Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc.

OPINION OF THE COURT EXXON MOBIL CORP. V. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC. 545 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NOS. 04-70 AND 04-79 EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER

															04–70 v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., et al. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eleventh circuit

															MARIA del ROSARIO ORTEGA, et al.,
PETITIONERS

															04–79 v. STAR-KIST FOODS, INC. on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the first circuit [June 23, 2005] Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

															   These consolidated cases present
the question whether a federal court in a diversity action may
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional plaintiffs whose
claims do not satisfy the minimum amount-in-controversy
requirement, provided the claims are part of the same case or
controversy as the claims of plaintiffs who do allege a sufficient
amount in controversy. Our decision turns on the correct
interpretation of 28 U. S. C. §1367. The question has divided
the Courts of Appeals, and we granted certiorari to resolve the
conflict. 543 U. S. ___ (2004).

															   We hold that, where the other elements of
jurisdiction are present and at least one named plaintiff in the
action satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, §1367 does
authorize supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of other
plaintiffs in the same Article III case or controversy, even if
those claims are for less than the jurisdictional amount specified
in the statute setting forth the requirements for diversity
jurisdiction. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit in No. 04–70, and we reverse the judgment of
the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in No. 04–79.

															I

															   In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon
dealers filed a class-action suit against the Exxon Corporation in
the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Florida. The dealers alleged an intentional and systematic scheme
by Exxon under which they were overcharged for fuel purchased from
Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District Court’s §1332(a)
diversity jurisdiction. After a unanimous jury verdict in favor of
the plaintiffs, the District Court certified the case for
interlocutory review, asking whether it had properly exercised
§1367 supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class members
who did not meet the jurisdictional minimum amount in
controversy.

															   The Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court’s extension of
supplemental jurisdiction to these class members. Allapattah
Services, Inc. v. Exxon Corp. , 333 F. 3d 1248
(2003). “[W]e find,” the court held, “that §1367 clearly and
unambiguously provides district courts with the authority in
diversity class actions to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
the claims of class members who do not meet the minimum amount in
controversy as long as the district court has original jurisdiction
over the claims of at least one of the class representatives.” Id ., at 1256. This decision accords with the views of the
Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits. See Rosmer v. Pfizer, Inc. , 263 F. 3d 110 (CA4
2001); Olden v. LaFarge Corp. , 383 F. 3d 495
(CA6 2004); Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press
Mechanical, Inc. , 77 F. 3d 928 (CA7 1996); In re
Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litigation , 123
F. 3d 599 (CA7 1997). The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and
Ninth Circuits, adopting a similar analysis of the statute, have
held that in a diversity class action the unnamed class members
need not meet the amount-in-controversy requirement, provided the
named class members do. These decisions, however, are unclear on
whether all the named plaintiffs must satisfy this requirement. In re Abbott Labs. , 51 F. 3d 524 (CA5 1995); Gibson v. Chrysler Corp. , 261 F. 3d 927 (CA9
2001).

															   In the other case now before us the Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit took a different position on the
meaning of §1367(a). 370 F. 3d 124 (2004). In that case, a
9-year-old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United
States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, seeking
damages for unusually severe injuries she received when she sliced
her finger on a tuna can. Her family joined in the suit, seeking
damages for emotional distress and certain medical expenses. The
District Court granted summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that
none of the plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-controversy
requirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however,
ruled that the injured girl, but not her family members, had made
allegations of damages in the requisite amount.

															   The Court of Appeals then addressed whether,
in light of the fact that one plaintiff met the requirements for
original jurisdiction, supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining
plaintiffs’ claims was proper under §1367. The court held that
§1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction only when the district
court has original jurisdiction over the action, and that in a
diversity case original jurisdiction is lacking if one plaintiff
fails to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Although
the Court of Appeals claimed to “express no view” on whether the
result would be the same in a class action, id ., at 143,
n. 19, its analysis is inconsistent with that of the Court of
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit’s view of §1367 is, however, shared by the Courts of
Appeal for the Third, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, and the latter
two Courts of Appeals have expressly applied this rule to class
actions. See Meritcare, Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Ins.
Co. , 166 F. 3d 214 (CA3 1999); Trimble v. Asarco, Inc. , 232 F. 3d 946 (CA8 2000); Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co. , 160 F. 3d
631 (CA10 1998).

															II

															A

															   The district courts of the United
States, as we have said many times, are “courts of limited
jurisdiction. They possess only that power authorized by
Constitution and statute,” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life
Ins. Co. of America, 511 U. S. 375 , 377
(1994). In order to provide a federal forum for plaintiffs who seek
to vindicate federal rights, Congress has conferred on the district
courts original jurisdiction in federal-question cases—civil
actions that arise under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the
United States. 28 U. S. C. §1331. In order to provide a
neutral forum for what have come to be known as diversity cases,
Congress also has granted district courts original jurisdiction in
civil actions between citizens of different States, between U. S.
citizens and foreign citizens, or by foreign states against U. S.
citizens. §1332. To ensure that diversity jurisdiction does not
flood the federal courts with minor disputes, §1332(a) requires
that the matter in controversy in a diversity case exceed a
specified amount, currently $75,000. §1332(a).

															   Although the district courts may
not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis, it is well
established—in certain classes of cases—that, once a court has
original jurisdiction over some claims in the action, it may
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims that are
part of the same case or controversy. The leading modern case for
this principle is Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966). In Gibbs , the plaintiff alleged the defendant’s conduct
violated both federal and state law. The District Court, Gibbs held, had original jurisdiction over the action
based on the federal claims. Gibbs confirmed that the
District Court had the additional power (though not the obligation)
to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over related state claims
that arose from the same Article III case or controversy. Id ., at 725 (“The federal claim must have substance
sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the
court… . [A]ssuming substantiality of the federal issues,
there is power in federal courts to hear the whole”).

