(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2004 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
No. 04–603. Argued April 18, 2005—Decided June 13, 2005
The Internal Revenue Service seized real property owned by petitioner
(hereinafter Grable) to satisfy a federal tax delinquency, and gave
Grable notice by certified mail before selling the property to respon-
dent (hereinafter Darue). Grable subsequently brought a quiet title
action in state court, claiming that Darue’s title was invalid because
26 U. S. C. §6335 required the IRS to give Grable notice of the sale by
personal service, not certified mail. Darue removed the case to Fed-
eral District Court as presenting a federal question because the title
claim depended on an interpretation of federal tax law. The District
Court declined to remand the case, finding that it posed a significant
federal-law question, and it granted Darue summary judgment on
the merits. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, and this Court granted cer-
tiorari on the jurisdictional question.
Held: The national interest in providing a federal forum for federal tax
litigation is sufficiently substantial to support the exercise of federal-
question jurisdiction over the disputed issue on removal. Pp. 3–11.
(a) Darue was entitled to remove the quiet title action if Grable
could have brought it in federal court originally, as a civil action
“arising under the . . . laws . . . of the United States,” 28 U. S. C.
§1331. Federal-question jurisdiction is usually invoked by plaintiffs
pleading a cause of action created by federal law, but this Court has
also long recognized that such jurisdiction will lie over some state-
law claims that implicate significant federal issues, see, e.g., Smith v.
Kansas City Title & Trust Co., 255 U. S. 180. Such federal jurisdiction
demands not only a contested federal issue, but a substantial one.
And the jurisdiction must be consistent with congressional judgment
about the sound division of labor between state and federal courts
2 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Syllabus
governing §1331’s application. These considerations have kept the
Court from adopting a single test for jurisdiction over federal issues
embedded in state-law claims between nondiverse parties. Instead,
the question is whether the state-law claim necessarily stated a fed-
eral issue, actually disputed and substantial, which a federal forum
may entertain without disturbing a congressionally approved balance
of federal and state judicial responsibilities. Pp. 3–6.
(b) This case warrants federal jurisdiction. Grable premised its su-
perior title claim on the IRS’s failure to give adequate notice, as de-
fined by federal law. Whether Grable received notice is an essential
element of its quiet title claim, and the federal statute’s meaning is
actually disputed. The meaning of a federal tax provision is an im-
portant federal-law issue that belongs in federal court. The Govern-
ment has a strong interest in promptly collecting delinquent taxes,
and the IRS’s ability to satisfy its claims from delinquents’ property
requires clear terms of notice to assure buyers like Darue that the
IRS has good title. Finally, because it will be the rare state title case
that raises a federal-law issue, federal jurisdiction to resolve genuine
disagreement over federal tax title provisions will portend only a mi-
croscopic effect on the federal-state division of labor. This conclusion
puts the Court in venerable company, quiet title actions having been
the subject of some of the earliest exercises of federal-question juris-
diction over state-law claims. E.g., Hopkins v. Walker, 244 U. S. 486,
490–491. Pp. 6–7.
(c) Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, is
not to the contrary. There, in finding federal jurisdiction unavailable
for a state tort claim resting in part on an allegation that the defen-
dant drug company had violated a federal branding law, the Court
noted that Congress had not provided a private federal cause of ac-
tion for such violations. Merrell Dow cannot be read to make a fed-
eral cause of action a necessary condition for federal-question juris-
diction. It disclaimed the adoption of any bright-line rule and
expressly approved the exercise of jurisdiction in Smith, where there
was no federal cause of action. Accordingly, Merrell Dow should be
read in its entirety as treating the absence of such cause as evidence
relevant to, but not dispositive of, the “sensitive judgments about
congressional intent,” required by §1331. Id., at 810. In Merrell
Dow, the principal significance of this absence was its bearing on the
consequences to the federal system. If the federal labeling standard
without a cause of action could get a state claim into federal court, so
could any other federal standards without causes of action. And that
would mean an enormous number of cases. A comparable analysis
yields a different jurisdictional conclusion here, because state quiet
title actions rarely involve contested federal-law issues. Pp. 7–11.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
Syllabus
377 F. 3d 592, affirmed.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. THOMAS, J.,
filed a concurring opinion.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–603
_________________
GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC.,
PETITIONER v. DARUE ENGINEERING
& MANUFACTURING
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[June 13, 2005]
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question is whether want of a federal cause of ac-
tion to try claims of title to land obtained at a federal tax
sale precludes removal to federal court of a state action
with non-diverse parties raising a disputed issue of federal
title law. We answer no, and hold that the national inter-
est in providing a federal forum for federal tax litigation is
sufficiently substantial to support the exercise of federal
question jurisdiction over the disputed issue on removal,
which would not distort any division of labor between
the state and federal courts, provided or assumed by
Congress.
