484
Opinion of the Court
altered, divested, or diminished, as well as a detailed study of relevant statutes, Executive Branch policy as embodied in treaties and elsewhere, and administrative or judicial decisions," id., at 855-856 (footnote omitted). The same "considerations of comity," Iowa Mut. Ins. Co. v. LaPlante, 480 U. S. 9, 15 (1987), provided the rationale for extending the doctrine to cases where a defendant in tribal court asserts federal-diversity jurisdiction in a related action in district court. Id., at 16. Exhaustion was appropriate in each of those cases because "Congress is committed to a policy of supporting tribal self-government . . . [which] favors a rule that will provide the forum whose jurisdiction is being challenged the first opportunity to evaluate the factual and legal bases for the challenge." National Farmers Union Ins. Cos., supra, at 856.
This case differs markedly. By its unusual preemption provision, see 42 U. S. C. § 2014(hh),6 the Price-Anderson Act transforms into a federal action "any public liability action arising out of or resulting from a nuclear incident," § 2210(n)(2). The Act not only gives a district court original jurisdiction over such a claim, see ibid., but provides for removal to a federal court as of right if a putative Price-Anderson action is brought in a state court, see ibid. Congress thus expressed an unmistakable preference for a federal forum, at the behest of the defending party, both for
6 This structure, in which a public liability action becomes a federal action, but one decided under substantive state-law rules of decision that do not conflict with the Price-Anderson Act, see 42 U. S. C. § 2014(hh), resembles what we have spoken of as " 'complete pre-emption' doctrine," see Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U. S. 386, 393 (1987), under which "the pre-emptive force of a statute is so 'extraordinary' that it 'converts an ordinary state common-law complaint into one stating a federal claim for purposes of the well-pleaded complaint rule,' " ibid. (quoting Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58, 65 (1987)). We have found complete preemption to exist under the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, see Caterpillar Inc., supra, at 393-394, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, see Metropolitan Life, supra, at 65-66.
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007