474
Opinion of the Court
Carpenter, 44 F. 3d, at 370). Carpenter's holding, the Court of Appeals thought, was dictated by the second footnote to our decision in Moitie, 452 U. S., at 397, n. 2.
In dissent, Judge Jones maintained that removal is appropriate under Moitie only where a plaintiff loses in federal court on an "essentially federal" claim and, recharacterizing the claim as one based on state law, files again in state court. 108 F. 3d, at 594. She concluded that removal here was improper because there was nothing federal about petitioners' claim.
The Courts of Appeals have adopted differing views regarding the propriety of removing a state-court action to federal court on the ground that the claim asserted is precluded by a prior federal judgment.2 We granted certiorari, 521 U. S. 1152 (1997), to resolve the matter.
II
A
A state-court action may be removed to federal court if it qualifies as a "civil action . . . of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction," unless Congress expressly provides otherwise. 28 U. S. C. § 1441(a). In this case, respondents invoked, in support of removal, the district courts' original federal-question jurisdiction over "[a]ny civil action . . . founded on a claim or right arising
2 Compare In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs, 123 F. 3d 599, 612 (CA7 1997) (removal is allowed where "sole basis for filing a state suit is to get around . . . a federal judgment"), cert. pending sub nom. Abbott Labs v. Huggins, No. 97-775; and Ultramar America, Ltd. v. Dwelle, 900 F. 2d 1412, 1415-1417 (CA9 1990) (removal permitted "where a plaintiff files state claims after a federal judgment has been entered . . . on essentially the same claims," provided the federal judgment sounds in federal law), with Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Sarkisian, 794 F. 2d 754, 759-761 (CA2 1986) (removal under Moitie permitted only where the elements of a plaintiff's state-law claim are virtually identical to the elements of a federal claim the plaintiff previously elected to file in federal court).
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007