76
Opinion of the Court
courts' diversity jurisdiction and a party defendant whose presence, like Whayne Supply's in this case, blocked complete diversity. Newman-Green proceeded to summary judgment with the jurisdictional flaw—the absence of complete diversity—undetected. See id., at 828-829. The Court of Appeals noticed the flaw, invited the parties to address it, and, en banc, returned the case to the District Court "to determine whether it would be prudent to drop [the jurisdiction spoiler] from the litigation." Id., at 830. We held that the Court of Appeals itself had authority "to dismiss a dispensable nondiverse party," although we recognized that, ordinarily, district courts are better positioned to make such judgments. Id., at 837-838. "[R]equiring dismissal after years of litigation," the Court stressed in Newman-Green, "would impose unnecessary and wasteful burdens on the parties, judges, and other litigants waiting for judicial attention." Id., at 836. The same may be said of the remand to state court Lewis seeks here. Cf. Knop v. McMahan, 872 F. 2d 1132, 1139, n. 16 (CA3 1989) ("To permit a case in which there is complete diversity throughout trial to proceed to judgment and then cancel the effect of that judgment and relegate the parties to a new trial in a state court because of a brief lack of complete diversity at the beginning of the case would be a waste of judicial resources.").
Our view is in harmony with a main theme of the removal scheme Congress devised. Congress ordered a procedure calling for expeditious superintendence by district courts. The lawmakers specified a short time, 30 days, for motions to remand for defects in removal procedure, 28 U. S. C. § 1447(c), and district court orders remanding cases to state courts generally are "not reviewable on appeal or otherwise," § 1447(d). Congress did not similarly exclude appellate review of refusals to remand. But an evident concern that may explain the lack of symmetry relates to the federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction. Despite a federal trial court's threshold denial of a motion to remand, if, at the end
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