Cite as: 539 U. S. 1 (2003)
Scalia, J., dissenting
such a right is transmogrified into the claim of a federal right. Congress's mere act of creating a federal right and eliminating all state-created rights in no way suggests an expansion of federal jurisdiction so as to wrest from state courts the authority to decide questions of pre-emption under the National Bank Act.
Petitioners seek to justify their end run around the well-pleaded-complaint rule by insisting that, in determining whether federal jurisdiction exists, we are required to " 'look beyond the pleadings.' " Brief for Petitioners 18 (quoting Indianapolis v. Chase Nat. Bank, 314 U. S. 63, 69 (1941)). They point out:
"[A] long line of cases disallow[s] manipulations by plaintiffs designed to create or avoid diversity jurisdiction, such as misaligning the interests of the parties, naming parties (whether plaintiffs or defendants) who have no real interest in or relationship to the controversy, mis-stating the citizenship of a party (whether plaintiffs or defendants), or misstating the amount in controversy." Brief for Petitioners 17-18.
Petitioners insist that, like the "manipulative" complaints in these diversity cases, "[r]espondents' complaint is disingenuously pleaded, not 'well pleaded' in any respect, for it purports to raise a state law claim that does not exist." Id., at 16. Accordingly, the argument continues, just as federal courts may assert jurisdiction where a plaintiff seeks to hide the true citizenship of the parties, so too they may assert jurisdiction where a plaintiff cloaks a necessarily federal claim in state-law garb.
To begin with, the cases involving diversity jurisdiction are probably distinguishable on the ground that there is a crucial difference between, on the one hand, "looking beyond the pleadings" to determine whether a factual assertion is true, and, on the other hand, doing so in order to determine whether the plaintiff has proceeded on the basis of the "cor-
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