Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc.

(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

EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES,
INC., ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 04–70. Argued March 1, 2005—Decided June 23, 2005*
In No. 04–70, Exxon dealers filed a class action against Exxon Corpora-
tion, invoking the Federal District Court’s 28 U. S. C. §1332(a) diver-
sity jurisdiction. After the dealers won a jury verdict, the court certi-
fied the case for interlocutory review on the question whether it had
properly exercised §1367 supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of
class members who had not met §1332(a)’s minimum amount-in-
controversy requirement. The Eleventh Circuit upheld this extension
of supplemental jurisdiction. In No. 04–79, a girl and her family
sought damages from Star-Kist Foods, Inc., in a diversity action. The
District Court granted Star-Kist summary judgment, finding that
none of the plaintiffs had met the amount-in-controversy require-
ment. The First Circuit ruled that the girl, but not her family, had
alleged the requisite amount, and then held that supplemental juris-
diction over the family’s claims was improper because original juris-
diction is lacking in a diversity case if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the
amount-in-controversy requirement.
Held: Where the other elements of jurisdiction are present and at least
one named plaintiff in the action satisfies §1332(a)’s amount-in-
controversy requirement, §1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction
over the claims of other plaintiffs in the same Article III case or con-
troversy, even if those claims are for less than the requisite amount.
Pp. 4–25.

——————
* Together with No. 04–79, del Rosario Ortega et al. v. Star-Kist
Foods, Inc., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit.
2 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Syllabus

(a) Although district courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a
statutory basis, once a court has original jurisdiction over some
claims in an action, it may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
additional claims arising from the same case or controversy. See
Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715. This expansive interpretation
does not apply to §1332’s complete diversity requirement, for incom-
plete diversity destroys original jurisdiction with respect to all
claims, leaving nothing to which supplemental claims can adhere.
But other statutory prerequisites, including the federal-question and
amount-in-controversy requirements, can be analyzed claim by claim.
Before §1367 was enacted, every plaintiff had to separately satisfy
the amount-in-controversy requirement, Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306
U. S. 583; Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291, and the
grant of original jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties
did not itself confer supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims
involving other parties, Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545, 556.
Pp. 4–9.
(b) All parties here agree that §1367 overturned Finley, but there is
no warrant for assuming that is all it did. To determine §1367’s
scope requires examination of the statute’s text in light of context,
structure, and related statutory provisions. Section 1367(a) is a
broad grant of supplemental jurisdiction over other claims within the
same case or controversy, as long as the action is one in which dis-
trict courts would have original jurisdiction. Its last sentence makes
clear that this grant extends to claims involving joinder or interven-
tion of additional parties. The question here is whether a diversity
case in which the claims of some, but not all, plaintiffs satisfy the
amount-in-controversy requirement qualifies as a “civil action of
which the district courts have original jurisdiction,” §1367(a). Pp. 9–
11.
(c) The answer must be yes. When a well-pleaded complaint has at
least one claim satisfying the amount-in-controversy requirement,
and there are no other relevant jurisdictional defects, the district
court, beyond all question, has original jurisdiction over that claim.
A court with original jurisdiction over a single claim in the complaint
has original jurisdiction over a “civil action” under §1367(a), even if
that action comprises fewer claims than were included in the com-
plaint. Once a court has original jurisdiction over the action, it can
then decide whether it has a constitutional and statutory basis for
exercising supplemental jurisdiction over other claims in the action.
Section 1367(b), which contains exceptions to §1367(a)’s broad rule,
does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of the
additional parties here. In fact, its exceptions support this Court’s
conclusion. Pp. 11–13.
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Syllabus

(d) The Court cannot accept the alternative view, or its supporting
theories, that a district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil
action unless it has original jurisdiction over every claim in the com-
plaint. The “indivisibility theory”—that all claims must stand or fall
as a single, indivisible action—is inconsistent with the whole notion
of supplemental jurisdiction and is belied by this Court’s practice of
allowing federal courts to cure jurisdictional defects by dismissing the
offending parties instead of the entire action. And the statute’s broad
and general language does not permit the theory to apply in diversity
cases when it does not apply in federal-question cases. The “con-
tamination theory”—that inclusion of a claim or party falling outside
the district court’s original jurisdiction contaminates every other
claim in the complaint—makes sense with respect to the complete di-
versity requirement because a nondiverse party’s presence eliminates
the justification for a federal forum. But it makes little sense with
regard to the amount-in-controversy requirement, which is meant to
ensure that a dispute is sufficiently important to warrant federal-
court attention. It is fallacious to suppose, simply from the proposi-
tion that §1332 imposes both requirements, that the contamination
theory germane to the former also applies to the latter. This Court
has already considered and rejected a virtually identical argument in
the closely analogous removal-jurisdiction context. See Chicago v. In-
ternational College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156. Pp. 13–19.
(e) In light of the statute’s text and structure, §1367’s only plausi-
ble reading is that a court has original jurisdiction over a civil action
comprising the claims for which there is no jurisdictional defect.
Though a single nondiverse party can contaminate every other claim
in a lawsuit, contamination does not occur with respect to jurisdic-
tional defects going only to the substantive importance of individual
claims. Thus, §1367(a)’s threshold requirement is satisfied in cases,
such as these, where some but not all of the plaintiffs in a diversity
action allege a sufficient amount in controversy. Section 1367 by its
plain text overruled Clark and Zahn and authorized supplemental
jurisdiction over all claims by diverse parties arising out of the same
case or controversy, subject only to enumerated exceptions not appli-
cable here. P. 19.
(f) Because §1367 is not ambiguous, this Court need not examine
other interpretative tools, including legislative history. Even were it
appropriate to do so, the Court would not give the legislative history
significant weight. Pp. 19–24.
(g) The Class Action Fairness Act has no impact on the analysis of
these cases. Pp. 24–25.

No. 04–70, 333 F. 3d 1248, affirmed; and No. 04–79, 370 F. 3d 124, re-
4 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Syllabus

versed and remanded.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST,
C. J., and SCALIA, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which BREYER, J., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, O’CONNOR, and BREYER, JJ.,
joined.
 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
_________________

Nos. 04–70 and 04–79
_________________

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER
04–70 v.
ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

MARIA DEL ROSARIO ORTEGA, ET AL., PETITIONERS
04–79 v.
STAR-KIST FOODS, INC.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2005]

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases present the question whether a
federal court in a diversity action may exercise supple-
mental jurisdiction over additional plaintiffs whose claims
do not satisfy the minimum amount-in-controversy re-
quirement, provided the claims are part of the same case
or controversy as the claims of plaintiffs who do allege a
sufficient amount in controversy. Our decision turns on
the correct interpretation of 28 U. S. C. §1367. The ques-
tion has divided the Courts of Appeals, and we granted
certiorari to resolve the conflict. 543 U. S. ___ (2004).
We hold that, where the other elements of jurisdiction
are present and at least one named plaintiff in the action
satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, §1367
does authorize supplemental jurisdiction over the claims
2 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

of other plaintiffs in the same Article III case or contro-
versy, even if those claims are for less than the jurisdic-
tional amount specified in the statute setting forth the
requirements for diversity jurisdiction. We affirm the
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
in No. 04–70, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit in No. 04–79.
I
In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon dealers filed a class-action
suit against the Exxon Corporation in the United States
District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The
dealers alleged an intentional and systematic scheme by
Exxon under which they were overcharged for fuel pur-
chased from Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District
Court’s §1332(a) diversity jurisdiction. After a unanimous
jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the District Court
certified the case for interlocutory review, asking whether
it had properly exercised §1367 supplemental jurisdiction
over the claims of class members who did not meet the
jurisdictional minimum amount in controversy.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld
the District Court’s extension of supplemental jurisdiction
to these class members. Allapattah Services, Inc. v. Exxon
Corp., 333 F. 3d 1248 (2003). “[W]e find,” the court held,
“that §1367 clearly and unambiguously provides district
courts with the authority in diversity class actions to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class
members who do not meet the minimum amount in con-
troversy as long as the district court has original jurisdic-
tion over the claims of at least one of the class representa-
tives.” Id., at 1256. This decision accords with the views
of the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Sev-
enth Circuits. See Rosmer v. Pfizer, Inc., 263 F. 3d 110
(CA4 2001); Olden v. LaFarge Corp., 383 F. 3d 495 (CA6
2004); Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical,
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3

Opinion of the Court

Inc., 77 F. 3d 928 (CA7 1996); In re Brand Name Prescrip-
tion Drugs Antitrust Litigation, 123 F. 3d 599 (CA7 1997).
The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits,
adopting a similar analysis of the statute, have held that
in a diversity class action the unnamed class members
need not meet the amount-in-controversy requirement,
provided the named class members do. These decisions,
however, are unclear on whether all the named plaintiffs
must satisfy this requirement. In re Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d
524 (CA5 1995); Gibson v. Chrysler Corp., 261 F. 3d 927
(CA9 2001).
In the other case now before us the Court of Appeals for
the First Circuit took a different position on the meaning
of §1367(a). 370 F. 3d 124 (2004). In that case, a 9-year-
old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United
States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, seek-
ing damages for unusually severe injuries she received
when she sliced her finger on a tuna can. Her family
joined in the suit, seeking damages for emotional distress
and certain medical expenses. The District Court granted
summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that none of the
plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-controversy re-
quirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit,
however, ruled that the injured girl, but not her family
members, had made allegations of damages in the requi-
site amount.
The Court of Appeals then addressed whether, in light
of the fact that one plaintiff met the requirements for
original jurisdiction, supplemental jurisdiction over the
remaining plaintiffs’ claims was proper under §1367. The
court held that §1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction
only when the district court has original jurisdiction over
the action, and that in a diversity case original jurisdiction
is lacking if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the amount-in-
controversy requirement. Although the Court of Appeals
claimed to “express no view” on whether the result would
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Opinion of the Court

be the same in a class action, id., at 143, n. 19, its analysis
is inconsistent with that of the Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals for the First
Circuit’s view of §1367 is, however, shared by the Courts
of Appeal for the Third, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, and
the latter two Courts of Appeals have expressly applied
this rule to class actions. See Meritcare, Inc. v. St. Paul
Mercury Ins. Co., 166 F. 3d 214 (CA3 1999); Trimble v.
Asarco, Inc., 232 F. 3d 946 (CA8 2000); Leonhardt v. West-
ern Sugar Co., 160 F. 3d 631 (CA10 1998).
II
A
The district courts of the United States, as we have said
many times, are “courts of limited jurisdiction. They
possess only that power authorized by Constitution and
statute,” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America,
511 U. S. 375, 377 (1994). In order to provide a federal
forum for plaintiffs who seek to vindicate federal rights,
Congress has conferred on the district courts original
jurisdiction in federal-question cases—civil actions that
arise under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the
United States. 28 U. S. C. §1331. In order to provide a
neutral forum for what have come to be known as diver-
sity cases, Congress also has granted district courts origi-
nal jurisdiction in civil actions between citizens of differ-
ent States, between U. S. citizens and foreign citizens, or
by foreign states against U. S. citizens. §1332. To ensure
that diversity jurisdiction does not flood the federal courts
with minor disputes, §1332(a) requires that the matter in
controversy in a diversity case exceed a specified amount,
currently $75,000. §1332(a).
Although the district courts may not exercise jurisdic-
tion absent a statutory basis, it is well established—in
certain classes of cases—that, once a court has original
jurisdiction over some claims in the action, it may exercise
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5