I
In 1994, the Internal Revenue Service seized Michigan
real property belonging to petitioner Grable & Sons Metal
Products, Inc., to satisfy Grable’s federal tax delinquency.
Title 26 U. S. C. §6335 required the IRS to give notice of
the seizure, and there is no dispute that Grable received
actual notice by certified mail before the IRS sold the
property to respondent Darue Engineering & Manufactur-
2 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Opinion of the Court
ing. Although Grable also received notice of the sale itself,
it did not exercise its statutory right to redeem the prop-
erty within 180 days of the sale, §6337(b)(1), and after
that period had passed, the Government gave Darue a
quitclaim deed. §6339.
Five years later, Grable brought a quiet title action in
state court, claiming that Darue’s record title was invalid
because the IRS had failed to notify Grable of its seizure of
the property in the exact manner required by §6335(a),
which provides that written notice must be “given by the
Secretary to the owner of the property [or] left at his usual
place of abode or business.” Grable said that the statute
required personal service, not service by certified mail.
Darue removed the case to Federal District Court as
presenting a federal question, because the claim of title
depended on the interpretation of the notice statute in the
federal tax law. The District Court declined to remand the
case at Grable’s behest after finding that the “claim does
pose a significant question of federal law,” Tr. 17 (Apr. 2,
2001), and ruling that Grable’s lack of a federal right of
action to enforce its claim against Darue did not bar the
exercise of federal jurisdiction. On the merits, the court
granted summary judgment to Darue, holding that al-
though §6335 by its terms required personal service,
substantial compliance with the statute was enough. 207
F. Supp. 2d 694 (WD Mich. 2002).
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 377
F. 3d 592 (2004). On the jurisdictional question, the panel
thought it sufficed that the title claim raised an issue of
federal law that had to be resolved, and implicated a
substantial federal interest (in construing federal tax law).
The court went on to affirm the District Court’s judgment
on the merits. We granted certiorari on the jurisdictional
question alone,1 543 U. S. ___ (2005) to resolve a split
——————
1 Accordingly, we have no occasion to pass upon the proper interpre-
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
Opinion of the Court
within the Courts of Appeals on whether Merrell Dow
Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804 (1986),
always requires a federal cause of action as a condition for
exercising federal-question jurisdiction.2 We now affirm.
II
Darue was entitled to remove the quiet title action if
Grable could have brought it in federal district court
originally, 28 U. S. C. §1441(a), as a civil action “arising
under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United
States,” §1331. This provision for federal-question juris-
diction is invoked by and large by plaintiffs pleading a
cause of action created by federal law (e.g., claims under
42 U. S. C. §1983). There is, however, another longstand-
ing, if less frequently encountered, variety of federal “aris-
ing under” jurisdiction, this Court having recognized for
nearly 100 years that in certain cases federal question
jurisdiction will lie over state-law claims that implicate
significant federal issues. E.g., Hopkins v. Walker, 244
U. S. 486, 490–491 (1917). The doctrine captures the com-
monsense notion that a federal court ought to be able to
hear claims recognized under state law that nonetheless
turn on substantial questions of federal law, and thus
justify resort to the experience, solicitude, and hope of
uniformity that a federal forum offers on federal issues,
see ALI, Study of the Division of Jurisdiction Between
State and Federal Courts 164–166 (1968).
The classic example is Smith v. Kansas City Title &
Trust Co., 255 U. S. 180 (1921), a suit by a shareholder
claiming that the defendant corporation could not lawfully
——————
tation of the federal tax provision at issue here.
