[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
SEPTEMBER 25, 2007
Nos. 06-12953 & 06-13184 THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 04-22856-CV-AJ
JUAN MANUEL PINTADO,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
MIAMI-DADE HOUSING AGENCY,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(September 25, 2007)
Before WILSON, PRYOR and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This case presents the question of whether the district court is divested of
subject-matter jurisdiction when a plaintiff amends his complaint so as to omit the
federal law claim that originally gave rise to the federal court’s supplemental
jurisdiction of the plaintiff’s remaining state law claims. Because we find that the
district court lacked jurisdiction over the case after the plaintiff amended his
complaint, we vacate the summary judgment order and remand this case to the
district court to be dismissed without prejudice.
I. BACKGROUND
Appellant Juan Manuel Pintado filed his original complaint in the Southern
District of Florida alleging the Miami-Dade Housing Authority (“MDHA”) had
violated (1) Florida’s Whistle-blower Act, Fla. Stat. Ann. § 112.3187; (2) Florida’s
Civil Rights Act, Fla. Stat. Ann. § 760.01, et seq.; and (3) Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. The complaint alleged that the
district court had supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. 28 U.S.C.
§ 1367.
After the MDHA moved for summary judgment on all counts, Pintado
moved to amend his complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)
in order to “drop his federal law claim under Title VII . . . so that he may continue
to pursue only his state law claims.” The district court granted the motion to
amend, and Pintado filed an amended complaint asserting only violations of state
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law. Although no violation of federal law was alleged in the amended complaint,
Pintado continued to claim that the district court had supplemental jurisdiction over
the case.
The district court granted summary judgment to MDHA on both state law
claims. In its order, the district court acknowledged that Pintado’s amended
complaint did not contain a federal law claim, but concluded that the court retained
supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. After Pintado’s
motions for a new trial, amended judgment, and recusal were denied, he filed this
appeal.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Whether we or the district court have subject-matter jurisdiction to decide
this case is a question of law to be reviewed de novo. Williams v. Best Buy Co.,
269 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir. 2001).
III. DISCUSSION
Before deciding the merits of a case, we must ensure that we have
jurisdiction. Rolling Greens MHP, L.P. v. Comcast SCH Holdings L.L.C., 374
F.3d 1020, 1021 (11th Cir. 2004). The district court properly had jurisdiction of
the case after Pintado filed his first complaint. The Title VII claim was properly
before the district court, and the state law claims were part of the same nucleus of
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operative facts that allows the district court to assert supplemental jurisdiction over
them in accord with 42 U.S.C. § 1367. See United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383
U.S. 715, 725, 86 S. Ct. 1130, 1138 (1966).
Once Pintado amended his complaint, however, there no longer was a
federal law question upon which supplemental jurisdiction could rest. The
question before us is whether the district court continued to possess subject-matter
jurisdiction over Pintado’s state law claims after he amended his complaint to no
longer include any federal law claim.
The statute authorizing supplemental jurisdiction specifies that a district
court “may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim if . . . the
district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction.” 28
U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) (emphasis added). A district court therefore has the discretion
to continue to exercise jurisdiction over state law claims in a case even after
dismissing the federal claim that created the original jurisdiction. See Palmer v.
Hosp. Auth., 22 F.3d 1559, 1568 (11th Cir. 1994). If Pintado’s amended
complaint were analogous to a district court dismissal of Pintado’s federal claims,
then it would be within the district court’s discretion to continue to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over Pintado’s state law claims. However, this analogy
does not hold.
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As a general matter, “[a]n amended pleading supersedes the former
pleading; the original pleading is abandoned by the amendment, and is no longer a
part of the pleader’s averments against his adversary.” Dresdner Bang AG,
Dresdner Bank AG in Hamburg v. M/V Olympia Voyager, 463 F.3d 1210, 1215
(11th Cir. 2006) (citation and quotation omitted); Fritz v. Standard Sec. Life Ins.