															   As we later noted, the decision allowing
jurisdiction over pendent state claims in Gibbs did not
mention, let alone come to grips with, the text of the
jurisdictional statutes and the bedrock principle that federal
courts have no jurisdiction without statutory authorization. Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 , 548 (1989). In Finley , we nonetheless reaffirmed and rationalized Gibbs and its progeny by inferring from it the
interpretive principle that, in cases involving supplemental
jurisdiction over additional claims between parties properly in
federal court, the jurisdictional statutes should be read broadly,
on the assumption that in this context Congress intended to
authorize courts to exercise their full Article III power to
dispose of an “ ‘entire action before the court [which]
comprises but one constitutional “case.”’ ” 490 U. S., at 549
(quoting Gibbs , supra , at 725).

															   We have not, however, applied Gibbs ’
expansive interpretive approach to other aspects of the
jurisdictional statutes. For instance, we have consistently
interpreted §1332 as requiring complete diversity: In a case with
multiple plaintiffs and multiple defendants, the presence in the
action of a single plaintiff from the same State as a single
defendant deprives the district court of original diversity
jurisdiction over the entire action. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); Owen Equipment &
Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 , 375
(1978). The complete diversity requirement is not mandated by the
Constitution, State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523 , 530–531
(1967), or by the plain text of §1332(a). The Court, nonetheless,
has adhered to the complete diversity rule in light of the purpose
of the diversity requirement, which is to provide a federal forum
for important disputes where state courts might favor, or be
perceived as favoring, home-state litigants. The presence of
parties from the same State on both sides of a case dispels this
concern, eliminating a principal reason for conferring §1332
jurisdiction over any of the claims in the action. See Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381 ,
389 (1998); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826 , 829
(1989). The specific purpose of the complete diversity rule
explains both why we have not adopted Gibbs ’ expansive
interpretive approach to this aspect of the jurisdictional statute
and why Gibbs does not undermine the complete diversity
rule. In order for a federal court to invoke supplemental
jurisdiction under Gibbs , it must first have original
jurisdiction over at least one claim in the action. Incomplete
diversity destroys original jurisdiction with respect to all
claims, so there is nothing to which supplemental jurisdiction can
adhere.

															   In contrast to the diversity requirement, most
of the other statutory prerequisites for federal jurisdiction,
including the federal-question and amount-in-controversy
requirements, can be analyzed claim by claim. True, it does not
follow by necessity from this that a district court has authority
to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over all claims provided
there is original jurisdiction over just one. Before the enactment
of §1367, the Court declined in contexts other than the
pendent-claim instance to follow Gibbs ’ expansive approach
to interpretation of the jurisdictional statutes. The Court took a
more restrictive view of the proper interpretation of these
statutes in so-called pendent-party cases involving supplemental
jurisdiction over claims involving additional parties—plaintiffs or
defendants—where the district courts would lack original
jurisdiction over claims by each of the parties standing alone.

															   Thus, with respect to plaintiff-specific
jurisdictional requirements, the Court held in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583 (1939),
that every plaintiff must separately satisfy the
amount-in-controversy requirement. Though Clark was a
federal-question case, at that time federal-question jurisdiction
had an amount-in-controversy requirement analogous to the
amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity cases. “Proper
practice,” Clark held, “requires that where each of
several plaintiffs is bound to establish the jurisdictional amount
with respect to his own claim, the suit should be dismissed as to
those who fail to show that the requisite amount is involved.” Id ., at 590. The Court reaffirmed this rule, in the
context of a class action brought invoking §1332(a) diversity
jurisdiction, in Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). It follows “inescapably” from Clark , the Court
held in Zahn , that “any plaintiff without the
jurisdictional amount must be dismissed from the case, even though
others allege jurisdictionally sufficient claims.” 414 U. S., at
300.

															   The Court took a similar approach with respect
to supplemental jurisdiction over claims against additional
defendants that fall outside the district courts’ original
jurisdiction. In Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the
plaintiff brought a 42 U. S. C. §1983 action against county
officials in district court pursuant to the statutory grant of
jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. §1343(3) (1976 ed.). The plaintiff
further alleged the court had supplemental jurisdiction over her
related state-law claims against the county, even though the county
was not suable under §1983 and so was not subject to §1343(3)’s
original jurisdiction. The Court held that supplemental
jurisdiction could not be exercised because Congress, in enacting
§1343(3), had declined (albeit implicitly) to extend federal
jurisdiction over any party who could not be sued under the federal
civil rights statutes. 427 U. S., at 16–19. “Before it can be
concluded that [supplemental] jurisdiction [over additional
parties] exists,” Aldinger held, “a federal court must
satisfy itself not only that Art[icle] III permits it, but
that Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has not
expressly or by implication negated its existence.” Id .,
at 18.

															   In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989), we confronted a
similar issue in a different statutory context. The plaintiff in Finley brought a Federal Tort Claims Act negligence suit
against the Federal Aviation Administration in District Court,
which had original jurisdiction under §1346(b). The plaintiff tried
to add related claims against other defendants, invoking the
District Court’s supplemental jurisdiction over so-called pendent
parties. We held that the District Court lacked a sufficient
statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over these
claims. Relying primarily on Zahn , Aldinger , and Kroger , we held in Finley that “a grant of
jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not
itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against
different parties.” 490 U. S., at 556. While Finley did
not “limit or impair” Gibbs ’ liberal approach to
interpreting the jurisdictional statutes in the context of
supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving the same
parties, 490 U. S., at 556, Finley nevertheless declined
to extend that interpretive assumption to claims involving
additional parties. Finley held that in the context of
parties, in contrast to claims, “we will not assume that the full
constitutional power has been congressionally authorized, and will
not read jurisdictional statutes broadly.” Id ., at
549.

