Dive Brief:

• Plaintiffs can alter their claims and reframe complaints to avoid the jurisdiction of federal court, potentially derailing some defendants’ ability to remove cases from state courts. The 9-0 Supreme Court decision Wednesday in Royal Canin v Wullschleger had been a case on federal removal of state lawsuits, watched closely by large companies, which are frequently sued in state courts.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with nine state business groups, had filed an amicus brief last year supporting the position of Royal Canin U.S.A and Nestlé Purina PetCare, the pet food maker defendants in the original state court complaint from Missouri. Twenty-two states had filed a brief supporting the Missouri plaintiffs’ view on keeping suits in state courts.
• The court granted certiorari to address split decisions among federal circuits, including a 2023 decision by the Eighth Circuit in Royal Canin agreeing with the plaintiffs that a complaint amended to remove federal claims ends district court jurisdiction.

Dive Insight:

“By adding or subtracting claims or parties, and thus reframing the suit, that pleading can alter a federal court’s authority. And so it is here,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court. “When a plaintiff, after removal, cuts out all her federal-law claims, federal-question jurisdiction dissolves. And with any federal anchor gone, supplemental jurisdiction over the residual state claims disappears as well.”

The ruling’s impact will likely be “limited” and mostly affect lawsuits with multiple claims in which a plaintiff can relinquish one or more, William Jay, a Goodwin Procter partner who represented the Chamber in its brief, told Legal Dive.

“People might try to take advantage of this ruling — even when there’s only one claim — to try to defeat removal based on a federal ingredient,” Jay said. “But there aren’t that many cases that are removed based on a federal ingredient anyway.”

In its brief to the court, the Chamber of Commerce had argued that the Eighth Circuit’s holding would be “particularly damaging to business defendants who are often sued in plaintiff-friendly state courts and rely on the removal right to ensure a fair forum for litigation.”

That reading, if not overturned, also “undermines predictability in jurisdictional rules, encourages forum manipulation, and degrades a defendant’s statutory right of removal,” the Chamber wrote.

Defendants often seek removal because the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure offer “a fairly robust inquiry that is needed to certify a class and federal rules of evidence have robust limits on junk science being introduced through expert witnesses,” Jay said.

Defendants and their lawyers weighing a state or federal venue are “always asking ‘compared to what?’” Jay said.

The pet food litigation began in state court in March 2019 in Missouri when two pet owners, Anastasia Wullschleger and Gerladine Brewer, filed a class action against Royal Canin USA and Nestlé Purina. 

The women said they had been deceived by the companies’ claims, as both sold pet food that required a veterinary prescription to purchase, which thus commanded a premium price. The plaintiffs said the prescription requirement made them believe the pet food contained medication not found in off-shelf foods, which it did not.

“The company sells the product with a prescription not because its ingredients make that necessary, but solely to fool consumers into paying a jacked-up price,” Kagan wrote.

The original lawsuit contained claims under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act and state antitrust law, plus alleged violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The defendants removed the case to federal court based on the latter law.

The plaintiffs then amended the suit to remove the federal claim.