Opinion of the Court

supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims that are
part of the same case or controversy. The leading modern
case for this principle is Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S.
715 (1966). In Gibbs, the plaintiff alleged the defendant’s
conduct violated both federal and state law. The District
Court, Gibbs held, had original jurisdiction over the action
based on the federal claims. Gibbs confirmed that the
District Court had the additional power (though not the
obligation) to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
related state claims that arose from the same Article III
case or controversy. Id., at 725 (“The federal claim must
have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdic-
tion on the court. . . . [A]ssuming substantiality of the
federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the
whole”).
As we later noted, the decision allowing jurisdiction over
pendent state claims in Gibbs did not mention, let alone
come to grips with, the text of the jurisdictional statutes
and the bedrock principle that federal courts have no
jurisdiction without statutory authorization. Finley v.
United States, 490 U. S. 545, 548 (1989). In Finley, we
nonetheless reaffirmed and rationalized Gibbs and its
progeny by inferring from it the interpretive principle
that, in cases involving supplemental jurisdiction over
additional claims between parties properly in federal
court, the jurisdictional statutes should be read broadly,
on the assumption that in this context Congress intended
to authorize courts to exercise their full Article III power
to dispose of an “ ‘entire action before the court [which]
comprises but one constitutional “case.”’ ” 490 U. S., at
549 (quoting Gibbs, supra, at 725).
We have not, however, applied Gibbs’ expansive inter-
pretive approach to other aspects of the jurisdictional
statutes. For instance, we have consistently interpreted
§1332 as requiring complete diversity: In a case with
multiple plaintiffs and multiple defendants, the presence
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Opinion of the Court

in the action of a single plaintiff from the same State as a
single defendant deprives the district court of original
diversity jurisdiction over the entire action. Strawbridge
v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); Owen Equipment & Erec-
tion Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 375 (1978). The complete
diversity requirement is not mandated by the Constitu-
tion, State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S.
523, 530–531 (1967), or by the plain text of §1332(a). The
Court, nonetheless, has adhered to the complete diversity
rule in light of the purpose of the diversity requirement,
which is to provide a federal forum for important disputes
where state courts might favor, or be perceived as favor-
ing, home-state litigants. The presence of parties from the
same State on both sides of a case dispels this concern,
eliminating a principal reason for conferring §1332 juris-
diction over any of the claims in the action. See Wisconsin
Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 389 (1998);
Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 829
(1989). The specific purpose of the complete diversity rule
explains both why we have not adopted Gibbs’ expansive
interpretive approach to this aspect of the jurisdictional
statute and why Gibbs does not undermine the complete
diversity rule. In order for a federal court to invoke sup-
plemental jurisdiction under Gibbs, it must first have
original jurisdiction over at least one claim in the action.
Incomplete diversity destroys original jurisdiction with
respect to all claims, so there is nothing to which supple-
mental jurisdiction can adhere.
In contrast to the diversity requirement, most of the
other statutory prerequisites for federal jurisdiction,
including the federal-question and amount-in-controversy
requirements, can be analyzed claim by claim. True, it
does not follow by necessity from this that a district court
has authority to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
all claims provided there is original jurisdiction over just
one. Before the enactment of §1367, the Court declined in
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7

Opinion of the Court

contexts other than the pendent-claim instance to follow
Gibbs’ expansive approach to interpretation of the juris-
dictional statutes. The Court took a more restrictive view
of the proper interpretation of these statutes in so-called
pendent-party cases involving supplemental jurisdiction
over claims involving additional parties—plaintiffs or
defendants—where the district courts would lack original
jurisdiction over claims by each of the parties standing
alone.
Thus, with respect to plaintiff-specific jurisdictional
requirements, the Court held in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc.,
306 U. S. 583 (1939), that every plaintiff must separately
satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Though
Clark was a federal-question case, at that time federal-
question jurisdiction had an amount-in-controversy re-
quirement analogous to the amount-in-controversy re-
quirement for diversity cases. “Proper practice,” Clark
held, “requires that where each of several plaintiffs is
bound to establish the jurisdictional amount with respect
to his own claim, the suit should be dismissed as to those
who fail to show that the requisite amount is involved.”
Id., at 590. The Court reaffirmed this rule, in the context
of a class action brought invoking §1332(a) diversity juris-
diction, in Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291
(1973). It follows “inescapably” from Clark, the Court held
in Zahn, that “any plaintiff without the jurisdictional
amount must be dismissed from the case, even though
others allege jurisdictionally sufficient claims.” 414 U. S.,
at 300.
The Court took a similar approach with respect to sup-
plemental jurisdiction over claims against additional
defendants that fall outside the district courts’ original
jurisdiction. In Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976),
the plaintiff brought a 42 U. S. C. §1983 action against
county officials in district court pursuant to the statutory
grant of jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. §1343(3) (1976 ed.).
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Opinion of the Court

The plaintiff further alleged the court had supplemental
jurisdiction over her related state-law claims against the
county, even though the county was not suable under
§1983 and so was not subject to §1343(3)’s original juris-
diction. The Court held that supplemental jurisdiction
could not be exercised because Congress, in enacting
§1343(3), had declined (albeit implicitly) to extend federal
jurisdiction over any party who could not be sued under
the federal civil rights statutes. 427 U. S., at 16–19.
“Before it can be concluded that [supplemental] jurisdic-
tion [over additional parties] exists,” Aldinger held, “a
federal court must satisfy itself not only that Art[icle] III
permits it, but that Congress in the statutes conferring
jurisdiction has not expressly or by implication negated its
existence.” Id., at 18.
In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989), we
confronted a similar issue in a different statutory context.
The plaintiff in Finley brought a Federal Tort Claims Act
negligence suit against the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion in District Court, which had original jurisdiction
under §1346(b). The plaintiff tried to add related claims
against other defendants, invoking the District Court’s
supplemental jurisdiction over so-called pendent parties.
We held that the District Court lacked a sufficient statu-
tory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over
these claims. Relying primarily on Zahn, Aldinger, and
Kroger, we held in Finley that “a grant of jurisdiction over
claims involving particular parties does not itself confer
jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different
parties.” 490 U. S., at 556. While Finley did not “limit or
impair” Gibbs’ liberal approach to interpreting the juris-
dictional statutes in the context of supplemental jurisdic-
tion over additional claims involving the same parties, 490
U. S., at 556, Finley nevertheless declined to extend that
interpretive assumption to claims involving additional
parties. Finley held that in the context of parties, in con-
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Opinion of the Court

trast to claims, “we will not assume that the full constitu-
tional power has been congressionally authorized, and will
not read jurisdictional statutes broadly.” Id., at 549.
As the jurisdictional statutes existed in 1989, then, here
is how matters stood: First, the diversity requirement in
§1332(a) required complete diversity; absent complete
diversity, the district court lacked original jurisdiction
over all of the claims in the action. Strawbridge, 3
Cranch, at 267–268; Kroger, 437 U. S., at 373–374. Sec-
ond, if the district court had original jurisdiction over at
least one claim, the jurisdictional statutes implicitly au-
thorized supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims
between the same parties arising out of the same Article
III case or controversy. Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Third,
even when the district court had original jurisdiction over
one or more claims between particular parties, the juris-
dictional statutes did not authorize supplemental jurisdic-
tion over additional claims involving other parties. Clark,
supra, at 590; Zahn, supra, at 300–301; Finley, supra, at
556.
B
In Finley we emphasized that “[w]hatever we say re-
garding the scope of jurisdiction conferred by a particular
statute can of course be changed by Congress.” 490 U. S.,
at 556. In 1990, Congress accepted the invitation. It
passed the Judicial Improvements Act, 104 Stat. 5089,
which enacted §1367, the provision which controls these
cases.
Section 1367 provides, in relevant part:
“(a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as
expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in
any civil action of which the district courts have origi-
nal jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supple-
mental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so
related to claims in the action within such original ju-
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Opinion of the Court

risdiction that they form part of the same case or con-
troversy under Article III of the United States Consti-
tution. Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include
claims that involve the joinder or intervention of addi-
tional parties.
“(b) In any civil action of which the district courts
have original jurisdiction founded solely on section
1332 of this title, the district courts shall not have
supplemental jurisdiction under subsection (a) over
claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties un-
der Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be
joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or
seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24 of
such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction
over such claims would be inconsistent with the juris-
dictional requirements of section 1332.”
All parties to this litigation and all courts to consider
the question agree that §1367 overturned the result in
Finley. There is no warrant, however, for assuming that
§1367 did no more than to overrule Finley and otherwise
to codify the existing state of the law of supplemental
jurisdiction. We must not give jurisdictional statutes a
more expansive interpretation than their text warrants,
490 U. S., at 549, 556; but it is just as important not to
adopt an artificial construction that is narrower than what
the text provides. No sound canon of interpretation re-
quires Congress to speak with extraordinary clarity in
order to modify the rules of federal jurisdiction within
appropriate constitutional bounds. Ordinary principles of
statutory construction apply. In order to determine the
scope of supplemental jurisdiction authorized by §1367,
then, we must examine the statute’s text in light of con-
text, structure, and related statutory provisions.
Section 1367(a) is a broad grant of supplemental juris-
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Opinion of the Court