															   As the jurisdictional statutes existed in
1989, then, here is how matters stood: First, the diversity
requirement in §1332(a) required complete diversity; absent
complete diversity, the district court lacked original jurisdiction
over all of the claims in the action. Strawbridge , 3
Cranch, at 267–268; Kroger , 437 U. S., at 373–374. Second,
if the district court had original jurisdiction over at least one
claim, the jurisdictional statutes implicitly authorized
supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims between the same
parties arising out of the same Article III case or controversy. Gibbs , 383 U. S., at 725. Third, even when the district
court had original jurisdiction over one or more claims between
particular parties, the jurisdictional statutes did not authorize
supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving other
parties. Clark , supra , at 590; Zahn , supra , at 300–301; Finley , supra , at
556.

															B

															   In Finley we emphasized
that “[w]hatever we say regarding the scope of jurisdiction
conferred by a particular statute can of course be changed by
Congress.” 490 U. S., at 556. In 1990, Congress accepted the
invitation. It passed the Judicial Improvements Act, 104 Stat.
5089, which enacted §1367, the provision which controls these
cases.

															   Section 1367 provides, in
relevant part:

															“(a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c)
or as expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil
action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the
district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other
claims that are so related to claims in the action within such
original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or
controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.
Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include claims that involve
the joinder or intervention of additional parties.

															“(b) In any civil action of which the district courts have
original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this title,
the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under
subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made
parties under Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as
plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as
plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising
supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent
with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332.”