Co., 676 F.2d 1356, 1358 (11th Cir. 1982) (“Under the Federal Rules, an amended
complaint supersedes the original complaint.”). In this case, once the amended
complaint was accepted by the district court, the original complaint was
superceded and there was no longer a federal claim on which the district court
could exercise supplemental jurisdiction for the remaining state law claims.
In a similar situation, the Supreme Court recently held that “when a plaintiff
files a complaint in federal court and then voluntarily amends the complaint, courts
look to the amended complaint to determine jurisdiction.” Rockwell Int’l Corp. v.
United States, 549 U.S. __, 127 S. Ct. 1397, 1409 (2007). Rockwell concerned, in
part, whether the Court should look at the plaintiff’s original complaint or the
amended complaint to determine if certain statutory jurisdictional prerequisites
were met. Id. at 1408-09. The Supreme Court concluded that the withdrawal of
allegations in an amended complaint which had formed the basis of federal
jurisdiction defeats jurisdiction. Id.
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Rockwell cites two other circuits in support of this proposition. In Wellness
Cmty. Nat’l v. Wellness House, 70 F.3d 46 (7th Cir. 1995), the plaintiff filed an
original complaint in federal court alleging both state and federal claims and then
amended the complaint to only include the state law claims. Id. at 48. The district
court concluded that it could exercise supplemental jurisdiction because the
original complaint had asserted a federal question. Id. at 48-49. The Seventh
Circuit reversed on appeal because the amended complaint had superseded the
original complaint and thus “there was no federal claim to which [the] state claims
could be ‘supplemental.’” Id. at 50. In Boelens v. Redman Homes, Inc., the Fifth
Circuit also found that jurisdiction must be determined by looking at the amended
complaint and concluded that “the plaintiff must be held to the jurisdictional
consequences of a voluntary abandonment of claims that would otherwise provide
federal jurisdiction.” 759 F.2d 504, 506-08 (5th Cir. 1985).
Although this circuit has not addressed this issue in a published opinion,1 we
follow Rockwell and agree with the Fifth and Seventh Circuits that we must look
to Pintado’s amended complaint to determine whether we have subject-matter
jurisdiction.2 When Pintado amended his complaint and failed to include a Title
1
This issue has been addressed in an unpublished case. Riley v. Fairbanks Capital
Corp., 222 Fed. Appx. 897 (11th Cir. 2007) (unpublished).
2
Cases removed from state to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) are treated
differently. In those cases, the district court must look at the case at the time of removal to
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VII claim or any other federal claim, the basis for the district court’s subject-matter
jurisdiction ceased to exist, and the district court should have dismissed Pintado’s
state claims without prejudice. See Scarfo v. Ginsberg, 175 F.3d 957, 962 (11th
Cir. 1999) (noting that if a “district court determines that subject[-]matter
jurisdiction over a plaintiff’s federal claims does not exist, [the] court[] must
dismiss a plaintiff’s state law claims.”).
IV. CONCLUSION
Because we find that the district court did not have subject-matter
jurisdiction over Pintado’s state-law claims, we VACATE the summary judgment
order and REMAND the case to be dismissed without prejudice.
determine whether it has subject-matter jurisdiction. Later changes to the pleadings do not
impact the court’s exercise of supplemental jurisdiction. See Poore v. America-Amicable Life
Ins. Co. of Tex., 218 F.3d 1287 (11th Cir. 2000) (holding that the district court erred in not
determining whether the amount in controversy necessary to create diversity jurisdiction was
met at the time of removal); Behlen v. Merrill Lynch, Phoenix Inv. Partners, Ltd., 311 F.3d 1087
(11th Cir. 2002) (extending Poore and holding that the district court must determine whether a
federal question exists at the time of removal using the original complaint rather than after
removal under an amended complaint that dropped the federal claim). The Supreme Court noted
that “removal cases raise forum-manipulation concerns that simply do not exist when it is the
plaintiff who chooses a federal forum and then pleads away jurisdiction through amendment.”
Rockwell Int’l Corp., 549 U.S. at __ n.6, 127 S.Ct at 1409 n.6 (2007).
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