Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 14 (1999)

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Cite as: 526 U. S. 574 (1999)

Opinion of the Court

personal jurisdiction turns on federal constitutional issues, "federal intrusion into state courts' authority . . . is minimized"). The federal design allows leeway for sensitive judgments of this sort. " 'Our Federalism' "

"does not mean blind deference to 'States' Rights' any more than it means centralization of control over every important issue in our National Government and its courts. The Framers rejected both these courses. What the concept does represent is a system in which there is sensitivity to the legitimate interests of both State and National Governments." Younger, 401 U. S., at 44.

The Fifth Circuit and Marathon posit that state-court defendants will abuse the federal system with opportunistic removals. A discretionary rule, they suggest, will encourage manufactured, convoluted federal subject-matter theories designed to wrench cases from state court. See 145 F. 3d, at 219; Brief for Respondents 28-29. This specter of unwar-ranted removal, we have recently observed, "rests on an assumption we do not indulge—that district courts generally will not comprehend, or will balk at applying, the rules on removal Congress has prescribed. . . . The well-advised defendant . . . will foresee the likely outcome of an unwar-ranted removal—a swift and nonreviewable remand order, see 28 U. S. C. §§ 1447(c), (d), attended by the displeasure of a district court whose authority has been improperly invoked." Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 77-78 (1996).

C

In accord with Judge Higginbotham, we recognize that in most instances subject-matter jurisdiction will involve no arduous inquiry. See 145 F. 3d, at 229 ("engag[ing]" subject-matter jurisdiction "at the outset of a case . . . [is] often . . . the most efficient way of going"). In such cases, both expedition and sensitivity to state courts' coequal stature should

587

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