															   All parties to this litigation
and all courts to consider the question agree that §1367 overturned
the result in Finley . There is no warrant, however, for
assuming that §1367 did no more than to overrule Finley and otherwise to codify the existing state of the law of
supplemental jurisdiction. We must not give jurisdictional statutes
a more expansive interpretation than their text warrants, 490 U.
S., at 549, 556; but it is just as important not to adopt an
artificial construction that is narrower than what the text
provides. No sound canon of interpretation requires Congress to
speak with extraordinary clarity in order to modify the rules of
federal jurisdiction within appropriate constitutional bounds.
Ordinary principles of statutory construction apply. In order to
determine the scope of supplemental jurisdiction authorized by
§1367, then, we must examine the statute’s text in light of
context, structure, and related statutory provisions. Section 1367(a) is a broad grant
of supplemental jurisdiction over other claims within the same case
or controversy, as long as the action is one in which the district
courts would have original jurisdiction. The last sentence of
§1367(a) makes it clear that the grant of supplemental jurisdiction
extends to claims involving joinder or intervention of additional
parties. The single question before us, therefore, is whether a
diversity case in which the claims of some plaintiffs satisfy the
amount-in-controversy requirement, but the claims of others
plaintiffs do not, presents a “civil action of which the district
courts have original jurisdiction.” If the answer is yes, §1367(a)
confers supplemental jurisdiction over all claims, including those
that do not independently satisfy the amount-in-controversy
requirement, if the claims are part of the same Article III case or
controversy. If the answer is no, §1367(a) is inapplicable and, in
light of our holdings in Clark and Zahn , the
district court has no statutory basis for exercising supplemental
jurisdiction over the additional claims. We now conclude the answer must be
yes. When the well-pleaded complaint contains at least one claim
that satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, and there are
no other relevant jurisdictional defects, the district court,
beyond all question, has original jurisdiction over that claim. The
presence of other claims in the complaint, over which the district
court may lack original jurisdiction, is of no moment. If the court
has original jurisdiction over a single claim in the complaint, it
has original jurisdiction over a “civil action” within the meaning
of §1367(a), even if the civil action over which it has
jurisdiction comprises fewer claims than were included in the
complaint. Once the court determines it has original jurisdiction
over the civil action, it can turn to the question whether it has a
constitutional and statutory basis for exercising supplemental
jurisdiction over the other claims in the action. Section 1367(a) commences with the
direction that §§1367(b) and (c), or other relevant statutes, may
provide specific exceptions, but otherwise §1367(a) is a broad
jurisdictional grant, with no distinction drawn between
pendent-claim and pendent-party cases. In fact, the last sentence
of §1367(a) makes clear that the provision grants supplemental
jurisdiction over claims involving joinder or intervention of
additional parties. The terms of §1367 do not acknowledge any
distinction between pendent jurisdiction and the doctrine of
so-called ancillary jurisdiction. Though the doctrines of pendent
and ancillary jurisdiction developed separately as a historical
matter, the Court has recognized that the doctrines are “two
species of the same generic problem,” Kroger , 437 U. S.,
at 370. Nothing in §1367 indicates a congressional intent to
recognize, preserve, or create some meaningful, substantive
distinction between the jurisdictional categories we have
historically labeled pendent and ancillary. If §1367(a) were the sum total of
the relevant statutory language, our holding would rest on that
language alone. The statute, of course, instructs us to examine
§1367(b) to determine if any of its exceptions apply, so we proceed
to that section. While §1367(b) qualifies the broad rule of
§1367(a), it does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the
claims of the additional parties at issue here. The specific
exceptions to §1367(a) contained in §1367(b), moreover, provide
additional support for our conclusion that §1367(a) confers
supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. Section 1367(b), which
applies only to diversity cases, withholds supplemental
jurisdiction over the claims of plaintiffs proposed to be joined as
indispensable parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, or
who seek to intervene pursuant to Rule 24. Nothing in the text of
§1367(b), however, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the
claims of plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20 (like the
additional plaintiffs in No. 04–79) or certified as class-action
members pursuant to Rule 23 (like the additional plaintiffs in No.
04–70). The natural, indeed the necessary, inference is that §1367
confers supplemental jurisdiction over claims by Rule 20 and Rule
23 plaintiffs. This inference, at least with respect to Rule 20
plaintiffs, is strengthened by the fact that §1367(b) explicitly
excludes supplemental jurisdiction over claims against defendants
joined under Rule 20. We cannot accept the view, urged
by some of the parties, commentators, and Courts of Appeals, that a
district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil action
unless the court has original jurisdiction over every claim in the
complaint. As we understand this position, it requires assuming
either that all claims in the complaint must stand or fall as a
single, indivisible “civil action” as a matter of definitional
necessity—what we will refer to as the “indivisibility theory”—or
else that the inclusion of a claim or party falling outside the
district court’s original jurisdiction somehow contaminates every
other claim in the complaint, depriving the court of original
jurisdiction over any of these claims—what we will refer to as the
“contamination theory.” The indivisibility theory is
easily dismissed, as it is inconsistent with the whole notion of
supplemental jurisdiction. If a district court must have original
jurisdiction over every claim in the complaint in order to have
“original jurisdiction” over a “civil action,” then in Gibbs there was no civil action of which the district
court could assume original jurisdiction under §1331, and so no
basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over any of the
claims. The indivisibility theory is further belied by our
practice—in both federal-question and diversity cases—of allowing
federal courts to cure jurisdictional defects by dismissing the
offending parties rather than dismissing the entire action. Clark , for example, makes clear that claims that are
jurisdictionally defective as to amount in controversy do not
destroy original jurisdiction over other claims. 306 U. S., at 590
(dismissing parties who failed to meet the amount-in-controversy
requirement but retaining jurisdiction over the remaining party).
If the presence of jurisdictionally problematic claims in the
complaint meant the district court was without original
jurisdiction over the single, indivisible civil action before it,
then the district court would have to dismiss the whole action
rather than particular parties. We also find it unconvincing to
say that the definitional indivisibility theory applies in the
context of diversity cases but not in the context of
federal-question cases. The broad and general language of the
statute does not permit this result. The contention is premised on
the notion that the phrase “original jurisdiction of all civil
actions” means different things in §1331 and §1332. It is
implausible, however, to say that the identical phrase means one
thing (original jurisdiction in all actions where at least one
claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in §1331
and something else (original jurisdiction in all actions where
every claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in
§1332. The contamination theory, as we
have noted, can make some sense in the special context of the
complete diversity requirement because the presence of nondiverse
parties on both sides of a lawsuit eliminates the justification for
providing a federal forum. The theory, however, makes little sense
with respect to the amount-in-controversy requirement, which is
meant to ensure that a dispute is sufficiently important to warrant
federal-court attention. The presence of a single nondiverse party
may eliminate the fear of bias with respect to all claims, but the
presence of a claim that falls short of the minimum amount in
controversy does nothing to reduce the importance of the claims
that do meet this requirement. It is fallacious to suppose,
simply from the proposition that §1332 imposes both the diversity
requirement and the amount-in-controversy requirement, that the
contamination theory germane to the former is also relevant to the
latter. There is no inherent logical connection between the
amount-in-controversy requirement and §1332 diversity jurisdiction.
After all, federal-question jurisdiction once had an
amount-in-controversy requirement as well. If such a requirement
were revived under §1331, it is clear beyond peradventure that
§1367(a) provides supplemental jurisdiction over federal-question
cases where some, but not all, of the federal-law claims involve a
sufficient amount in controversy. In other words, §1367(a)
unambiguously overrules the holding and the result in Clark . If that is so, however, it would be quite
extraordinary to say that §1367 did not also overrule Zahn , a case that was premised in substantial part on the
