Cite as: 522 U. S. 470 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
333 U. S. 591, 597 (1948) ("The judgment puts an end to the cause of action, which cannot again be brought into litigation between the parties upon any ground whatever, absent fraud or some other factor invalidating the judgment."). Under the well-pleaded complaint rule, preclusion thus remains a defensive plea involving no recasting of the plaintiff's complaint, and is therefore not a proper basis for removal.
In holding removal appropriate here, the Court of Appeals relied on a footnote—the second one—in our Moitie opinion. The Fifth Circuit is not alone in concluding from the Moitie footnote that removal properly may rest on the alleged preclusive effect of a prior federal judgment. See supra, at 474, n. 2. The Moitie footnote, however, was a marginal comment and will not bear the heavy weight lower courts have placed on it.
We granted certiorari in Moitie principally to address the Ninth Circuit's "novel exception to the doctrine of res judicata." 452 U. S., at 398. In that case, several actions alleging price fixing by department stores in California were consolidated in federal court and dismissed. Most of the plaintiffs appealed and obtained a reversal, but two chose instead to file separate claims in state court. The defendants removed the actions to Federal District Court, where plaintiffs unsuccessfully moved to remand and defendants successfully moved to dismiss the actions on preclusion grounds. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that removal was proper, but held that preclusion did not apply in the unique circumstances of the case. Moitie v. Federated Department Stores, Inc., 611 F. 2d 1267 (1980).
In the course of reversing the Ninth Circuit's holding on preclusion, we noted, without elaboration, our agreement with the Court of Appeals that "at least some of the claims had a sufficient federal character to support removal." 452 U. S., at 397, n. 2. In that case-specific context, we declined to "question . . . [the District Court's] factual finding" that
477
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