Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, 2 (1996)

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368

MATSUSHITA ELEC. INDUSTRIAL CO. v. EPSTEIN

Syllabus

plicable, Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U. S. 373, 380. Pp. 373-375. (b) Marrese provides the analytical framework for deciding whether the Delaware judgment precludes this exclusively federal action. A federal court must first determine whether the rendering State's law indicates that the claim would be barred from litigation in a court of that State; if so, the federal court must decide whether, as an exception to § 1738, it should refuse to give preclusive effect to the state-court judgment. P. 375. (c) Delaware Supreme Court cases have provided rules regarding the preclusive force of class-action settlement agreements in subsequent state-court suits and have also spoken to the effect of such judgments in federal court, indicating that when the Chancery Court approves a global release of claims, its settlement judgment will preclude ongoing or future federal-court litigation of any released claims. Thus, it appears that a Delaware court would give this settlement judgment preclusive effect in a subsequent proceeding, notwithstanding the fact that respondents could not have pressed their Exchange Act claims in the Chancery Court. The release in the judgment specifically refers to this lawsuit, the state courts found the settlement fair and the class notice adequate, and respondents acknowledge that they did not opt out of the class. Pp. 375-379. (d) Because it appears that the judgment would be res judicata under Delaware law, this Court must proceed to the second step of the Marrese analysis and ask whether § 27 of the Exchange Act partially repealed § 1738. Any such modification must be implied, but this Court has seldom, if ever, held that a federal statute impliedly repealed § 1738. There is no suggestion in § 27 that Congress meant to contravene the common-law rules of preclusion or to repeal § 1738's express statutory requirement. Nor does § 27 evince any intent to prevent a state-court litigant from voluntarily releasing Exchange Act claims in judicially approved settlements. Assuming that § 27 is intended to serve at least the general purposes of achieving greater uniformity of construction and more effective and expert application of the Exchange Act, a state court threatens neither purpose when it upholds a settlement releasing Exchange Act claims. In addition, other provisions of the Exchange Act suggest that Congress did not intend to create an exception to § 1738 for suits alleging violations of the Act, and precedent supports the conclusion that the concerns underlying the grant of exclusive jurisdiction in § 27 are not undermined by state-court approval of settlements releasing Exchange Act claims. Even when exclusively federal claims are at stake, there is no universal right to litigate such claims in federal court. See, e. g., Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 105. Pp. 380-386.

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