holding in Clark . In addition to the theoretical
difficulties with the argument that a district court has original
jurisdiction over a civil action only if it has original
jurisdiction over each individual claim in the complaint, we have
already considered and rejected a virtually identical argument in
the closely analogous context of removal jurisdiction. In Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), the plaintiff brought federal- and state-law claims in
state court. The defendant removed to federal court. The plaintiff
objected to removal, citing the text of the removal statute,
§1441(a). That statutory provision, which bears a striking
similarity to the relevant portion of §1367, authorizes removal of
“any civil action … of which the district courts of the United
States have original jurisdiction … .” The College of
Surgeons plaintiff urged that, because its state-law claims
were not within the District Court’s original jurisdiction,
§1441(a) did not authorize removal. We disagreed. The federal law
claims, we held, “suffice to make the actions ‘civil actions’
within the ‘original jurisdiction’ of the district courts … .
Nothing in the jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence
of related state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the
plaintiff’s] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were
‘civil actions’ within the federal courts’ ‘original
jurisdiction.’ ” Id ., at 166. Once the case was
removed, the District Court had original jurisdiction over the
federal law claims and supplemental jurisdiction under §1367(a)
over the state-law claims. Id ., at 165. The dissent in College of
Surgeons argued that because the plaintiff sought
on-the-record review of a local administrative agency decision, the
review it sought was outside the scope of the District Court’s
jurisdiction. Id ., at 177 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.). We
rejected both the suggestion that state-law claims involving
administrative appeals are beyond the scope of §1367 supplemental
jurisdiction, id ., at 168–172 (opinion of the Court), and
the claim that the administrative review posture of the case
deprived the District Court of original jurisdiction over the
federal-law claims in the case, id ., at 163–168. More
importantly for present purposes, College of Surgeons stressed that a district court has original jurisdiction of a civil
action for purposes of §1441(a) as long as it has original
jurisdiction over a subset of the claims constituting the action.
Even the College of Surgeons dissent, which took issue
with the Court’s interpretation of §1367, did not appear to contest
this view of §1441(a). Although College of
Surgeons involved additional claims between the same parties,
its interpretation of §1441(a) applies equally to cases involving
additional parties whose claims fall short of the jurisdictional
amount. If we were to adopt the contrary view that the presence of
additional parties means there is no “civil action … of which the
district courts … have original jurisdiction,” those cases simply
would not be removable. To our knowledge, no court has issued a
reasoned opinion adopting this view of the removal statute. It is
settled, of course, that absent complete diversity a case is not
removable because the district court would lack original
jurisdiction. Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61 , 73 (1996).
This, however, is altogether consistent with our view of §1441(a).
A failure of complete diversity, unlike the failure of some claims
to meet the requisite amount in controversy, contaminates every
claim in the action. We also reject the argument,
similar to the attempted distinction of College of
Surgeons discussed above, that while the presence of
additional claims over which the district court lacks jurisdiction
does not mean the civil action is outside the purview of §1367(a),
the presence of additional parties does. The basis for this
distinction is not altogether clear, and it is in considerable
tension with statutory text. Section 1367(a) applies by its terms
to any civil action of which the district courts have original
jurisdiction, and the last sentence of §1367(a) expressly
contemplates that the court may have supplemental jurisdiction over
additional parties. So it cannot be the case that the presence of
those parties destroys the court’s original jurisdiction, within
the meaning of §1367(a), over a civil action otherwise properly
before it. Also, §1367(b) expressly withholds supplemental
jurisdiction in diversity cases over claims by plaintiffs joined as
indispensable parties under Rule 19. If joinder of such parties
were sufficient to deprive the district court of original
jurisdiction over the civil action within the meaning of §1367(a),
this specific limitation on supplemental jurisdiction in §1367(b)
would be superfluous. The argument that the presence of additional
parties removes the civil action from the scope of §1367(a) also would mean that §1367 left the Finley result
undisturbed. Finley , after all, involved a Federal Tort
Claims Act suit against a federal defendant and state-law claims
against additional defendants not otherwise subject to federal
jurisdiction. Yet all concede that one purpose of §1367 was to
change the result reached in Finley . Finally, it is
suggested that our interpretation of §1367(a) creates an anomaly
regarding the exceptions listed in §1367(b): It is not immediately
obvious why Congress would withhold supplemental jurisdiction over
plaintiffs joined as parties “needed for just adjudication” under
Rule 19 but would allow supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs
permissively joined under Rule 20. The omission of Rule 20
plaintiffs from the list of exceptions in §1367(b) may have been an
“unintentional drafting gap,” Meritcare , 166 F. 3d,
at 221 and n. 6. If that is the case, it is up to Congress
rather than the courts to fix it. The omission may seem odd, but it
is not absurd. An alternative explanation for the different
treatment of Rule 19 and Rule 20 is that Congress was concerned
that extending supplemental jurisdiction to Rule 19 plaintiffs
would allow circumvention of the complete diversity rule: A
nondiverse plaintiff might be omitted intentionally from the
original action, but joined later under Rule 19 as a necessary
party. See Stromberg Metal Works , 77 F. 3d, at 932.
The contamination theory described above, if applicable, means this
ruse would fail, but Congress may have wanted to make assurance
double sure. More generally, Congress may have concluded that
federal jurisdiction is only appropriate if the district court
would have original jurisdiction over the claims of all those
plaintiffs who are so essential to the action that they could be
joined under Rule 19. To the extent that the
omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of §1367(b) exceptions
is anomalous, moreover, it is no more anomalous than the inclusion
of Rule 19 plaintiffs in that list would be if the alternative view
of §1367(a) were to prevail. If the district court lacks original
jurisdiction over a civil diversity action where any plaintiff’s
claims fail to comply with all the requirements of §1332, there is
no need for a special §1367(b) exception for Rule 19 plaintiffs who
do not meet these requirements. Though the omission of Rule 20
plaintiffs from §1367(b) presents something of a puzzle on our view
of the statute, the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in this section
is at least as difficult to explain under the alternative
view. And so we circle back
to the original question. When the well-pleaded complaint in
district court includes multiple claims, all part of the same case
or controversy, and some, but not all, of the claims are within the
court’s original jurisdiction, does the court have before it “any
civil action of which the district courts have original
jurisdiction”? It does. Under §1367, the court has original
jurisdiction over the civil action comprising the claims for which
there is no jurisdictional defect. No other reading of §1367 is
plausible in light of the text and structure of the jurisdictional
statute. Though the special nature and purpose of the diversity
requirement mean that a single nondiverse party can contaminate
every other claim in the lawsuit, the contamination does not occur
with respect to jurisdictional defects that go only to the
substantive importance of individual claims. It follows from this
conclusion that the threshold requirement of §1367(a) is satisfied
in cases, like those now before us, where some, but not all, of the
plaintiffs in a diversity action allege a sufficient amount in
controversy. We hold that §1367 by its plain text overruled Clark and Zahn and authorized supplemental
jurisdiction over all claims by diverse parties arising out of the
same Article III case or controversy, subject only to enumerated
exceptions not applicable in the cases now before
us. C The
proponents of the alternative view of §1367 insist that the statute
is at least ambiguous and that we should look to other interpretive
tools, including the legislative history of §1367, which supposedly
demonstrate Congress did not intend §1367 to overrule Zahn . We can reject this argument at the very outset
simply because §1367 is not ambiguous. For the reasons elaborated
above, interpreting §1367 to foreclose supplemental jurisdiction
over plaintiffs in diversity cases who do not meet the minimum
amount in controversy is inconsistent with the text, read in light
of other statutory provisions and our established jurisprudence.
Even if we were to stipulate, however, that the reading these
proponents urge upon us is textually plausible, the legislative
history cited to support it would not alter our view as to the best
interpretation of §1367. Those who
urge that the legislative history refutes our interpretation rely
primarily on the House Judiciary Committee Report on the Judicial