diction over other claims within the same case or contro-
versy, as long as the action is one in which the district
courts would have original jurisdiction. The last sentence
of §1367(a) makes it clear that the grant of supplemental
jurisdiction extends to claims involving joinder or inter-
vention of additional parties. The single question before
us, therefore, is whether a diversity case in which the
claims of some plaintiffs satisfy the amount-in-controversy
requirement, but the claims of others plaintiffs do not,
presents a “civil action of which the district courts have
original jurisdiction.” If the answer is yes, §1367(a) con-
fers supplemental jurisdiction over all claims, including
those that do not independently satisfy the amount-in-
controversy requirement, if the claims are part of the
same Article III case or controversy. If the answer is no,
§1367(a) is inapplicable and, in light of our holdings in
Clark and Zahn, the district court has no statutory basis
for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the addi-
tional claims.
We now conclude the answer must be yes. When the
well-pleaded complaint contains at least one claim that
satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, and
there are no other relevant jurisdictional defects, the
district court, beyond all question, has original jurisdiction
over that claim. The presence of other claims in the com-
plaint, over which the district court may lack original
jurisdiction, is of no moment. If the court has original
jurisdiction over a single claim in the complaint, it has
original jurisdiction over a “civil action” within the mean-
ing of §1367(a), even if the civil action over which it has
jurisdiction comprises fewer claims than were included in
the complaint. Once the court determines it has original
jurisdiction over the civil action, it can turn to the ques-
tion whether it has a constitutional and statutory basis for
exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the other claims
in the action.
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Section 1367(a) commences with the direction that
§§1367(b) and (c), or other relevant statutes, may provide
specific exceptions, but otherwise §1367(a) is a broad
jurisdictional grant, with no distinction drawn between
pendent-claim and pendent-party cases. In fact, the last
sentence of §1367(a) makes clear that the provision grants
supplemental jurisdiction over claims involving joinder or
intervention of additional parties. The terms of §1367 do
not acknowledge any distinction between pendent jurisdic-
tion and the doctrine of so-called ancillary jurisdiction.
Though the doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction
developed separately as a historical matter, the Court has
recognized that the doctrines are “two species of the same
generic problem,” Kroger, 437 U. S., at 370. Nothing in
§1367 indicates a congressional intent to recognize, pre-
serve, or create some meaningful, substantive distinction
between the jurisdictional categories we have historically
labeled pendent and ancillary.
If §1367(a) were the sum total of the relevant statutory
language, our holding would rest on that language alone.
The statute, of course, instructs us to examine §1367(b) to
determine if any of its exceptions apply, so we proceed to
that section. While §1367(b) qualifies the broad rule of
§1367(a), it does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction
over the claims of the additional parties at issue here. The
specific exceptions to §1367(a) contained in §1367(b),
moreover, provide additional support for our conclusion
that §1367(a) confers supplemental jurisdiction over these
claims. Section 1367(b), which applies only to diversity
cases, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the claims
of plaintiffs proposed to be joined as indispensable parties
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, or who seek to
intervene pursuant to Rule 24. Nothing in the text of
§1367(b), however, withholds supplemental jurisdiction
over the claims of plaintiffs permissively joined under
Rule 20 (like the additional plaintiffs in No. 04–79) or
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13

Opinion of the Court

certified as class-action members pursuant to Rule 23 (like
the additional plaintiffs in No. 04–70). The natural, in-
deed the necessary, inference is that §1367 confers sup-
plemental jurisdiction over claims by Rule 20 and Rule 23
plaintiffs. This inference, at least with respect to Rule 20
plaintiffs, is strengthened by the fact that §1367(b) explic-
itly excludes supplemental jurisdiction over claims against
defendants joined under Rule 20.
We cannot accept the view, urged by some of the parties,
commentators, and Courts of Appeals, that a district court
lacks original jurisdiction over a civil action unless the
court has original jurisdiction over every claim in the
complaint. As we understand this position, it requires
assuming either that all claims in the complaint must
stand or fall as a single, indivisible “civil action” as a
matter of definitional necessity—what we will refer to as
the “indivisibility theory”—or else that the inclusion of a
claim or party falling outside the district court’s original
jurisdiction somehow contaminates every other claim in
the complaint, depriving the court of original jurisdiction
over any of these claims—what we will refer to as the
“contamination theory.”
The indivisibility theory is easily dismissed, as it is
inconsistent with the whole notion of supplemental juris-
diction. If a district court must have original jurisdiction
over every claim in the complaint in order to have “origi-
nal jurisdiction” over a “civil action,” then in Gibbs there
was no civil action of which the district court could assume
original jurisdiction under §1331, and so no basis for
exercising supplemental jurisdiction over any of the
claims. The indivisibility theory is further belied by our
practice—in both federal-question and diversity cases—of
allowing federal courts to cure jurisdictional defects by
dismissing the offending parties rather than dismissing
the entire action. Clark, for example, makes clear that
claims that are jurisdictionally defective as to amount in
14 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

controversy do not destroy original jurisdiction over other
claims. 306 U. S., at 590 (dismissing parties who failed to
meet the amount-in-controversy requirement but retain-
ing jurisdiction over the remaining party). If the presence
of jurisdictionally problematic claims in the complaint
meant the district court was without original jurisdiction
over the single, indivisible civil action before it, then the
district court would have to dismiss the whole action
rather than particular parties.
We also find it unconvincing to say that the definitional
indivisibility theory applies in the context of diversity
cases but not in the context of federal-question cases. The
broad and general language of the statute does not permit
this result. The contention is premised on the notion that
the phrase “original jurisdiction of all civil actions” means
different things in §1331 and §1332. It is implausible,
however, to say that the identical phrase means one thing
(original jurisdiction in all actions where at least one claim
in the complaint meets the following requirements) in
§1331 and something else (original jurisdiction in all
actions where every claim in the complaint meets the
following requirements) in §1332.
The contamination theory, as we have noted, can make
some sense in the special context of the complete diversity
requirement because the presence of nondiverse parties on
both sides of a lawsuit eliminates the justification for
providing a federal forum. The theory, however, makes
little sense with respect to the amount-in-controversy
requirement, which is meant to ensure that a dispute is
sufficiently important to warrant federal-court attention.
The presence of a single nondiverse party may eliminate
the fear of bias with respect to all claims, but the presence
of a claim that falls short of the minimum amount in
controversy does nothing to reduce the importance of the
claims that do meet this requirement.
It is fallacious to suppose, simply from the proposition
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 15

Opinion of the Court

that §1332 imposes both the diversity requirement and the
amount-in-controversy requirement, that the contamina-
tion theory germane to the former is also relevant to the
latter. There is no inherent logical connection between the
amount-in-controversy requirement and §1332 diversity
jurisdiction. After all, federal-question jurisdiction once
had an amount-in-controversy requirement as well. If
such a requirement were revived under §1331, it is clear
beyond peradventure that §1367(a) provides supplemental
jurisdiction over federal-question cases where some, but
not all, of the federal-law claims involve a sufficient
amount in controversy. In other words, §1367(a) unambi-
guously overrules the holding and the result in Clark. If
that is so, however, it would be quite extraordinary to say
that §1367 did not also overrule Zahn, a case that was
premised in substantial part on the holding in Clark.
In addition to the theoretical difficulties with the argu-
ment that a district court has original jurisdiction over a
civil action only if it has original jurisdiction over each
individual claim in the complaint, we have already consid-
ered and rejected a virtually identical argument in the
closely analogous context of removal jurisdiction. In Chi-
cago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156
(1997), the plaintiff brought federal- and state-law claims
in state court. The defendant removed to federal court.
The plaintiff objected to removal, citing the text of the
removal statute, §1441(a). That statutory provision,
which bears a striking similarity to the relevant portion of
§1367, authorizes removal of “any civil action . . . of which
the district courts of the United States have original juris-
diction . . . .” The College of Surgeons plaintiff urged that,
because its state-law claims were not within the District
Court’s original jurisdiction, §1441(a) did not authorize
removal. We disagreed. The federal law claims, we held,
“suffice to make the actions ‘civil actions’ within the ‘origi-
nal jurisdiction’ of the district courts . . . . Nothing in the
16 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence of re-
lated state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the
plaintiff’s] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims,
were ‘civil actions’ within the federal courts’ ‘original
jurisdiction.’ ” Id., at 166. Once the case was removed, the
District Court had original jurisdiction over the federal
law claims and supplemental jurisdiction under §1367(a)
over the state-law claims. Id., at 165.
The dissent in College of Surgeons argued that because
the plaintiff sought on-the-record review of a local admin-
istrative agency decision, the review it sought was outside
the scope of the District Court’s jurisdiction. Id., at 177
(opinion of GINSBURG, J.). We rejected both the suggestion
that state-law claims involving administrative appeals are
beyond the scope of §1367 supplemental jurisdiction, id.,
at 168–172 (opinion of the Court), and the claim that the
administrative review posture of the case deprived the
District Court of original jurisdiction over the federal-law
claims in the case, id., at 163–168. More importantly for
present purposes, College of Surgeons stressed that a
district court has original jurisdiction of a civil action for
purposes of §1441(a) as long as it has original jurisdiction
over a subset of the claims constituting the action. Even
the College of Surgeons dissent, which took issue with the
Court’s interpretation of §1367, did not appear to contest
this view of §1441(a).
Although College of Surgeons involved additional claims
between the same parties, its interpretation of §1441(a)
applies equally to cases involving additional parties whose
claims fall short of the jurisdictional amount. If we were
to adopt the contrary view that the presence of additional
parties means there is no “civil action . . . of which the
district courts . . . have original jurisdiction,” those cases
simply would not be removable. To our knowledge, no
court has issued a reasoned opinion adopting this view of
the removal statute. It is settled, of course, that absent
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 17

Opinion of the Court

complete diversity a case is not removable because the
district court would lack original jurisdiction. Caterpillar
Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 73 (1996). This, however, is
altogether consistent with our view of §1441(a). A failure
of complete diversity, unlike the failure of some claims to
meet the requisite amount in controversy, contaminates
every claim in the action.
We also reject the argument, similar to the attempted
distinction of College of Surgeons discussed above, that
while the presence of additional claims over which the
district court lacks jurisdiction does not mean the civil
action is outside the purview of §1367(a), the presence of
additional parties does. The basis for this distinction is
not altogether clear, and it is in considerable tension with
statutory text. Section 1367(a) applies by its terms to any
civil action of which the district courts have original juris-
diction, and the last sentence of §1367(a) expressly con-
templates that the court may have supplemental jurisdic-
tion over additional parties. So it cannot be the case that
the presence of those parties destroys the court’s original
jurisdiction, within the meaning of §1367(a), over a civil
action otherwise properly before it. Also, §1367(b) ex-
pressly withholds supplemental jurisdiction in diversity
cases over claims by plaintiffs joined as indispensable
parties under Rule 19. If joinder of such parties were
sufficient to deprive the district court of original jurisdic-
tion over the civil action within the meaning of §1367(a),
this specific limitation on supplemental jurisdiction in
§1367(b) would be superfluous. The argument that the
presence of additional parties removes the civil action
from the scope of §1367(a) also would mean that §1367 left
the Finley result undisturbed. Finley, after all, involved a
Federal Tort Claims Act suit against a federal defendant
and state-law claims against additional defendants not
otherwise subject to federal jurisdiction. Yet all concede
that one purpose of §1367 was to change the result
18 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

reached in Finley.
Finally, it is suggested that our interpretation of
§1367(a) creates an anomaly regarding the exceptions
listed in §1367(b): It is not immediately obvious why Con-
gress would withhold supplemental jurisdiction over
plaintiffs joined as parties “needed for just adjudication”
under Rule 19 but would allow supplemental jurisdiction
over plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20. The
omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of exceptions in
§1367(b) may have been an “unintentional drafting gap,”
Meritcare, 166 F. 3d, at 221 and n. 6. If that is the case, it
is up to Congress rather than the courts to fix it. The
omission may seem odd, but it is not absurd. An alterna-
tive explanation for the different treatment of Rule 19 and
Rule 20 is that Congress was concerned that extending
supplemental jurisdiction to Rule 19 plaintiffs would allow
circumvention of the complete diversity rule: A nondiverse
plaintiff might be omitted intentionally from the original
action, but joined later under Rule 19 as a necessary
party. See Stromberg Metal Works, 77 F. 3d, at 932. The
contamination theory described above, if applicable,
means this ruse would fail, but Congress may have
wanted to make assurance double sure. More generally,
Congress may have concluded that federal jurisdiction is
only appropriate if the district court would have original
jurisdiction over the claims of all those plaintiffs who are
so essential to the action that they could be joined under
Rule 19.
To the extent that the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs
from the list of §1367(b) exceptions is anomalous, more-
over, it is no more anomalous than the inclusion of Rule 19
plaintiffs in that list would be if the alternative view of
§1367(a) were to prevail. If the district court lacks origi-
nal jurisdiction over a civil diversity action where any
plaintiff’s claims fail to comply with all the requirements
of §1332, there is no need for a special §1367(b) exception
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 19