2 Compare Seinfeld v. Austen, 39 F. 3d 761, 764 (CA7 1994) (finding
that federal-question jurisdiction over a state-law claim requires a
parallel federal private right of action), with Ormet Corp. v. Ohio Power
Co., 98 F. 3d 799, 806 (CA4 1996) (finding that a federal private action
is not required).
4 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Opinion of the Court
buy certain bonds of the National Government because
their issuance was unconstitutional. Although Missouri
law provided the cause of action, the Court recognized
federal-question jurisdiction because the principal issue in
the case was the federal constitutionality of the bond
issue. Smith thus held, in a somewhat generous state-
ment of the scope of the doctrine, that a state-law claim
could give rise to federal-question jurisdiction so long as it
“appears from the [complaint] that the right to relief
depends upon the construction or application of [federal
law].” Id., at 199.
The Smith statement has been subject to some trimming
to fit earlier and later cases recognizing the vitality of the
basic doctrine, but shying away from the expansive view
that mere need to apply federal law in a state-law claim
will suffice to open the “arising under” door. As early as
1912, this Court had confined federal-question jurisdiction
over state-law claims to those that “really and substan-
tially involv[e] a dispute or controversy respecting the
validity, construction or effect of [federal] law.” Shulthis
v. McDougal, 225 U. S. 561, 569 (1912). This limitation
was the ancestor of Justice Cardozo’s later explanation
that a request to exercise federal-question jurisdiction
over a state action calls for a “common-sense accommoda-
tion of judgment to [the] kaleidoscopic situations” that
present a federal issue, in “a selective process which picks
the substantial causes out of the web and lays the other
ones aside.” Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian, 299
U. S. 109, 117–118 (1936). It has in fact become a con-
stant refrain in such cases that federal jurisdiction de-
mands not only a contested federal issue, but a substantial
one, indicating a serious federal interest in claiming the
advantages thought to be inherent in a federal forum.
E.g., Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522
U. S. 156, 164 (1997); Merrell Dow, supra, at 814, and
n. 12; Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5
Opinion of the Court
Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 28 (1983).
But even when the state action discloses a contested and
substantial federal question, the exercise of federal juris-
diction is subject to a possible veto. For the federal issue
will ultimately qualify for a federal forum only if federal
jurisdiction is consistent with congressional judgment
about the sound division of labor between state and fed-
eral courts governing the application of §1331. Thus,
Franchise Tax Bd. explained that the appropriateness of a
federal forum to hear an embedded issue could be evalu-
ated only after considering the “welter of issues regarding
the interrelation of federal and state authority and the
proper management of the federal judicial system.” Id., at
8. Because arising-under jurisdiction to hear a state-law
claim always raises the possibility of upsetting the state-
federal line drawn (or at least assumed) by Congress, the
presence of a disputed federal issue and the ostensible
importance of a federal forum are never necessarily dispo-
sitive; there must always be an assessment of any disrup-
tive portent in exercising federal jurisdiction. See also
Merrell Dow, supra, at 810.
These considerations have kept us from stating a “sin-
gle, precise, all-embracing” test for jurisdiction over fed-
eral issues embedded in state-law claims between non-
diverse parties. Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating
Corp., 486 U. S. 800, 821 (1988) (STEVENS, J., concurring).
We have not kept them out simply because they appeared
in state raiment, as Justice Holmes would have done, see
Smith, supra, at 214 (dissenting opinion), but neither have
we treated “federal issue” as a password opening federal
courts to any state action embracing a point of federal law.
Instead, the question is, does a state-law claim necessarily
raise a stated federal issue, actually disputed and sub-
stantial, which a federal forum may entertain without
disturbing any congressionally approved balance of federal
and state judicial responsibilities.
6 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Opinion of the Court
III
A
This case warrants federal jurisdiction. Grable’s state
complaint must specify “the facts establishing the superi-
ority of [its] claim,” Mich. Ct. Rule 3.411(B)(2)(c) (West
2005), and Grable has premised its superior title claim on
a failure by the IRS to give it adequate notice, as defined
by federal law. Whether Grable was given notice within
the meaning of the federal statute is thus an essential
element of its quiet title claim, and the meaning of the
federal statute is actually in dispute; it appears to be the
only legal or factual issue contested in the case. The
meaning of the federal tax provision is an important issue
of federal law that sensibly belongs in a federal court. The
Government has a strong interest in the “prompt and
certain collection of delinquent taxes,” United States v.