Improvements Act. H. R. Rep. No. 101–734 (1990) (House Report
or Report). This Report explained that §1367 would “authorize
jurisdiction in a case like Finley , as well as essentially
restore the pre- Finley understandings of the authorization
for and limits on other forms of supplemental jurisdiction.” House
Report, at 28. The Report stated that §1367(a) “generally
authorizes the district court to exercise jurisdiction over a
supplemental claim whenever it forms part of the same
constitutional case or controversy as the claim or claims that
provide the basis of the district court’s original jurisdiction,”
and in so doing codifies Gibbs and fills the statutory gap
recognized in Finley . House Report, at 28–29, and
n. 15. The Report then remarked that §1367(b) “is not intended
to affect the jurisdictional requirements of [§1332] in
diversity-only class actions, as those requirements were
interpreted prior to Finley ,” citing, without further
elaboration, Zahn and Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255
U. S. 356 (1921). House Report, at 29, and n. 17. The
Report noted that the “net effect” of §1367(b) was to implement the
“principal rationale” of Kroger , House Report, at 29, and
n. 16, effecting only “one small change” in
pre- Finley practice with respect to diversity actions:
§1367(b) would exclude “Rule 23(a) plaintiff-intervenors to the
same extent as those sought to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule
19.” House Report, at 29. (It is evident that the report here meant
to refer to Rule 24, not Rule 23.) As we have repeatedly
held, the authoritative statement is the statutory text, not the
legislative history or any other extrinsic material. Extrinsic
materials have a role in statutory interpretation only to the
extent they shed a reliable light on the enacting Legislature’s
understanding of otherwise ambiguous terms. Not all extrinsic
materials are reliable sources of insight into legislative
understandings, however, and legislative history in particular is
vulnerable to two serious criticisms. First, legislative history is
itself often murky, ambiguous, and contradictory. Judicial
investigation of legislative history has a tendency to become, to
borrow Judge Leventhal’s memorable phrase, an exercise in
“ ‘looking over a crowd and picking out your friends.’ ”
See Wald, Some Observations on the Use of Legislative History in
the 1981 Supreme Court Term, 68 Iowa L. Rev. 195, 214 (1983).
Second, judicial reliance on legislative materials like committee
reports, which are not themselves subject to the requirements of
Article I, may give unrepresentative committee members—or, worse
yet, unelected staffers and lobbyists—both the power and the
incentive to attempt strategic manipulations of legislative history
to secure results they were unable to achieve through the statutory
text. We need not comment here on whether these problems are
sufficiently prevalent to render legislative history inherently
unreliable in all circumstances, a point on which Members of this
Court have disagreed. It is clear, however, that in this instance
both criticisms are right on the mark. First of all, the
legislative history of §1367 is far murkier than selective
quotation from the House Report would suggest. The text of §1367 is
based substantially on a draft proposal contained in a Federal
Court Study Committee working paper, which was drafted by a
Subcommittee chaired by Judge Posner. Report of the Subcommittee on
the Role of the Federal Courts and Their Relationship to the States
567–568 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in Judicial Conference of the
United States, 1 Federal Courts Study Committee, Working Papers and
Subcommittee Reports (July 1, 1990). See also Judicial Conference
of the United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee
47–48 (Apr. 2, 1990) (Study Committee Report) (echoing, in brief
summary form, the Subcommittee Working Paper proposal and noting
that the Subcommittee Working Paper “contains additional material
on this subject”); House Report, at 27 (“[Section 1367] implements
a recommendation of the Federal Courts Study Committee found on
pages 47 and 48 of its report”). While the Subcommittee explained,
in language echoed by the House Report, that its proposal
“basically restores the law as it existed prior to Finley ,” Subcommittee Working Paper, at 561, it observed
in a footnote that its proposal would overrule Zahn and
that this would be a good idea, Subcommittee Working Paper, at 561,
n. 33. Although the Federal Courts Study Committee did not
expressly adopt the Subcommittee’s specific reference to Zahn , it neither explicitly disagreed with the
Subcommittee’s conclusion that this was the best reading of the
proposed text nor substantially modified the proposal to avoid this
result. Study Committee Report, at 47–48. Therefore, even if the
House Report could fairly be read to reflect an understanding that
the text of §1367 did not overrule Zahn , the Subcommittee
Working Paper on which §1367 was based reflected the opposite
understanding. The House Report is no more authoritative than the
Subcommittee Working Paper. The utility of either can extend no
further than the light it sheds on how the enacting Legislature
understood the statutory text. Trying to figure out how to square
the Subcommittee Working Paper’s understanding with the House
Report’s understanding, or which is more reflective of the
understanding of the enacting legislators, is a hopeless
task. Second, the worst
fears of critics who argue legislative history will be used to
circumvent the Article I process were realized in this case. The
telltale evidence is the statement, by three law professors who
participated in drafting §1367, see House Report, at 27,
n. 13, that §1367 “on its face” permits “supplemental
jurisdiction over claims of class members that do not satisfy
section 1332’s jurisdictional amount requirement, which would
overrule [Zahn] . [There is] a disclaimer of intent to
accomplish this result in the legislative history… . It would
have been better had the statute dealt explicitly with this
problem, and the legislative history was an attempt to correct the
oversight.” Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler, Compounding or Creating
Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction? A Reply to Professor
Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90 (1991). The professors
were frank to concede that if one refuses to consider the
legislative history, one has no choice but to “conclude that
section 1367 has wiped Zahn off the books.” Ibid .
So there exists an acknowledgment, by parties who have detailed,
specific knowledge of the statute and the drafting process, both
that the plain text of §1367 overruled Zahn and that
language to the contrary in the House Report was a post
hoc attempt to alter that result. One need not subscribe to
the wholesale condemnation of legislative history to refuse to give
any effect to such a deliberate effort to amend a statute through a
committee report. In sum, even if we
believed resort to legislative history were appropriate in these
cases—a point we do not concede—we would not give significant
weight to the House Report. The distinguished jurists who drafted
the Subcommittee Working Paper, along with three of the
participants in the drafting of §1367, agree that this provision,
on its face, overrules Zahn . This accords with the best
reading of the statute’s text, and nothing in the legislative
history indicates directly and explicitly that Congress understood
the phrase “civil action of which the district courts have original
jurisdiction” to exclude cases in which some but not all of the
diversity plaintiffs meet the amount in controversy
requirement. No credence, moreover,
can be given to the claim that, if Congress understood §1367 to
overrule Zahn , the proposal would have been more
controversial. We have little sense whether any Member of Congress
would have been particularly upset by this result. This is not a
case where one can plausibly say that concerned legislators might
not have realized the possible effect of the text they were
adopting. Certainly, any competent legislative aide who studied the
matter would have flagged this issue if it were a matter of
importance to his or her boss, especially in light of the
Subcommittee Working Paper. There are any number of reasons why
legislators did not spend more time arguing over §1367, none of
which are relevant to our interpretation of what the words of the
statute mean. D Finally,
we note that the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Pub. L. 109–2,
119 Stat. 4, enacted this year, has no bearing on our analysis of
these cases. Subject to certain limitations, the CAFA confers
federal diversity jurisdiction over class actions where the
aggregate amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. It abrogates
the rule against aggregating claims, a rule this Court recognized
in Ben-Hur and reaffirmed in Zahn . The CAFA,
however, is not retroactive, and the views of the 2005 Congress are
not relevant to our interpretation of a text enacted by Congress in
1990. The CAFA, moreover, does not moot the significance of our
interpretation of §1367, as many proposed exercises of supplemental
jurisdiction, even in the class-action context, might not fall
within the CAFA’s ambit. The CAFA, then, has no impact, one way or
the other, on our interpretation of §1367. *** The
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is
affirmed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First
Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings
consistent with this opinion. It is so
ordered. STEVENS, J., DISSENTING EXXON MOBIL CORP. V. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC. 545 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NOS. 04-70 AND 04-79 EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER

															04–70 v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., et al. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eleventh circuit

															MARIA del ROSARIO ORTEGA, et al.,
PETITIONERS

															04–79 v. STAR-KIST FOODS, INC. on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the first circuit [June 23, 2005] Justice Stevens , with
whom Justice Breyer joins, dissenting.

															   Justice Ginsburg’s carefully
reasoned opinion, post , at 1 (dissenting opinion),
demonstrates the error in the Court’s rather ambitious reading of
this opaque jurisdictional statute. She also has demonstrated that
“ambiguity” is a term that may have different meanings for
different judges, for the Court has made the remarkable declaration
that its reading of the statute is so obviously correct—and Justice
Ginsburg’s so obviously wrong—that the text does not even qualify
as “ambiguous.” See ante , at 20. Because ambiguity is
apparently in the eye of the beholder, I remain convinced that it
is unwise to treat the ambiguity vel non of a statute as
determinative of whether legislative history is consulted. Indeed,
I believe that we as judges are more, rather than less, constrained
when we make ourselves accountable to all reliable
evidence of legislative intent. See Koons Buick Pontiac GMC,
Inc. v. Nigh , 543 U. S. __ (2004) (slip op., at 2,
and n. 1) (Stevens, J., concurring).

															   The legislative history of 28 U. S. C.
§1367 provides powerful confirmation of Justice Ginsburg’s
interpretation of that statute. It is helpful to consider in full
the relevant portion of the House Report, which was also adopted by
the Senate:

															“This section would authorize jurisdiction in a
case like Finley [v. United States , 490 U. S. 545 (1989)], as well as
essentially restore the pre- Finley understandings of the
authorization for and limits on other forms of supplemental
jurisdiction. In federal question cases, it broadly authorizes the
district courts to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
additional claims, including claims involving the joinder of
additional parties. In diversity cases, the district courts may
exercise supplemental jurisdiction, except when doing so would be
inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of the diversity
statute.

															.....

															   “Subsection 114(b) [§1367(b)]
prohibits a district court in a case over which it has jurisdiction
founded solely on the general diversity provision, 28 U. S. C.
§1332, from exercising supplemental jurisdiction in specified
circumstances. [Footnote 16: ‘The net effect of subsection (b) is
to implement the principal rationale of Owen Equipment &
Erection Co. v. Kroger , 437 U. S. 365 (1978)’.]
In diversity-only actions the district courts may not hear
plaintiffs’ supplemental claims when exercising supplemental
jurisdiction would encourage plaintiffs to evade the jurisdictional
requirement of 28 U. S. C. §1332 by the simple expedient of
naming initially only those defendants whose joinder satisfies
section 1332’s requirements and later adding claims not within
original federal jurisdiction against other defendants who have
intervened or been joined on a supplemental basis. In accord with
case law, the subsection also prohibits the joinder or intervention
of persons a plaintiffs if adding them is inconsistent with section
1332’s requirements. The section is not intended to affect the
jurisdictional requirements of 28 U. S. C. §1332 in
diversity-only class actions, as those requirements were
interpreted prior to Finley. [Footnote 17: ‘See Supreme Tribe
of Ben-Hur v. Cauble , 255 U. S. 356 (1921); Zahn v. International Paper Co. , 414 U. S. 291 (1973)’.]

															   “Subsection (b) makes one small change in
pre- Finley practice. Anomalously, under current practice,
the same party might intervene as of right under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 23(a) and take advantage of supplemental
jurisdiction, but not come within supplemental jurisdiction if
parties already in the action sought to effect the joinder under
Rule 19. Subsection (b) would eliminate this anomaly, excluding
Rule 23(a) plaintiff-intervenors to the same extent as those sought
to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19.” H. R. Rep. No.
101–734, pp. 28–29 (1990) (footnote omitted) (hereinafter House
Report or Report).[ Footnote
1 ]

															Not only does the House Report specifically say
that §1367 was not intended to upset Zahn v. International Paper Co. , 414 U. S. 291 (1973), but its entire
explanation of the statute demonstrates that Congress had in mind a
very specific and relatively modest task—undoing this Court’s
5-to-4 decision in Finley v. United States , 490 U. S. 545 (1989). In addition to
overturning that unfortunate and much-criticized decision,[ Footnote 2 ] the statute, according to
the Report, codifies and preserves the “the pre- Finley understandings of the authorization for and limits on other forms
of supplemental jurisdiction,” House Report, at 28, with the
exception of making “one small change in pre- Finley practice,” id. , at 29, which is not relevant here.