Opinion of the Court

for Rule 19 plaintiffs who do not meet these requirements.
Though the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from §1367(b)
presents something of a puzzle on our view of the statute,
the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in this section is at least
as difficult to explain under the alternative view.
And so we circle back to the original question. When the
well-pleaded complaint in district court includes multiple
claims, all part of the same case or controversy, and some,
but not all, of the claims are within the court’s original
jurisdiction, does the court have before it “any civil action
of which the district courts have original jurisdiction”? It
does. Under §1367, the court has original jurisdiction over
the civil action comprising the claims for which there is no
jurisdictional defect. No other reading of §1367 is plausi-
ble in light of the text and structure of the jurisdictional
statute. Though the special nature and purpose of the
diversity requirement mean that a single nondiverse party
can contaminate every other claim in the lawsuit, the
contamination does not occur with respect to jurisdictional
defects that go only to the substantive importance of indi-
vidual claims.
It follows from this conclusion that the threshold re-
quirement of §1367(a) is satisfied in cases, like those now
before us, where some, but not all, of the plaintiffs in a
diversity action allege a sufficient amount in controversy.
We hold that §1367 by its plain text overruled Clark and
Zahn and authorized supplemental jurisdiction over all
claims by diverse parties arising out of the same Article
III case or controversy, subject only to enumerated excep-
tions not applicable in the cases now before us.
C
The proponents of the alternative view of §1367 insist
that the statute is at least ambiguous and that we should
look to other interpretive tools, including the legislative
history of §1367, which supposedly demonstrate Congress
20 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

did not intend §1367 to overrule Zahn. We can reject this
argument at the very outset simply because §1367 is not
ambiguous. For the reasons elaborated above, interpret-
ing §1367 to foreclose supplemental jurisdiction over
plaintiffs in diversity cases who do not meet the minimum
amount in controversy is inconsistent with the text, read
in light of other statutory provisions and our established
jurisprudence. Even if we were to stipulate, however, that
the reading these proponents urge upon us is textually
plausible, the legislative history cited to support it would
not alter our view as to the best interpretation of §1367.
Those who urge that the legislative history refutes our
interpretation rely primarily on the House Judiciary
Committee Report on the Judicial Improvements Act.
H. R. Rep. No. 101–734 (1990) (House Report or Report).
This Report explained that §1367 would “authorize juris-
diction in a case like Finley, as well as essentially restore
the pre-Finley understandings of the authorization for and
limits on other forms of supplemental jurisdiction.” House
Report, at 28. The Report stated that §1367(a) “generally
authorizes the district court to exercise jurisdiction over a
supplemental claim whenever it forms part of the same
constitutional case or controversy as the claim or claims
that provide the basis of the district court’s original juris-
diction,” and in so doing codifies Gibbs and fills the statu-
tory gap recognized in Finley. House Report, at 28–29,
and n. 15. The Report then remarked that §1367(b) “is not
intended to affect the jurisdictional requirements of
[§1332] in diversity-only class actions, as those require-
ments were interpreted prior to Finley,” citing, without
further elaboration, Zahn and Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur
v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356 (1921). House Report, at 29, and
n. 17. The Report noted that the “net effect” of §1367(b)
was to implement the “principal rationale” of Kroger,
House Report, at 29, and n. 16, effecting only “one small
change” in pre-Finley practice with respect to diversity
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 21

Opinion of the Court

actions: §1367(b) would exclude “Rule 23(a) plaintiff-
intervenors to the same extent as those sought to be joined
as plaintiffs under Rule 19.” House Report, at 29. (It is
evident that the report here meant to refer to Rule 24, not
Rule 23.)
As we have repeatedly held, the authoritative statement
is the statutory text, not the legislative history or any
other extrinsic material. Extrinsic materials have a role
in statutory interpretation only to the extent they shed a
reliable light on the enacting Legislature’s understanding
of otherwise ambiguous terms. Not all extrinsic materials
are reliable sources of insight into legislative understand-
ings, however, and legislative history in particular is
vulnerable to two serious criticisms. First, legislative
history is itself often murky, ambiguous, and contradic-
tory. Judicial investigation of legislative history has a
tendency to become, to borrow Judge Leventhal’s memo-
rable phrase, an exercise in “ ‘looking over a crowd and
picking out your friends.’ ” See Wald, Some Observations
on the Use of Legislative History in the 1981 Supreme
Court Term, 68 Iowa L. Rev. 195, 214 (1983). Second,
judicial reliance on legislative materials like committee
reports, which are not themselves subject to the require-
ments of Article I, may give unrepresentative committee
members—or, worse yet, unelected staffers and lobby-
ists—both the power and the incentive to attempt strate-
gic manipulations of legislative history to secure results
they were unable to achieve through the statutory text.
We need not comment here on whether these problems are
sufficiently prevalent to render legislative history inher-
ently unreliable in all circumstances, a point on which
Members of this Court have disagreed. It is clear, how-
ever, that in this instance both criticisms are right on the
mark.
First of all, the legislative history of §1367 is far murk-
ier than selective quotation from the House Report would
22 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

suggest. The text of §1367 is based substantially on a
draft proposal contained in a Federal Court Study Com-
mittee working paper, which was drafted by a Subcommit-
tee chaired by Judge Posner. Report of the Subcommittee
on the Role of the Federal Courts and Their Relationship
to the States 567–568 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in Judi-
cial Conference of the United States, 1 Federal Courts
Study Committee, Working Papers and Subcommittee
Reports (July 1, 1990). See also Judicial Conference of the
United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Com-
mittee 47–48 (Apr. 2, 1990) (Study Committee Report)
(echoing, in brief summary form, the Subcommittee Work-
ing Paper proposal and noting that the Subcommittee
Working Paper “contains additional material on this
subject”); House Report, at 27 (“[Section 1367] implements
a recommendation of the Federal Courts Study Committee
found on pages 47 and 48 of its report”). While the Sub-
committee explained, in language echoed by the House
Report, that its proposal “basically restores the law as it
existed prior to Finley,” Subcommittee Working Paper, at
561, it observed in a footnote that its proposal would
overrule Zahn and that this would be a good idea, Sub-
committee Working Paper, at 561, n. 33. Although the
Federal Courts Study Committee did not expressly adopt
the Subcommittee’s specific reference to Zahn, it neither
explicitly disagreed with the Subcommittee’s conclusion
that this was the best reading of the proposed text nor
substantially modified the proposal to avoid this result.
Study Committee Report, at 47–48. Therefore, even if the
House Report could fairly be read to reflect an under-
standing that the text of §1367 did not overrule Zahn, the
Subcommittee Working Paper on which §1367 was based
reflected the opposite understanding. The House Report is
no more authoritative than the Subcommittee Working
Paper. The utility of either can extend no further than the
light it sheds on how the enacting Legislature understood
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 23

Opinion of the Court

the statutory text. Trying to figure out how to square the
Subcommittee Working Paper’s understanding with the
House Report’s understanding, or which is more reflective
of the understanding of the enacting legislators, is a hope-
less task.
Second, the worst fears of critics who argue legislative
history will be used to circumvent the Article I process
were realized in this case. The telltale evidence is the
statement, by three law professors who participated in
drafting §1367, see House Report, at 27, n. 13, that §1367
“on its face” permits “supplemental jurisdiction over
claims of class members that do not satisfy section 1332’s
jurisdictional amount requirement, which would overrule
[Zahn]. [There is] a disclaimer of intent to accomplish this
result in the legislative history. . . . It would have been
better had the statute dealt explicitly with this problem,
and the legislative history was an attempt to correct the
oversight.” Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler, Compounding or
Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A
Reply to Professor Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90
(1991). The professors were frank to concede that if one
refuses to consider the legislative history, one has no
choice but to “conclude that section 1367 has wiped Zahn
off the books.” Ibid. So there exists an acknowledgment,
by parties who have detailed, specific knowledge of the
statute and the drafting process, both that the plain text
of §1367 overruled Zahn and that language to the contrary
in the House Report was a post hoc attempt to alter that
result. One need not subscribe to the wholesale condem-
nation of legislative history to refuse to give any effect to
such a deliberate effort to amend a statute through a
committee report.
In sum, even if we believed resort to legislative history
were appropriate in these cases—a point we do not con-
cede—we would not give significant weight to the House
Report. The distinguished jurists who drafted the Sub-
24 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

committee Working Paper, along with three of the partici-
pants in the drafting of §1367, agree that this provision,
on its face, overrules Zahn. This accords with the best
reading of the statute’s text, and nothing in the legislative
history indicates directly and explicitly that Congress
understood the phrase “civil action of which the district
courts have original jurisdiction” to exclude cases in which
some but not all of the diversity plaintiffs meet the
amount in controversy requirement.
No credence, moreover, can be given to the claim that, if
Congress understood §1367 to overrule Zahn, the proposal
would have been more controversial. We have little sense
whether any Member of Congress would have been par-
ticularly upset by this result. This is not a case where one
can plausibly say that concerned legislators might not
have realized the possible effect of the text they were
adopting. Certainly, any competent legislative aide who
studied the matter would have flagged this issue if it were
a matter of importance to his or her boss, especially in
light of the Subcommittee Working Paper. There are any
number of reasons why legislators did not spend more
time arguing over §1367, none of which are relevant to our
interpretation of what the words of the statute mean.
D
Finally, we note that the Class Action Fairness Act
(CAFA), Pub. L. 109–2, 119 Stat. 4, enacted this year, has
no bearing on our analysis of these cases. Subject to cer-
tain limitations, the CAFA confers federal diversity juris-
diction over class actions where the aggregate amount in
controversy exceeds $5 million. It abrogates the rule
against aggregating claims, a rule this Court recognized in
Ben-Hur and reaffirmed in Zahn. The CAFA, however, is
not retroactive, and the views of the 2005 Congress are not
relevant to our interpretation of a text enacted by Con-
gress in 1990. The CAFA, moreover, does not moot the
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 25

