a district court cannot prevent appellate
review of a final collateral order by contemporaneously remanding a
case to state court.").
Since the order issued by the district court not only
remanded the case to state court but also purported to preclude the
plaintiff from seeking damages in excess of $75,000, that latter
portion of the order seeks to conclusively resolve estoppel issues
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independent from (and unnecessary to) the remand determination. Unlike
dismissal on preemption grounds, where the preemption determination is
inextricably intertwined with the remand decision, here the
determination that the plaintiff should be estopped is not essential to
the decision to remand. Cf. Nutter v. Monongahela Power Co., 4 F.3d
319 (1993) (no review of district court's decision to remand on grounds
that plaintiff's state law claim was not preempted by federal law). As
such, the estoppel portion of the district court's order is subject to
appellate review under the logic of City of Waco.
Alternatively, this court has previously treated attempted
appeals from (possibly) unappealable orders as a petition for a writ of
mandamus. See United States v. Horn, 29 F.3d 754, 769 (1st Cir. 1994);
see also Phinney v. Wentworth Douglas Hosp., 199 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.
1999); United States v. Collamore, 868 F.2d 24, 26-27 (1st Cir. 1989).
Mandamus can be appropriate in those rare cases in which the issuance
of an order presents a question about the limits of judicial power,
poses a risk of irreparable harm to the appellant, and is plainly
erroneous, and the case for mandamus is particularly compelling where
the order poses an elemental question of judicial authority. See Horn,
29 F.3d at 769-70. Were this court lacking appellate jurisdiction
over the estoppel portion of the order on direct appeal, we would find
this an appropriate instance for such mandamus jurisdiction and relief
because the order, as discussed below, did two impermissible things:
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it was entered when there was no federal jurisdiction and it purported
to tell the state courts what to do.
B. District Court Jurisdiction
We conclude that, having determined that it lacked subject
matter jurisdiction over the case, the court lacked authority to make
the estoppel determination. Indeed, it impermissibly intruded into a
matter properly left to the state courts.4
The decision to remand the case to state court reflected the
district court's conclusion that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction
over the case. When a federal court concludes that it lacks subject
matter jurisdiction over a case, it is precluded from rendering any
judgments on the merits of the case. See Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503
U.S. 131, 137 (1992) ("A final determination of lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction of a case in a federal court, of course, precludes further
adjudication of it."); In re Orthopedic "Bone Screw" Prods. Liab.
Litig., 132 F.3d 152, 155 (3d Cir. 1997) ("If a court [ ] determines
that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, it cannot decide the case on
the merits."); Wages v. I.R.S., 915 F.2d 1230, 1234 (9th Cir. 1990)
("[W]e have held that a judge ordering a dismissal based upon lack of
subject matter jurisdiction retains no power to make judgments relating
to the merits of the case.") (internal quotation marks omitted).
4 While the scope of review of denials of motions for
reconsideration is narrow, we consider the estoppel order to be plain
error.
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A court without subject matter jurisdiction may retain some
limited authority to protect its own independent interests in its
procedures. Compare Willy, 503 U.S. at 137-39 (allowing imposition of
Rule 11 sanctions for discovery violations to stand where court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction over underlying matter), with United States
Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72,
76-80 (1988) (refusing to enforce civil contempt order against nonparty
for violating discovery order where subject matter jurisdiction over
the underlying matter was found lacking on appeal). However, whatever
incidental power the court retains cannot go to the merits of the
underlying action. Rather, orders relating to the merits of the
underlying action are void if issued without subject matter
jurisdiction. See, e.g., Shirley v. Maxicare Texas, Inc., 921 F.2d 565
(5th Cir. 1991) ("Unless a federal court possesses subject matter
jurisdiction over a dispute, [ ] any order it makes (other than an
order of dismissal or remand) is void."); see also Hernandez v. Conriv
Realty Assoc., 182 F.3d 121, 123 (2d Cir. 1999) (district court lacking
subject matter jurisdiction cannot, as sanction, dismiss case with
prejudice); In re Orthopedic "Bone Screw", 132 F.3d at 155-56 (same).
Having determined that the portion of the order requiring
that the plaintiff be "judicially stopped" from recovering more than
$75,000 is not inextricably intertwined with the remand determination,
we find that the district court was without authority to issue the
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judicial estoppel order.5 We also note that the order violated basic
precepts of comity. Therefore, we vacate that portion of the order.
Subject matter jurisdiction is not a "nicety of legal
metaphysics" but rests instead on "the central principle of a free
society that courts have finite bounds of authority." See United
States Catholic Conference, 487 U.S. at 77. Courts must be careful to
respect these limits on their authority.
III.
For these reasons, we remand with instructions to the
district court to vacate the second sentence of the August 11, 1998
order of remand to the state court. Otherwise, the remand order
remains intact. Given concerns of comity, nothing in this opinion
ought to be construed to preclude the normal application of equitable
principles or collateral estoppel rules by the state court. While the
state court may (or may not) decide that estoppel principles apply, it
5 Apart from its jurisdictional infirmities and its infringement of
comity concerns, it is not clear that the estoppel order would have
been appropriate for other reasons. As a matter of federal law,
unappealable decisions generally do not have preclusive weight. See
González-García v. Williamson Dickie Mfg. Co., 99 F.3d 490, 492 (1st
Cir. 1996) ("Because the district court's preemption finding is
unreviewable, principles of collateral estoppel would not apply to
preclude relitigation of the issue in state court."); Nutter, 4 F.3d at
322 ("[W]e do not believe the district court's jurisdictional findings
incident to remand should preclude relitigation of the same issues in
state court."); see also Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 28(1)
(stating that there is an exception to preclusion generally when "[t]he
party against whom preclusion is sought could not, as a matter of law,
have obtained review of the judgment in the initial action").
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was not the province of the federal district court to dictate that
result to the state court. So ordered.
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