42
Opinion of the Court
should not be equally bound by a venue statute that just as categorically limits the authority of courts (and special panels) to override a plaintiff's choice. If the former statute creates interests too substantial to be denied without a remedy, the latter statute ought to be recognized as creating interests equally substantial. In each instance the substantiality of the protected interest is attested by a congressional judgment that in the circumstances described in the statute no discretion is to be left to a court faced with an objection to a statutory violation. To render relief discretionary in either instance would be to allow uncorrected defiance of a categorical congressional judgment to become its own justification. Accordingly, just as we agree with Milberg that the strict limitation on venue under, say, § 1391(a) (diversity action "may . . . be brought only . . .") is sufficient to establish the substantial character of any violation, Brief for Respondents Milberg et al. 43 (citing Olberding, supra), the equally strict remand requirement contained in § 1407 should suffice to establish the substantial significance of any denial of a plaintiff's right to a remand once the pretrial stage has been completed.
Nor is Milberg correct that our recent decision in Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61 (1996), is to the contrary.5 In
5 In its brief to this Court, Milberg suggests that any decision rejecting multidistrict litigation courts' practice of ruling on § 1404 transfer motions should be applied only prospectively under Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1971). Because this argument was not presented below, see Brief for Milberg Defendants in No. 95-16403 et al. (CA9), or to this Court when Milberg opposed petitioners' petition for certiorari, see Brief in Opposition for Respondents Milberg et al., it is unnecessary for us to consider it here.
Milberg's brief also argues that petitioners are not entitled to relief because the only claim that survived for trial should have been dismissed during pretrial proceedings. We do not address the propriety of the District Court's decision to allow this claim to go forward; the issue falls outside the question on which we granted certiorari. See this Court's Rule 14.1(a) ("Only the questions set forth in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court").
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