Opinion of the Court

significance of our interpretation of §1367, as many pro-
posed exercises of supplemental jurisdiction, even in the
class-action context, might not fall within the CAFA’s
ambit. The CAFA, then, has no impact, one way or the
other, on our interpretation of §1367.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh
Circuit is affirmed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals
for the First Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded
for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1

STEVENS, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

Nos. 04–70 and 04–79
_________________

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER
04–70 v.
ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

MARIA DEL ROSARIO ORTEGA, ET AL., PETITIONERS
04–79 v.
STAR-KIST FOODS, INC.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2005]

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins,
dissenting.
JUSTICE GINSBURG’s carefully reasoned opinion, post, at
1 (dissenting opinion), demonstrates the error in the
Court’s rather ambitious reading of this opaque jurisdic-
tional statute. She also has demonstrated that “ambigu-
ity” is a term that may have different meanings for differ-
ent judges, for the Court has made the remarkable
declaration that its reading of the statute is so obviously
correct—and JUSTICE GINSBURG’s so obviously wrong—
that the text does not even qualify as “ambiguous.” See
ante, at 20. Because ambiguity is apparently in the eye of
the beholder, I remain convinced that it is unwise to treat
the ambiguity vel non of a statute as determinative of
whether legislative history is consulted. Indeed, I believe
that we as judges are more, rather than less, constrained
when we make ourselves accountable to all reliable evi-
dence of legislative intent. See Koons Buick Pontiac GMC,
2 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

STEVENS, J., dissenting

Inc. v. Nigh, 543 U. S. __ (2004) (slip op., at 2, and n. 1)
(STEVENS, J., concurring).
The legislative history of 28 U. S. C. §1367 provides
powerful confirmation of JUSTICE GINSBURG’s interpreta-
tion of that statute. It is helpful to consider in full the
relevant portion of the House Report, which was also
adopted by the Senate:
“This section would authorize jurisdiction in a case
like Finley [v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989)], as
well as essentially restore the pre-Finley understand-
ings of the authorization for and limits on other forms
of supplemental jurisdiction. In federal question
cases, it broadly authorizes the district courts to exer-
cise supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims,
including claims involving the joinder of additional
parties. In diversity cases, the district courts may ex-
ercise supplemental jurisdiction, except when doing so
would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional require-
ments of the diversity statute.
. . . . .
“Subsection 114(b) [§1367(b)] prohibits a district
court in a case over which it has jurisdiction founded
solely on the general diversity provision, 28 U. S. C.
§1332, from exercising supplemental jurisdiction in
specified circumstances. [Footnote 16: ‘The net effect
of subsection (b) is to implement the principal ration-
ale of Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437
U. S. 365 (1978)’.] In diversity-only actions the dis-
trict courts may not hear plaintiffs’ supplemental
claims when exercising supplemental jurisdiction
would encourage plaintiffs to evade the jurisdictional
requirement of 28 U. S. C. §1332 by the simple expe-
dient of naming initially only those defendants whose
joinder satisfies section 1332’s requirements and later
adding claims not within original federal jurisdiction
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3

STEVENS, J., dissenting

against other defendants who have intervened or been
joined on a supplemental basis. In accord with case
law, the subsection also prohibits the joinder or inter-
vention of persons a plaintiffs if adding them is incon-
sistent with section 1332’s requirements. The section
is not intended to affect the jurisdictional require-
ments of 28 U. S. C. §1332 in diversity-only class ac-
tions, as those requirements were interpreted prior to
Finley. [Footnote 17: ‘See Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur
v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356 (1921); Zahn v. International
Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973)’.]
“Subsection (b) makes one small change in pre-
Finley practice. Anomalously, under current practice,
the same party might intervene as of right under Fed-
eral Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and take advantage
of supplemental jurisdiction, but not come within
supplemental jurisdiction if parties already in the ac-
tion sought to effect the joinder under Rule 19. Sub-
section (b) would eliminate this anomaly, excluding
Rule 23(a) plaintiff-intervenors to the same extent as
those sought to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19.”
H. R. Rep. No. 101–734, pp. 28–29 (1990) (footnote
omitted) (hereinafter House Report or Report).1
Not only does the House Report specifically say that §1367
was not intended to upset Zahn v. International Paper Co.,
414 U. S. 291 (1973), but its entire explanation of the
statute demonstrates that Congress had in mind a very
specific and relatively modest task—undoing this Court’s
5-to-4 decision in Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545
(1989). In addition to overturning that unfortunate and
much-criticized decision,2 the statute, according to the
——————
1 The last quoted paragraph was intended to refer to Rule 24, not
Rule 23. See ante, at 21.
2 As I pointed out in my dissent in Finley, the majority's decision was

“not faithful to our precedents,” 490 U. S., at 558, and casually dis-
4 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

STEVENS, J., dissenting

Report, codifies and preserves the “the pre-Finley under-
standings of the authorization for and limits on other
forms of supplemental jurisdiction,” House Report, at 28,
with the exception of making “one small change in pre-
Finley practice,” id., at 29, which is not relevant here.
The sweeping purpose that the Court’s decision imputes
to Congress bears no resemblance to the House Report’s
description of the statute. But this does not seem to trou-
ble the Court, for its decision today treats statutory inter-
pretation as a pedantic exercise, divorced from any serious
attempt at ascertaining congressional intent. Of course,
there are situations in which we do not honor Congress’
apparent intent unless that intent is made “clear” in the
text of a statute—in this way, we can be certain that
Congress considered the issue and intended a disfavored
outcome, see, e.g., Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S.
244 (1994) (requiring clear statement for retroactive civil
legislation). But that principle provides no basis for dis-
counting the House Report, given that our cases have
never recognized a presumption in favor of expansive
diversity jurisdiction.
The Court’s reasons for ignoring this virtual billboard of
congressional intent are unpersuasive. That a subcommit-
tee of the Federal Courts Study Committee believed that
an earlier, substantially similar version of the statute
overruled Zahn, see ante, at 22, only highlights the fact
that the statute is ambiguous. What is determinative is
that the House Report explicitly rejected that broad read-
ing of the statutory text. Such a report has special signifi-
cance as an indicator of legislative intent. In Congress,
committee reports are normally considered the authorita-
tive explication of a statute’s text and purposes, and busy
——————

missed the accumulated wisdom of judges such as Henry Friendly, who

had “special learning and expertise in matters of federal jurisdiction,"

id., at 565.

 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5

STEVENS, J., dissenting

legislators and their assistants rely on that explication in
casting their votes. Cf. Garcia v. United States, 469 U. S.
70, 76 (1984) (“In surveying legislative history we have
repeatedly stated that the authoritative source for finding
the Legislature’s intent lies in the Committee Reports on
the bill, which ‘represen[t] the considered and collective
understanding of those Congressmen involved in drafting
and studying proposed legislation’ ” (quoting Zuber v.
Allen, 396 U. S. 168, 186 (1969)) (brackets in original)).
The Court’s second reason—its comment on the three
law professors who participated in drafting §1367, see
ante, at 23—is similarly off the mark. In the law review
article that the Court refers to, the professors were merely
saying that the text of the statute was susceptible to an
overly broad (and simplistic) reading, and that clarifica-
tion in the House Report was therefore appropriate. See
Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler, Compounding or Creating
Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply to
Professor Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90 (1991).3
Significantly, the reference to Zahn in the House Report
does not at all appear to be tacked-on or out of place;
indeed, it is wholly consistent with the Report’s broader
explanation of Congress’ goal of overruling Finley and
——————
3 The professors’ account of the challenges they faced in drafting
§1367 gives some sense, I think, of why that statute has proved difficult
to interpret: “More broadly, codifying a complex area like supplemental
jurisdiction—as Professor Freer’s discussion illustrates—is itself
complex business. A danger is that that result of the effort to deal with
all the foreseeables will be a statute too prolix and baroque for every-
day use and application by practitioners and judges. Section 1367
reflects an effort to provide sufficient detail without overdoing it. The
statute is concededly not perfect. What it accomplishes, however, is to
change the direction taken by the Supreme Court in Finley, to provide
basic guidance (in particular the legislative history’s general approval
of pre-Finley case law, which has treated some specific issues Professor
Freer raises), and then to trust the federal courts under the changed
direction to interpret the statute sensibly. . . .” 40 Emory L. J., at 961.
6 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

STEVENS, J., dissenting

preserving pre-Finley law. To suggest that these profes-
sors participated in a “deliberate effort to amend a statute
through a committee report,” ante, at 23, reveals an unre-
alistic view of the legislative process, not to mention disre-
spect for three law professors who acted in the role of
public servants. To be sure, legislative history can be
manipulated. But, in the situation before us, there is little
reason to fear that an unholy conspiracy of “unrepresenta-
tive committee members,” ante, at 21, law professors, and
“unelected staffers and lobbyists,” ibid., endeavored
to torpedo Congress’ attempt to overrule (without discus-
sion) two longstanding features of this Court’s diversity
jurisprudence.
After nearly 20 pages of complicated analysis, which
explores subtle doctrinal nuances and coins various neolo-
gisms, the Court announces that §1367 could not reasona-
bly be read another way. See ante, at 20. That conclusion
is difficult to accept. Given JUSTICE GINSBURG’s persua-
sive account of the statutory text and its jurisprudential
backdrop, and given the uncommonly clear legislative
history, I am confident that the majority’s interpretation
of §1367 is mistaken. I respectfully dissent.
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 1

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

Nos. 04–70 and 04–79
_________________

EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER
04–70 v.
ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

MARIA DEL ROSARIO ORTEGA, ET AL., PETITIONERS
04–79 v.
STAR-KIST FOODS, INC.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
[June 23, 2005]

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS,
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
These cases present the question whether Congress, by
enacting 28 U. S. C. §1367, overruled this Court’s deci-
sions in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583, 589 (1939)
(reaffirming the holding of Troy Bank v. G. A. Whitehead &
Co., 222 U. S. 39, 40 (1911)), and Zahn v. International
Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). Clark held that, when
federal-court jurisdiction is predicated on a specified
amount in controversy, each plaintiff joined in the litiga-
tion must independently meet the jurisdictional amount
requirement. Zahn confirmed that in class actions gov-
erned by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), “[e]ach
[class member] . . . must satisfy the jurisdictional amount,
and any [class member] who does not must be dismissed
from the case.” 414 U. S., at 301.
Section 1367, all agree, was designed to overturn this
Court’s decision in Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545
2 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