Rodgers, 461 U. S. 677, 709 (1983), and the ability of the
IRS to satisfy its claims from the property of delinquents
requires clear terms of notice to allow buyers like Darue to
satisfy themselves that the Service has touched the bases
necessary for good title. The Government thus has a direct
interest in the availability of a federal forum to vindicate its
own administrative action, and buyers (as well as tax delin-
quents) may find it valuable to come before judges used to
federal tax matters. Finally, because it will be the rare
state title case that raises a contested matter of federal
law, federal jurisdiction to resolve genuine disagreement
over federal tax title provisions will portend only a micro-
scopic effect on the federal-state division of labor. See n. 3,
infra.
This conclusion puts us in venerable company, quiet
title actions having been the subject of some of the earliest
exercises of federal-question jurisdiction over state-law
claims. In Hopkins, 244 U. S., 490–491, the question was
federal jurisdiction over a quiet title action based on the
plaintiffs’ allegation that federal mining law gave them
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7
Opinion of the Court
the superior claim. Just as in this case, “the facts showing
the plaintiffs’ title and the existence and invalidity of the
instrument or record sought to be eliminated as a cloud
upon the title are essential parts of the plaintiffs’ cause of
action.”3 Id., at 490. As in this case again, “it is plain that
a controversy respecting the construction and effect of the
[federal] laws is involved and is sufficiently real and sub-
stantial.” Id., at 489. This Court therefore upheld federal
jurisdiction in Hopkins, as well as in the similar quiet title
matters of Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188 U. S.
526, 528 (1903), and Wilson Cypress Co. v. Del Pozo y
Marcos, 236 U. S. 635, 643–644 (1915). Consistent with
those cases, the recognition of federal jurisdiction is in
order here.
B
Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478
U. S. 804 (1986), on which Grable rests its position, is not
to the contrary. Merrell Dow considered a state tort claim
resting in part on the allegation that the defendant drug
company had violated a federal misbranding prohibition,
and was thus presumptively negligent under Ohio law.
Id., at 806. The Court assumed that federal law would
have to be applied to resolve the claim, but after closely
——————
3 The quiet title cases also show the limiting effect of the requirement
that the federal issue in a state-law claim must actually be in dispute
to justify federal-question jurisdiction. In Shulthis v. McDougal, 225
U. S. 561 (1912), this Court found that there was no federal question
jurisdiction to hear a plaintiff’s quiet title claim in part because the
federal statutes on which title depended were not subject to “any contro-
versy respecting their validity, construction, or effect.” Id., at 570. As the
Court put it, the requirement of an actual dispute about federal law was
“especially” important in “suit[s] involving rights to land acquired under a
law of the United States,” because otherwise “every suit to establish title
to land in the central and western states would so arise [under federal
law], as all titles in those States are traceable back to those laws.” Id., at
569–570.
8 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Opinion of the Court
examining the strength of the federal interest at stake and
the implications of opening the federal forum, held federal
jurisdiction unavailable. Congress had not provided a
private federal cause of action for violation of the federal
branding requirement, and the Court found “it would . . .
flout, or at least undermine, congressional intent to con-
clude that federal courts might nevertheless exercise
federal-question jurisdiction and provide remedies for
violations of that federal statute solely because the viola-
tion . . . is said to be a . . . ‘proximate cause’ under state
law.” Id., at 812.
Because federal law provides for no quiet title action
that could be brought against Darue,4 Grable argues that
there can be no federal jurisdiction here, stressing some
broad language in Merrell Dow (including the passage just
quoted) that on its face supports Grable’s position, see
Note, Mr. Smith Goes to Federal Court: Federal Question
Jurisdiction over State Law Claims Post-Merrell Dow, 115
Harv. L. Rev. 2272, 2280–2282 (2002) (discussing split in
Circuit Courts over private right of action requirement
after Merrell Dow). But an opinion is to be read as a
whole, and Merrell Dow cannot be read whole as overturn-
ing decades of precedent, as it would have done by effec-
tively adopting the Holmes dissent in Smith, see supra, at
5, and converting a federal cause of action from a suffi-
cient condition for federal-question jurisdiction5 into a
necessary one.
