132
Ginsburg, J., concurring
added § 1452 to the Judicial Code chapter on removal of cases from state courts—a chapter now comprising 28 U. S. C. §§ 1441-1452—meant to enlarge, not to rein in, federal trial court removal/remand authority for claims related to bankruptcy cases. The drafters, it bears emphasis, expressly contemplated that remand orders for claims related to bankruptcy cases "would not be appealable"; in particular, they reported that bankruptcy forum remands would be unre-viewable "in the same manner that an order of the United States district court remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise." H. R. Rep. No. 95-595, p. 51 (1977) (emphasis added).2
The lawmakers chose the capacious words "any equitable ground" with no hint whatever that they meant by their word choice to recall premerger distinctions between law
cating state-law claims merely "related to" a bankruptcy case, i. e., claims that do not independently qualify for federal-court jurisdiction.
Of course, every federal court, whether trial or appellate, is obliged to notice want of subject-matter jurisdiction on its own motion. See, e. g., Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884). An interlocutory decision "to not remand," therefore, although not per se reviewable, would leave open for eventual appellate consideration—also and earlier for district court reconsideration—any question of the court's subject-matter jurisdiction. See, e. g., Sykes v. Texas Air Corp., 834 F. 2d 488, 492, n. 16 (CA5 1987) ("When the district court decides to retain a case in the face of arguments that it lacks jurisdiction, the decision itself is technically unreviewable; but of course the appellate court reviewing any other aspect of the case must remand for dismissal if the refusal to remand was wrong, i. e., if there is no federal jurisdiction over the case.") (emphasis in original).
2 After the Court held inconsonant with Article III the Bankruptcy Act's broad grant of jurisdiction to bankruptcy judges, see Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 87 (1982), Congress transferred supervisory jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases to Article III courts and retained for the district courts the broad removal/remand authority the Act initially gave to bankruptcy courts. See Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-353, 98 Stat. 333.
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