(1989). Finley concerned not diversity-of-citizenship juris-
diction (28 U. S. C. §1332), but original federal-court
jurisdiction in cases arising under federal law (28 U. S. C.
§1331). The plaintiff in Finley sued the United States
under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C.
§1346(b), to recover for the death of her husband and
children in an airplane crash. She alleged that the Fed-
eral Aviation Administration’s negligence contributed to
the fatal accident. She later amended her complaint to
add state-law tort claims against two other defendants, a
municipality and a utility company. 490 U. S., at 546–
547. No independent basis for federal subject-matter
jurisdiction existed over the state-law claims. The plain-
tiff could not have brought her entire action in state court,
because federal jurisdiction in FTCA actions is exclusive.
§1346(b). Hence, absent federal jurisdiction embracing
the state-law claims, she would be obliged to pursue two
discrete actions, one in federal court, the other in state
court. This Court held, nevertheless, that the District
Court lacked jurisdiction over the “pendent-party” state-
law claims. Id., at 555–556. In so holding, the Court
stressed that Congress held the control rein. Id., at 547–
549. Congress could reverse the result in Finley, and
permit pendent jurisdiction over state-law claims against
additional defendants, if it so chose. Id., at 556. Congress
did so in §1367.
What more §1367 wrought is an issue on which courts of
appeals have sharply divided. Compare Stromberg Metal
Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928, 930
(CA7 1996) (§1367 “supersedes Clark and allows pendent-
party jurisdiction when the additional parties have claims
worth less than [the jurisdictional minimum]”), and In re
Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d 524, 529 (CA5 1995) (“[U]nder
§1367 a district court can exercise supplemental jurisdic-
tion over members of a class, although they did not meet
the amount-in-controversy requirement, as did the class
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 3

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

representatives.”), with Meritcare Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury
Ins. Co., 166 F. 3d 214, 222 (CA3 1999) (§1367 “preserves
the prohibition against aggregation outlined in [Zahn and
Clark]”), and Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co., 160 F. 3d
631, 641 (CA10 1998) (§1367 does not alter “the historical
rules prohibiting aggregation of claims, including Zahn’s
prohibition of such aggregation in diversity class actions”).
The Court today holds that §1367, although prompted by
Finley, a case in which original access to federal court was
predicated on a federal question, notably enlarges federal
diversity jurisdiction. The Court reads §1367 to overrule
Clark and Zahn, thereby allowing access to federal court
by co-plaintiffs or class members who do not meet the now
in excess of $75,000 amount-in-controversy requirement,
so long as at least one co-plaintiff, or the named class
representative, has a jurisdictionally sufficient claim.
Ante, at 1–2.
The Court adopts a plausibly broad reading of §1367, a
measure that is hardly a model of the careful drafter’s art.
There is another plausible reading, however, one less
disruptive of our jurisprudence regarding supplemental
jurisdiction. If one reads §1367(a) to instruct, as the
statute’s text suggests, that the district court must first
have “original jurisdiction” over a “civil action” before
supplemental jurisdiction can attach, then Clark and
Zahn are preserved, and supplemental jurisdiction does
not open the way for joinder of plaintiffs, or inclusion of
class members, who do not independently meet the
amount-in-controversy requirement. For the reasons that
follow, I conclude that this narrower construction is the
better reading of §1367.
I
A
Section 1367, captioned “Supplemental jurisdiction,”
codifies court-recognized doctrines formerly labeled “pen-
4 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

dent” and “ancillary” jurisdiction. Pendent jurisdiction
involved the enlargement of federal-question litigation to
include related state-law claims. Ancillary jurisdiction
evolved primarily to protect defending parties, or others
whose rights might be adversely affected if they could not
air their claims in an ongoing federal-court action. Given
jurisdiction over the principal action, federal courts enter-
tained certain matters deemed ancillary regardless of the
citizenship of the parties or the amount in controversy.
Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966), the leading
pendent jurisdiction case, involved a claim against a union
for wrongfully inducing the plaintiff’s discharge. The
plaintiff stated a federal claim under the Taft-Hartley Act,
and an allied state-law claim of unlawful conspiracy to
interfere with his employment contract. This Court up-
held the joinder of federal and state claims. “[T]here is
power in federal courts to hear the whole,” the Court said,
when the state and federal claims “derive from a common
nucleus of operative fact” and are so linked that the plaintiff
“would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial
proceeding.” Id., at 725.
Gibbs involved the linkage of federal and state claims
against the same defendant. In Finley v. United States,
490 U. S. 545, the Court contained Gibbs. Without con-
gressional authorization, the Court admonished, the pen-
dent jurisdiction umbrella could not be stretched to cover
the joinder of additional parties. Gibbs had departed from
earlier decisions recognizing that “jurisdiction [must] be
explicitly conferred,” the Court said. 490 U. S., at 556.
Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the Court ob-
served, although resting “on a much narrower basis,” R.
Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The
Federal Courts and the Federal System 925 (5th ed. 2003)
(hereinafter Hart & Wechsler), had already signaled that
“the Gibbs approach would not be extended to the pen-
dent-party field,” Finley, 490 U. S., at 556. While the
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 5

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

Finley Court did not “limit or impair” Gibbs itself, 490
U. S., at 556, for further development of pendent jurisdic-
tion, the Court made it plain, the initiative would lie in
Congress’ domain. Id., at 555–556.1
Ancillary jurisdiction, which evolved as a more sprawl-
ing doctrine than pendent jurisdiction, was originally
rooted in “the notion that [when] federal jurisdiction in [a]
principal suit effectively controls the property or fund
under dispute, other claimants thereto should be allowed
to intervene in order to protect their interests, without
regard to jurisdiction.” Aldinger, 427 U. S., at 11; see, e.g.,
Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450 (1861). In Owen Equip-
ment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 (1978), the
Court addressed the permissible scope of the doctrine in
relation to the liberal provisions of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure for joinder of parties and claims.
Kroger commenced as a suit between a citizen of Iowa
and a Nebraska corporation. When the Nebraska defen-
dant impleaded an Iowa corporation as a third-party
defendant under Rule 14(a), the plaintiff asserted state-
law claims against the impleaded party. No independent
basis of federal jurisdiction existed over the newly as-
serted claims, for both plaintiff and impleaded defendant
were citizens of Iowa. 470 U. S., at 370. The Court held
that the plaintiff could not draw in a co-citizen defendant
in this manner. Id., at 377. Federal courts, by the time of
Kroger, were routinely exercising ancillary jurisdiction
over compulsory counterclaims, impleader claims, cross-
claims among defendants, and claims of parties who inter-
vened “of right.” See id., at 375, n. 18 (collecting cases).
——————
1 “[B]oth the Finley result and its implications” sparked “considerable

criticism.” Hart & Wechsler 926; see also 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, E.
Cooper, & R. Freer, Federal Practice and Procedure §3567.2, p. 91 (2d
ed. Supp. 2005) (hereinafter Wright & Miller) (characterizing the Finley
decision as “surprising”).
6 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

In Kroger, however,
“the nonfederal claim . . . was asserted by the plain-
tiff, who voluntarily chose to bring suit upon a state-
law claim in a federal court. By contrast, ancillary ju-
risdiction typically involve[d] claims by a defending
party haled into court against his will, or by another
person whose rights might be irretrievably lost unless
he could assert them in an ongoing action in a federal
court.” Id., at 376.
Having “chosen the federal rather than the state forum,”
the Court said, the plaintiff had to “accept its limitations.”
Ibid.
In sum, in federal-question cases before §1367’s enact-
ment, the Court recognized pendent-claim jurisdiction,
Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725, but not pendent-party jurisdic-
tion, Finley, 490 U. S., at 555–556. As to ancillary juris-
diction, the Court adhered to the limitation that in diver-
sity cases, throughout the litigation, all plaintiffs must
remain diverse from all defendants. See Kroger, 437 U. S.,
at 374.
Although pendent jurisdiction and ancillary jurisdiction
evolved discretely,2 the Court has recognized that they are
“two species of the same generic problem: Under what
circumstances may a federal court hear and decide a state-
law claim arising between citizens of the same State?” Id.,
at 370. Finley regarded that question as one properly
addressed to Congress. See 490 U. S., at 549, 556; 13
Wright & Miller §3523, p. 127 (2d ed. Supp. 2005); Hart &
Wechsler 924–926.

——————
2 See
generally 13B Wright & Miller §§3567, 3567.1, 3567.2 (2d ed.
1984) (discussing pendent jurisdiction); 13 id., §3523 (discussing
ancillary jurisdiction); Hart & Wechsler 922–926 (discussing pendent
jurisdiction); id., at 1488–1490 (discussing ancillary jurisdiction).
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 7

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

B
Shortly before the Court decided Finley, Congress had
established the Federal Courts Study Committee to take
up issues relating to “the federal courts’ congestion, delay,
expense, and expansion.” Judicial Conference of the
United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Com-
mittee 3 (Apr. 2, 1990) (hereinafter Committee Report).
The Committee’s charge was to conduct a study address-
ing the “crisis” in federal courts caused by the “rapidly
growing” caseload. Id., at 6 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Among recommendations, the Committee urged Con-
gress to “authorize federal courts to assert pendent juris-
diction over parties without an independent federal
jurisdictional base.” Id., at 47. If adopted, this recom-
mendation would overrule Finley. Earlier, a subcommit-
tee had recommended that Congress overrule both Finley
and Zahn. Report of the Subcommittee on the Role of the
Federal Courts and Their Relationship to the States 547,
561, n. 33 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in 1 Judicial Confer-
ence of the United States, Federal Courts Study Commit-
tee, Working Papers and Subcommittee Reports (July 1,
1990) (hereinafter Subcommittee Report). In the sub-
committee’s view, “[f]rom a policy standpoint,” Zahn
“ma[de] little sense.” Subcommittee Report 561, n. 33.3
The full Committee, however, urged only the overruling of
Finley and did not adopt the recommendation to overrule
Zahn. Committee Report 47–48.
As a separate matter, a substantial majority of the
——————
3 Anomalously, in holding that each class member “must satisfy the

jurisdictional amount,” Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291,
301 (1973), the Zahn Court did not refer to Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v.
Cauble, 255 U. S. 356, 366 (1921), which established that in a class action,
the citizenship of the named plaintiff is controlling. But see Zahn, 414
U. S., at 309–310 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (urging Zahn’s inconsistency
with Ben-Hur).
8 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