In the first place, Merrell Dow disclaimed the adoption
of any bright-line rule, as when the Court reiterated that
——————
4 Federal law does provide a quiet title cause of action against the
Federal Government. 28 U. S. C. §2410. That right of action is not
relevant here, however, because the federal government no longer has
any interest in the property, having transferred its interest to Darue
through the quitclaim deed.
5 For an extremely rare exception to the sufficiency of a federal right
of action, see Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U. S. 505, 507 (1900).
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 9
Opinion of the Court
“in exploring the outer reaches of §1331, determinations
about federal jurisdiction require sensitive judgments
about congressional intent, judicial power, and the federal
system.” 478 U. S., at 810. The opinion included a
lengthy footnote explaining that questions of jurisdiction
over state-law claims require “careful judgments,” id., at
814, about the “nature of the federal interest at stake,” id.,
at 814, n. 12 (emphasis deleted). And as a final indication
that it did not mean to make a federal right of action
mandatory, it expressly approved the exercise of jurisdic-
tion sustained in Smith, despite the want of any federal
cause of action available to Smith’s shareholder plaintiff.
478 U. S., at 814, n. 12. Merrell Dow then, did not toss
out, but specifically retained the contextual enquiry that
had been Smith’s hallmark for over 60 years. At the end
of Merrell Dow, Justice Holmes was still dissenting.
Accordingly, Merrell Dow should be read in its entirety
as treating the absence of a federal private right of action
as evidence relevant to, but not dispositive of, the “sensi-
tive judgments about congressional intent” that §1331
requires. The absence of any federal cause of action af-
fected Merrell Dow’s result two ways. The Court saw the
fact as worth some consideration in the assessment of
substantiality. But its primary importance emerged when
the Court treated the combination of no federal cause of
action and no preemption of state remedies for misbrand-
ing as an important clue to Congress’s conception of the
scope of jurisdiction to be exercised under §1331. The
Court saw the missing cause of action not as a missing
federal door key, always required, but as a missing wel-
come mat, required in the circumstances, when exercising
federal jurisdiction over a state misbranding action would
have attracted a horde of original filings and removal
cases raising other state claims with embedded federal
issues. For if the federal labeling standard without a
federal cause of action could get a state claim into federal
10 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
Opinion of the Court
court, so could any other federal standard without a fed-
eral cause of action. And that would have meant a tre-
mendous number of cases.
One only needed to consider the treatment of federal
violations generally in garden variety state tort law. “The
violation of federal statutes and regulations is commonly
given negligence per se effect in state tort proceedings.”6
Restatement (Third) of Torts (proposed final draft) §14,
Comment a. See also W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, &
D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Torts, §36, p. 221, n. 9
(5th ed. 1984) (“[T]he breach of a federal statute may
support a negligence per se claim as a matter of state law”
(collecting authority)). A general rule of exercising federal
jurisdiction over state claims resting on federal mislabel-
ing and other statutory violations would thus have her-
alded a potentially enormous shift of traditionally state
cases into federal courts. Expressing concern over the
“increased volume of federal litigation,” and noting the
importance of adhering to “legislative intent,” Merrell Dow
thought it improbable that the Congress, having made no
provision for a federal cause of action, would have meant
to welcome any state-law tort case implicating federal law
“solely because the violation of the federal statute is said
to [create] a rebuttable presumption [of negligence] . . .
under state law.” 478 U. S., at 811–812 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). In this situation, no welcome mat
meant keep out. Merrell Dow’s analysis thus fits within
the framework of examining the importance of having a
federal forum for the issue, and the consistency of such a
forum with Congress’s intended division of labor between
state and federal courts.
——————
6 Other jurisdictions treat a violation of a federal statute as evidence
of negligence or, like Ohio itself in Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v.
Thompson, 478 U. S. 804 (1986), as creating a rebuttable presumption
of negligence. Restatement (Third) of Torts (proposed final draft) §14,
Comment c. Either approach could still implicate issues of federal law.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 11
Opinion of the Court
As already indicated, however, a comparable analysis
yields a different jurisdictional conclusion in this case.
