Tagged: Supplemental Jurisdiction

The United States Supreme Court clarified this month in Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger that when a plaintiff amends her complaint, following removal from state to federal court, to “cut[] out all her federal-law claims, federal-question jurisdiction dissolves” and the case must be remanded “to the state court where it started.” In Royal Canin, Anastasia Wullschleger purchased “a brand of dog food available only with a veterinarian’s prescription” and “sold at a premium price,” thinking that the dog food “contained medication not found in off-the-shelf products.” When Ms. Wullschleger learned that, despite its trappings, the dog food was just “ordinary dog food,” she brought suit in Missouri state court, filing a complaint that included asserted violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), as well as factually intertwined state-law claims. The defendant dog food company removed Ms. Wullschleger’s complaint from state to federal court based on federal-question jurisdiction resulting from the FDCA. In response, Ms. Wullschleger amended her complaint to remove any reference to the FDCA, and she asked the federal court to remand the case back to state court, arguing that there was no longer federal jurisdiction over the “amended, all-state-law complaint.” The district court denied Ms. Wullschleger’s petition. It reasoned that federal jurisdiction could not be unilaterally eliminated by a plaintiff’s...