Committee “strongly recommend[ed]” the elimination of
diversity jurisdiction, save for “complex multi-state litiga-
tion, interpleader, and suits involving aliens.” Id., at 38–
39; accord Subcommittee Report 454–458. “[N]o other
step,” the Committee’s Report maintained, “will do any-
where nearly as much to reduce federal caseload pressures
and contain the growth of the federal judiciary.” Commit-
tee Report 39.
Congress responded by adopting, as part of the Judicial
Improvements Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 5089,4 recommenda-
tions of the Federal Courts Study Committee ranked by
the House Committee on the Judiciary as “modest” and
“noncontroversial”. H. R. Rep. No. 101–734, pp. 15–16
(1990) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.); see also 136 Cong. Rec.
36288 (1990). Congress did not take up the Study Com-
mittee’s immodest proposal to curtail diversity jurisdic-
tion. It did, however, enact a supplemental jurisdiction
statute, codified as 28 U. S. C. §1367.
II
A
Section 1367, by its terms, operates only in civil actions
“of which the district courts have original jurisdiction.”
The “original jurisdiction” relevant here is diversity-of-
citizenship jurisdiction, conferred by §1332. The character
of that jurisdiction is the essential backdrop for compre-
hension of §1367.
The Constitution broadly provides for federal-court
jurisdiction in controversies “between Citizens of different
States.” Art. III, § 2, cl. 1. This Court has read that provi-
sion to demand no more than “minimal diversity,” i.e., so
——————
4 The omnibus Act encompassed the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990

(Title I), the creation of new judgeships (Title II), the Federal Courts
Study Committee Implementation Act of 1990 (Title III), and the
establishment of the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and
Removal (Title IV).
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 9

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

long as one party on the plaintiffs’ side and one party on
the defendants’ side are of diverse citizenship, Congress
may authorize federal courts to exercise diversity jurisdic-
tion. See State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386
U. S. 523, 530–531 (1967). Further, the Constitution in-
cludes no amount-in-controversy limitation on the exercise
of federal jurisdiction. But from the start, Congress, as its
measures have been construed by this Court, has limited
federal court exercise of diversity jurisdiction in two prin-
cipal ways. First, unless Congress specifies otherwise,
diversity must be “complete,” i.e., all parties on plaintiffs’
side must be diverse from all parties on defendants’ side.
Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); see 13B
Wright & Miller §3605 (2d ed. 1984). Second, each plain-
tiff’s stake must independently meet the amount-in-
controversy specification: “When two or more plaintiffs,
having separate and distinct demands, unite for conven-
ience and economy in a single suit, it is essential that the
demand of each be of the requisite jurisdictional amount.”
Troy Bank, 222 U. S., at 40.
The statute today governing federal court exercise of
diversity jurisdiction in the generality of cases, §1332, like
all its predecessors, incorporates both a diverse-citizenship
requirement and an amount-in-controversy specification.5
——————
5 Endeavoring to preserve the “complete diversity” rule first stated in

Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806), the Court’s opinion drives a
wedge between the two components of 28 U. S. C. §1332, treating the
diversity-of-citizenship requirement as essential, the amount-in-
controversy requirement as more readily disposable. See ante, at 6, 14–
15. Section 1332 itself, however, does not rank order the two require-
ments. What “[o]rdinary principl[e] of statutory construction” or “sound
canon of interpretation,” ante, at 10, allows the Court to slice up §1332
this way? In partial explanation, the Court asserts that amount in
controversy can be analyzed claim-by-claim, but the diversity require-
ment cannot. See ante, at 6. It is not altogether clear why that should
be so. The cure for improper joinder of a nondiverse party is the same
as the cure for improper joinder of a plaintiff who does not satisfy the
10 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

As to the latter, the statute reads: “The district courts
shall have original jurisdiction [in diversity-of-citizenship
cases] where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum
. . . of $75,000.” §1332(a). This Court has long held that,
in determining whether the amount-in-controversy re-
quirement has been satisfied, a single plaintiff may aggre-
gate two or more claims against a single defendant, even if
the claims are unrelated. See, e.g., Edwards v. Bates
County, 163 U. S. 269, 273 (1896). But in multiparty cases,
including class actions, we have unyieldingly adhered to
the nonaggregation rule stated in Troy Bank. See Clark,
306 U. S., at 589 (reaffirming the “familiar rule that when
several plaintiffs assert separate and distinct demands in
a single suit, the amount involved in each separate con-
troversy must be of the requisite amount to be within the
jurisdiction of the district court, and that those amounts
cannot be added together to satisfy jurisdictional require-
ments”); Snyder v. Harris, 394 U. S. 332, 339–340 (1969)
(abandonment of the nonaggregation rule in class actions
would undercut the congressional “purpose . . . to check, to
some degree, the rising caseload of the federal courts”).
This Court most recently addressed “[t]he meaning of
[§1332’s] ‘matter in controversy’ language” in Zahn, 414
U. S., at 298. Zahn, like Snyder decided four years earlier,
was a class action. In Snyder, no class member had a
claim large enough to satisfy the jurisdictional amount.
But in Zahn, the named plaintiffs had such claims. 414
U. S., at 292. Nevertheless, the Court declined to depart
from its “longstanding construction of the ‘matter in con-
troversy’ requirement of §1332.” Id., at 301. The Zahn
——————

jurisdictional amount. In both cases, original jurisdiction can be

preserved by dismissing the nonqualifying party. See Caterpillar Inc. v.

Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 64 (1996) (diversity); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-

Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 836–838 (1989) (same); Zahn, 414 U. S., at 295,

300 (amount in controversy); Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583, 590

(1939) (same).

 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 11

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

Court stated:
“Snyder invoked the well-established rule that each of
several plaintiffs asserting separate and distinct
claims must satisfy the jurisdictional-amount re-
quirement if his claim is to survive a motion to dis-
miss. This rule plainly mandates not only that there
may be no aggregation and that the entire case must
be dismissed where none of the plaintiffs claims
[meets the amount-in-controversy requirement] but
also requires that any plaintiff without the jurisdic-
tional amount must be dismissed from the case, even
though others allege jurisdictionally sufficient
claims.” Id., at 300.
The rule that each plaintiff must independently satisfy the
amount-in-controversy requirement, unless Congress ex-
pressly orders otherwise, was thus the solidly established
reading of §1332 when Congress enacted the Judicial
Improvements Act of 1990, which added §1367 to Title 28.
B
These cases present the question whether Congress
abrogated the nonaggregation rule long tied to §1332
when it enacted §1367. In answering that question, “con-
text [should provide] a crucial guide.” Rosario Ortega v.
Star-Kist Foods, Inc., 370 F. 3d 124, 135 (2004). The
Court should assume, as it ordinarily does, that Congress
legislated against a background of law already in place
and the historical development of that law. See National
Archives and Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U. S. 157, 169
(2004). Here, that background is the statutory grant of
diversity jurisdiction, the amount-in-controversy condition
that Congress, from the start, has tied to the grant, and
the nonaggregation rule this Court has long applied to the
determination of the “matter in controversy.”
Section 1367(a) provides:
12 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

“Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as
expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in
any civil action of which the district courts have origi-
nal jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supple-
mental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so
related to claims in the action within such original ju-
risdiction that they form part of the same case or con-
troversy under Article III of the United States Consti-
tution. Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include
claims that involve the joinder or intervention of addi-
tional parties.”
The Court is unanimous in reading §1367(a) to permit
pendent-party jurisdiction in federal-question cases, and
thus, to overrule Finley. The basic jurisdictional grant,
§1331, provides that “[t]he district courts shall have origi-
nal jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Con-
stitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” Since
1980, §1331 has contained no amount-in-controversy
requirement. See 94 Stat. 2369 (eliminating §1331’s
amount-in-controversy requirement). Once there is a civil
action presenting a qualifying claim arising under federal
law, §1331’s sole requirement is met. District courts, we
have held, may then adjudicate, additionally, state-law
claims “deriv[ing] from a common nucleus of operative
fact.” Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Section 1367(a) enlarges
that category to include not only state-law claims against
the defendant named in the federal claim, but also “[state-
law] claims that involve the joinder or intervention of
additional parties.”6
——————
6 The Court noted in Zahn, 414 U. S., at 302, n. 11, that when the ex-

ercise of §1331 federal-question jurisdiction and §1332 diversity juris-
diction were conditioned on the same jurisdictional-amount limitation,
the same nonaggregation rule applied under both heads of federal
jurisdiction. But cf. ante, at 14–15. The Court added, however, that
“Congress ha[d] exempted major areas of federal-question jurisdiction
from any jurisdictional-amount requirements,” thus diminishing the
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 13

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

The Court divides, however, on the impact of §1367(a)
on diversity cases controlled by §1332. Under the major-
ity’s reading, §1367(a) permits the joinder of related
claims cut loose from the nonaggregation rule that has
long attended actions under §1332. Only the claims speci-
fied in §1367(b)7 would be excluded from §1367(a)’s expan-
sion of §1332’s grant of diversity jurisdiction. And because
§1367(b) contains no exception for joinder of plaintiffs
under Rule 20 or class actions under Rule 23, the Court
concludes, Clark and Zahn have been overruled.8
The Court’s reading is surely plausible, especially if one
detaches §1367(a) from its context and attempts no recon-
ciliation with prior interpretations of §1332’s amount-in-
controversy requirement. But §1367(a)’s text, as the First
——————
impact of §1331’s “matter in controversy” specification in cases arising
under federal law. Zahn, 414 U. S., at 302, n. 11.
7 Title 28 §1367(b) provides:

“In any civil action of which the district courts have original juris-
diction founded solely on section 1332 of this title, the district
courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under subsection
(a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under
Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or
over claims by persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under
Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under
Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction
over such claims would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional re-
quirements of section 1332.”
8 Under the Court’s construction of §1367, see ante, at 13, 19, Beatriz

Ortega’s family members can remain in the action because their joinder
is merely permissive, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 20. If, however, their
presence was “needed for just adjudication,” Rule 19, their dismissal
would be required. The inclusion of those who may join, and exclusion
of those who should or must join, defies rational explanation, but cf.
ante, at 18, and others adopting the interpretation the Court embraces
have so acknowledged, see Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Me-
chanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928, 932 (CA7 1996) (recognizing the anomaly
and inquiring: “What sense can this make?”); cf. 14B Wright & Miller
§3704, p. 168 (3d ed. 1998) (distinction between Rule 19 and Rule 20
“seems incongruous, and serves no apparent public policy purpose”).
14 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