Although Congress also indicated ambivalence in this case
by providing no private right of action to Grable, it is the
rare state quiet title action that involves contested issues
of federal law, see n. 3, supra. Consequently, jurisdiction
over actions like Grable’s would not materially affect, or
threaten to affect, the normal currents of litigation. Given
the absence of threatening structural consequences and
the clear interest the Government, its buyers, and its
delinquents have in the availability of a federal forum,
there is no good reason to shirk from federal jurisdiction
over the dispositive and contested federal issue at the
heart of the state-law title claim.7
IV
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, upholding federal
jurisdiction over Grable’s quiet title action, is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
——————
7 At oral argument Grable’s counsel espoused the position that after
Merrell Dow, federal-question jurisdiction over state-law claims absent
a federal right of action, could be recognized only where a constitutional
issue was at stake. There is, however, no reason in text or otherwise to
draw such a rough line. As Merrell Dow itself suggested, constitutional
questions may be the more likely ones to reach the level of substantial-
ity that can justify federal jurisdiction. 478 U. S., at 814, n. 12. But a
flat ban on statutory questions would mechanically exclude significant
questions of federal law like the one this case presents.
Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
THOMAS, J., concurring
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 04–603
_________________
GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC.,
PETITIONER v. DARUE ENGINEERING
& MANUFACTURING
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[June 13, 2005]
JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.
The Court faithfully applies our precedents interpreting
28 U. S. C. §1331 to authorize federal-court jurisdiction
over some cases in which state law creates the cause of
action but requires determination of an issue of federal
law, e.g., Smith v. Kansas City Title & Trust Co., 255 U. S.
180 (1921); Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson,
478 U. S. 804 (1986). In this case, no one has asked us to
overrule those precedents and adopt the rule Justice
Holmes set forth in American Well Works Co. v. Layne &
Bowler Co., 241 U. S. 257 (1916), limiting §1331 jurisdic-
tion to cases in which federal law creates the cause of
action pleaded on the face of the plaintiff’s complaint. Id.,
at 260. In an appropriate case, and perhaps with the bene-
fit of better evidence as to the original meaning of §1331’s
text, I would be willing to consider that course.*
——————
* This Court has long construed the scope of the statutory grant of
federal-question jurisdiction more narrowly than the scope of the
constitutional grant of such jurisdiction. See Merrell Dow Pharmaceuti-
cals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U. S. 804, 807–808 (1986). I assume for
present purposes that this distinction is proper—that is, that the
language of 28 U. S. C. §1331, “[t]he district courts shall have original
jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or
treaties of the United States” (emphasis added), is narrower than the
2 GRABLE & SONS METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. DARUE
ENGINEERING & MFG.
THOMAS, J., concurring
Jurisdictional rules should be clear. Whatever the
virtues of the Smith standard, it is anything but clear.
Ante, at 4 (the standard “calls for a ‘common-sense ac-
commodation of judgment to [the] kaleidoscopic situations’
that present a federal issue, in ‘a selective process which
picks the substantial causes out of the web and lays the
other ones aside’ ” (quoting Gully v. First Nat. Bank in
Meridian, 299 U. S. 109, 117–118 (1936))); ante, at 5
(“[T]he question is, does a state-law claim necessarily raise
a stated federal issue, actually disputed and substantial,
which a federal forum may entertain without disturbing
any congressionally approved balance of federal and state
judicial responsibilities”); ante, at 9 (“ ‘[D]eterminations
about federal jurisdiction require sensitive judgments
about congressional intent, judicial power, and the federal
system’ ”; “the absence of a federal private right of action
[is] evidence relevant to, but not dispositive of, the ‘sensi-
tive judgments about congressional intent’ that §1331
requires” (quoting Merrell Dow, supra, at 810)).
Whatever the vices of the American Well Works rule, it
is clear. Moreover, it accounts for the “ ‘vast majority’ ” of
cases that come within §1331 under our current case law,
Merrell Dow, supra, at 808 (quoting Franchise Tax Bd. of
Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern
Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 9 (1983))—further indication that trying
to sort out which cases fall within the smaller Smith
category may not be worth the effort it entails. See R.
Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The
Federal Courts and the Federal System 885–886 (5th ed.
2003). Accordingly, I would be willing in appropriate
circumstances to reconsider our interpretation of §1331.
——————
language of Art. III, §2, cl. 1, of the Constitution, “[t]he judicial Power
shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Consti-
tution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which
shall be made, under their Authority . . . ” (emphases added).