County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., No. 18-15499 (9th Cir. 2020)
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Counties and cities filed six complaints in California state court against energy companies, alleging nuisance and other causes of action arising from the role of fossil fuel products in global warming. After removal to federal court, the district court granted plaintiffs' motion to remand.
The Ninth Circuit held, under 28 U.S.C. 1447(d), that the single ground of removal that it has jurisdiction to review is whether the district court erred in holding that there was no subject matter jurisdiction under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442(a)(1). Therefore, the panel dismissed in part for lack of jurisdiction to the extent the energy companies seek review of the district court's ruling as to other bases for subject matter jurisdiction. The panel affirmed in part, holding that the district court did not err in holding that there was no subject matter jurisdiction under section 1442(a)(1) where the energy companies failed to establish that they were "acting under" a federal officer's directions.
Court Description: Removal/Subject-Matter Jurisdiction/Appellate. Jurisdiction On appeal from the district court’s order remanding complaints to the state court from which they had been removed, the panel dismissed the appeal in part for lack of jurisdiction and affirmed in part, holding that defendants did not carry their burden of establishing the criteria for federal- officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The County of San Mateo and other cities and counties filed six complaints in California state court against more than thirty energy companies, alleging nuisance and other causes of action arising from the role of fossil fuel products in global warming. The energy companies removed the cases to federal court. The district court granted plaintiffs’ motions to remand, rejecting all eight of the grounds on which the energy companies relied for subject-matter jurisdiction. Dismissing in part, the panel held that under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), it had jurisdiction to review the removal order only to the extent the order addressed whether removal was proper under § 1442(a)(1). The panel concluded that the non- reviewability clause of § 1447(d) applied because the district court remanded based on a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Declining to follow the Seventh Circuit, the panel held that under the “exception clause” of § 1447(d), authorizing review of removal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1442 and 1443, it had 8 COUNTY OF SAN MATEO V. CHEVRON CORP. jurisdiction to review whether removal was proper under § 1442(a)(1), but the exception clause did not subject the district court’s entire remand order to plenary review. The panel followed Patel v. Del Taco, Inc., 446 F.3d 996 (9th Cir. 2006), concluding that Patel was not abrogated either by intervening judicial authority or by Congress’s 2011 amendment of § 1447(d) to insert § 1442. Affirming in part, the panel held that the district court did not err in holding that there was no subject-matter jurisdiction under the federal-officer removal statute. The panel concluded that the energy companies failed to establish that they were “acting under” a federal officer’s directions based on three agreements with the government: CITGO’s fuel supply agreements with the Navy Exchange Service Command, a unit agreement for the petroleum reserves at Elk Hills between Standard Oil Company of California and the U.S. Navy, and the energy companies’ Oil and Gas Leases of Submerged Lands Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on April 19, 2022.
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