Circuit held, can be read another way, one that would
involve no rejection of Clark and Zahn.
As explained by the First Circuit in Ortega, and applied
to class actions by the Tenth Circuit in Leonhardt, see
supra, at 3, §1367(a) addresses “civil action[s] of which the
district courts have original jurisdiction,” a formulation
that, in diversity cases, is sensibly read to incorporate the
rules on joinder and aggregation tightly tied to §1332 at
the time of §1367’s enactment. On this reading, a com-
plaint must first meet that “original jurisdiction” meas-
urement. If it does not, no supplemental jurisdiction is
authorized. If it does, §1367(a) authorizes “supplemental
jurisdiction” over related claims. In other words, §1367(a)
would preserve undiminished, as part and parcel of §1332
“original jurisdiction” determinations, both the “complete
diversity” rule and the decisions restricting aggregation to
arrive at the amount in controversy.9 Section 1367(b)’s
office, then, would be “to prevent the erosion of the com-
plete diversity [and amount-in-controversy] require-
ment[s] that might otherwise result from an expansive
application of what was once termed the doctrine of ancil-
lary jurisdiction.” See Pfander, Supplemental Jurisdiction
and Section 1367: The Case for a Sympathetic Textualism,
148 U. Pa. L. Rev. 109, 114 (1999); infra, at 17–18. In
contrast to the Court’s construction of §1367, which draws
a sharp line between the diversity and amount-in-
controversy components of §1332, see ante, at 6; supra, at
9, n. 5, the interpretation presented here does not sever
the two jurisdictional requirements.
——————
9 On this reading of §1367(a), it is immaterial that §1367(b) “does not

withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of the additional
parties at issue here.” Ante, at 12. Because those claims would not
come within §1367(a) in the first place, Congress would have had no
reason to list them in §1367(b). See infra, at 16–17.
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 15

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

The more restrained reading of §1367 just outlined
would yield affirmance of the First Circuit’s judgment in
Ortega, and reversal of the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment in
Exxon. It would not discard entirely, as the Court does,
the judicially developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary
jurisdiction as they existed when Finley was decided.10
Instead, it would recognize §1367 essentially as a codifica-
tion of those doctrines, placing them under a single head-
ing, but largely retaining their substance, with overriding
Finley the only basic change: Supplemental jurisdiction,
once the district court has original jurisdiction, would now
include “claims that involve the joinder or intervention of
additional parties.” §1367(a).
Pendent jurisdiction, as earlier explained, see supra, at
4–5, applied only in federal-question cases and allowed
plaintiffs to attach nonfederal claims to their jurisdiction-
qualifying claims. Ancillary jurisdiction applied primarily,
although not exclusively, in diversity cases and “typically
involve[d] claims by a defending party haled into court
against his will.” Kroger, 437 U. S., at 376 (emphasis
added); see also id., at 375, n. 18; supra, at 5–6. As the
First Circuit observed, neither doctrine permitted a plain-
tiff to circumvent the dual requirements of §1332 (diver-
sity of citizenship and amount in controversy) “simply by
joining her [jurisdictionally inadequate] claim in an action
brought by [a] jurisdictionally competent diversity plain-
tiff.” Ortega, 370 F. 3d, at 138.
Not only would the reading I find persuasive “alig[n]
statutory supplemental jurisdiction with the judicially
developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction,”
ibid., it would also synchronize §1367 with the removal
statute, 28 U. S. C. §1441. As the First Circuit carefully
explained:
——————
10 The Court’s opinion blends the two doctrines, according no signifi-

cance to their discrete development. See ante, at 5–9.
16 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

“Section 1441, like §1367, applies only if the ‘civil ac-
tion’ in question is one ‘of which the district courts . . .
have original jurisdiction.’ §1441(a). Relying on that
language, the Supreme Court has interpreted §1441
to prohibit removal unless the entire action, as it
stands at the time of removal, could have been filed in
federal court in the first instance. See, e.g., Syngenta
Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson, 537 U. S. 28, 33
(2002); Okla. Tax Comm’n v. Graham, 489 U. S. 838,
840 (1989) (per curiam). Section 1441 has thus been
held to incorporate the well-pleaded complaint rule,
see City of Chicago [v. International College of Sur-
geons, 522 U. S. 156, 163 (1997)];11 the complete di-
versity rule, see Caterpillar, Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S.
61, 73 (1996); and rules for calculating the amount in
controversy, see St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red
Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 291–292 (1938).” Ortega, 370
F. 3d, at 138 (citations omitted and footnote added).
The less disruptive view I take of §1367 also accounts
for the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs and Rule 23 class
actions in §1367(b)’s text. If one reads §1367(a) as a ple-
nary grant of supplemental jurisdiction to federal courts
sitting in diversity, one would indeed look for exceptions in
§1367(b). Finding none for permissive joinder of parties or
class actions, one would conclude that Congress effec-
——————
11 The point of the Court’s extended discussion of Chicago v. Interna-
tional College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), in the instant cases, see
ante, at 15–17, slips from my grasp. There was no disagreement in that
case, and there is none now, that 28 U. S. C. §1367(a) is properly read
to authorize the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in removed cases.
International College of Surgeons was unusual in that the federal court
there was asked to review a decision of a local administrative agency.
Such review, it was unsuccessfully argued, was “appellate” in charac-
ter, and therefore outside the ken of a court empowered to exercise
“original” jurisdiction. Compare 522 U. S., at 166–168, with id., at 176–
177 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting).
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 17

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

tively, even if unintentionally, overruled Clark and Zahn.
But if one recognizes that the nonaggregation rule deline-
ated in Clark and Zahn forms part of the determination
whether “original jurisdiction” exists in a diversity case,
see supra, at 14, then plaintiffs who do not meet the
amount-in-controversy requirement would fail at the
§1367(a) threshold. Congress would have no reason to
resort to a §1367(b) exception to turn such plaintiffs away
from federal court, given that their claims, from the start,
would fall outside the court’s §1332 jurisdiction. See
Pfander, 148 U. Pa. L. Rev., at 148.
Nor does the more moderate reading assign different
meanings to “original jurisdiction” in diversity and fed-
eral-question cases. See ante, at 14. As the First Circuit
stated:
“ ‘[O]riginal jurisdiction’ in §1367(a) has the same
meaning in every case: [An] underlying statutory
grant of original jurisdiction must be satisfied. What
differs between federal question and diversity cases is
not the meaning of ‘original jurisdiction’ but rather
the [discrete] requirements of sections 1331 and 1332.
Under §1331, the sole issue is whether a federal ques-
tion appears on the face of the plaintiff’s well-pleaded
complaint; the [citizenship] of the parties and the
amounts they stand to recover [do not bear on that de-
termination]. Section 1332, by contrast, predicates
original jurisdiction on the identity of the parties (i.e.,
[their] complete diversity) and their [satisfaction of
the amount-in-controversy specification]. [In short,]
the ‘original jurisdiction’ language in §1367 operates
differently in federal-question and diversity cases not
because the meaning of that term varies, but because
the [jurisdiction-granting] statutes are different.” Or-
tega, 370 F. 3d, at 139–140.
What is the utility of §1367(b) under my reading of
18 EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC.

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

§1367(a)? Section 1367(a) allows parties other than the
plaintiff to assert reactive claims once entertained under
the heading ancillary jurisdiction. See supra, at 5 (listing
claims, including compulsory counterclaims and impleader
claims, over which federal courts routinely exercised
ancillary jurisdiction). As earlier observed, see supra, at
14, §1367(b) stops plaintiffs from circumventing §1332’s
jurisdictional requirements by using another’s claim as a
hook to add a claim that the plaintiff could not have
brought in the first instance. Kroger is the paradigm case.
See supra, at 5–6. There, the Court held that ancillary
jurisdiction did not extend to a plaintiff’s claim against a
nondiverse party who had been impleaded by the defen-
dant under Rule 14. Section 1367(b), then, is corrobora-
tive of §1367(a)’s coverage of claims formerly called ancil-
lary, but provides exceptions to assure that accommo-
dation of added claims would not fundamentally alter “the
jurisdictional requirements of section 1332.” See Pfander,
supra, at 135–137.
While §1367’s enigmatic text12 defies flawless interpre-
tation, see supra, at 13, n. 8,13 the precedent-preservative
——————
12 The Court notes the passage this year of the Class Action Fairness

Act (CAFA), Pub. L. 109–2, 119 Stat. 4, ante, at 24–25, only to dismiss
that legislation as irrelevant. Subject to several exceptions and qualifi-
cations, CAFA provides for federal-court adjudication of state-law-
based class actions in which diversity is “minimal” (one plaintiff’s
diversity from one defendant suffices), and the “matter in controversy”
is an aggregate amount in excess of $5,000,000. Significant here,
CAFA’s enlargement of federal-court diversity jurisdiction was accom-
plished, “clearly and conspicuously,” by amending §1332. Cf. Rosario
Ortega, 370 F. 3d 124, 142 (CA1 2004).
13 If §1367(a) itself renders unnecessary the listing of Rule 20 plain-

tiffs and Rule 23 class actions in §1367(b), see supra, at 16–17, then it
is similarly unnecessary to refer, as §1367(b) does, to “persons proposed
to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19.” On one account, Congress
bracketed such persons with persons “seeking to intervene as plaintiffs
under Rule 24” to modify pre-§1367 practice. Before enactment of
§1367, courts entertained, under the heading ancillary jurisdiction,
 Cite as: 545 U. S. ____ (2005) 19

GINSBURG, J., dissenting

reading, I am persuaded, better accords with the historical
and legal context of Congress’ enactment of the supple-
mental jurisdiction statute, see supra, at 6–8, 11, and the
established limits on pendent and ancillary jurisdiction,
see supra, at 4–6. It does not attribute to Congress a
jurisdictional enlargement broader than the one to which
the legislators adverted, cf. Finley, 490 U. S., at 549, and it
follows the sound counsel that “close questions of [statu-
tory] construction should be resolved in favor of continuity
and against change.” Shapiro, Continuity and Change in
Statutory Interpretation, 67 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 921, 925
(1992).14
* * *
For the reasons stated, I would hold that §1367 does not
overrule Clark and Zahn. I would therefore affirm the
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and
reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Elev-
enth Circuit.

——————
claims of Rule 24(a) intervenors “of right,” see Owen Equipment &
Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 375, n. 18 (1978), but denied ancil-
lary jurisdiction over claims of “necessary” Rule 19 plaintiffs, see 13
Wright & Miller §3523, p. 127 (2d ed. Supp. 2005). Congress may have
sought simply to underscore that those seeking to join as plaintiffs,
whether under Rule 19 or Rule 24, should be treated alike, i.e., denied
joinder when “inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section
1332.” See Ortega, 370 F. 3d, at 140, and n. 15 (internal quotation marks
omitted); H. R. Rep., at 29 (“Subsection (b) makes one small change in pre-
Finley practice,” i.e., it eliminates the Rule 19/Rule 24 anomaly.).
14 While the interpretation of §1367 described in this opinion does not

rely on the measure’s legislative history, that history, as JUSTICE STEVENS
has shown, see ante, at 1 (dissenting opinion), is corroborative of the
statutory reading set out above.