70
Opinion of the Court
III
We note, initially, two "givens" in this case as we have accepted it for review. First, the District Court, in its decision denying Lewis' timely motion to remand, incorrectly treated Whayne Supply, the nondiverse defendant, as effectively dropped from the case prior to removal. See App. 55. Second, the Sixth Circuit correctly determined that the complete diversity requirement was not satisfied at the time of removal. App. to Pet. for Cert. 8a-9a.7 We accordingly home in on this question: Does the District Court's initial misjudgment still burden and run with the case, or is it overcome by the eventual dismissal of the nondiverse defendant?
Petitioner Caterpillar relies heavily on our decisions in American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Finn, 341 U. S. 6 (1951), and Grubbs v. General Elec. Credit Corp., 405 U. S. 699 (1972), urging that these decisions "long ago settled the proposition that remand to the state court is unnecessary even if jurisdiction did not exist at the time of removal, so long as the district court had subject matter jurisdiction at the time of judgment." Brief for Petitioner 8-9. Caterpillar is right that Finn and Grubbs are key cases in point and tend in Caterpillar's favor. Each suggests that the existence of subject-matter jurisdiction at time of judgment may shield a judgment against later jurisdictional attack. But neither decision resolves dispositively a controversy of the kind we face, for neither involved a plaintiff who moved
shall be remanded. . . . The State court may thereupon proceed with such case."
7 Caterpillar's petition for certiorari raised the question whether the subrogation claim asserted by Liberty Mutual, and thus the citizenship of Whayne Supply, should be disregarded for purposes of determining diversity of citizenship, in view of the settlement agreed upon between Lewis and Whayne Supply. See Pet. for Cert. i, 18-23. Our order granting review did not encompass that question, see 517 U. S. 1133 (1996), and we express no opinion on it.
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