															   The sweeping purpose that the Court’s decision
imputes to Congress bears no resemblance to the House Report’s
description of the statute. But this does not seem to trouble the
Court, for its decision today treats statutory interpretation as a
pedantic exercise, divorced from any serious attempt at
ascertaining congressional intent. Of course, there are situations
in which we do not honor Congress’ apparent intent unless that
intent is made “clear” in the text of a statute—in this way, we can
be certain that Congress considered the issue and intended a
disfavored outcome, see, e.g., Landgraf v. USI Film
Products, 511
U. S. 244 (1994) (requiring clear statement for retroactive
civil legislation). But that principle provides no basis for
discounting the House Report, given that our cases have never
recognized a presumption in favor of expansive diversity
jurisdiction.

															   The Court’s reasons for ignoring this virtual
billboard of congressional intent are unpersuasive. That a
subcommittee of the Federal Courts Study Committee believed that an
earlier, substantially similar version of the statute overruled Zahn, see ante , at 22, only highlights the fact
that the statute is ambiguous. What is determinative is that the
House Report explicitly rejected that broad reading of the
statutory text. Such a report has special significance as an
indicator of legislative intent. In Congress, committee reports are
normally considered the authoritative explication of a statute’s
text and purposes, and busy legislators and their assistants rely
on that explication in casting their votes. Cf. Garcia v. United States , 469 U. S. 70 , 76 (1984)
(“In surveying legislative history we have repeatedly stated that
the authoritative source for finding the Legislature’s intent lies
in the Committee Reports on the bill, which ‘represen[t] the
considered and collective understanding of those Congressmen
involved in drafting and studying proposed legislation’ ”
(quoting Zuber v. Allen , 396 U. S. 168 , 186
(1969)) (brackets in original)).

															   The Court’s second reason—its comment on the
three law professors who participated in drafting §1367, see ante , at 23—is similarly off the mark. In the law review
article that the Court refers to, the professors were merely saying
that the text of the statute was susceptible to an overly broad
(and simplistic) reading, and that clarification in the House
Report was therefore appropriate. See Rowe, Burbank, & Mengler,
Compounding or Creating Confusion About Supplemental Jurisdiction?
A Reply to Professor Freer, 40 Emory L. J. 943, 960, n. 90
(1991).[ Footnote 3 ]
Significantly, the reference to Zahn in the House Report
does not at all appear to be tacked-on or out of place; indeed, it
is wholly consistent with the Report’s broader explanation of
Congress’ goal of overruling Finley and preserving
pre- Finley law. To suggest that these professors
participated in a “deliberate effort to amend a statute through a
committee report,” ante , at 23, reveals an unrealistic
view of the legislative process, not to mention disrespect for
three law professors who acted in the role of public servants. To
be sure, legislative history can be manipulated. But, in the
situation before us, there is little reason to fear that an unholy
conspiracy of “unrepresentative committee members,” ante ,
at 21, law professors, and “unelected staffers and lobbyists,” ibid ., endeavored to torpedo Congress’ attempt to overrule
(without discussion) two longstanding features of this Court’s
diversity jurisprudence.

															   After nearly 20 pages of complicated analysis,
which explores subtle doctrinal nuances and coins various
neologisms, the Court announces that §1367 could not reasonably be
read another way. See ante , at 20. That conclusion is
difficult to accept. Given Justice Ginsburg’s persuasive account of
the statutory text and its jurisprudential backdrop, and given the
uncommonly clear legislative history, I am confident that the
majority’s interpretation of §1367 is mistaken. I respectfully
dissent. Footnote 1 The last quoted paragraph was intended to
refer to Rule 24, not Rule 23. See ante , at 21. Footnote 2 As I pointed out in my dissent in Finley , the majority's decision was “not faithful to our
precedents,” 490 U. S., at 558, and casually dismissed the
accumulated wisdom of judges such as Henry Friendly, who had
“special learning and expertise in matters of federal
jurisdiction," id. , at 565. Footnote 3 The professors’ account of the challenges
they faced in drafting §1367 gives some sense, I think, of why that
statute has proved difficult to interpret: “More broadly, codifying
a complex area like supplemental jurisdiction—as Professor Freer’s
discussion illustrates—is itself complex business. A danger is that
that result of the effort to deal with all the foreseeables will be
a statute too prolix and baroque for everyday use and application
by practitioners and judges. Section 1367 reflects an effort to
provide sufficient detail without overdoing it. The statute is
concededly not perfect. What it accomplishes, however, is to change
the direction taken by the Supreme Court in Finley , to
provide basic guidance (in particular the legislative history’s
general approval of pre- Finley case law, which has treated
some specific issues Professor Freer raises), and then to trust the
federal courts under the changed direction to interpret the statute
sensibly. . . .” 40 Emory L. J., at 961. GINSBURG, J., DISSENTING EXXON MOBIL CORP. V. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC. 545 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NOS. 04-70 AND 04-79 EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER

															04–70 v. ALLAPATTAH SERVICES, INC., et al. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eleventh circuit

															MARIA del ROSARIO ORTEGA, et al.,
PETITIONERS

															04–79 v. STAR-KIST FOODS, INC. on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the first circuit [June 23, 2005] Justice Ginsburg , with
whom Justice Stevens, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Breyer join,
dissenting.

															   These cases present the question
whether Congress, by enacting 28 U. S. C. §1367, overruled
this Court’s decisions in Clark v. Paul Gray,
Inc., 306 U. S. 583 , 589 (1939) (reaffirming
the holding of Troy Bank v. G. A. Whitehead &
Co., 222 U. S.
39 , 40 (1911)), and Zahn v. International Paper
Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). Clark held that, when federal-court jurisdiction is predicated on a
specified amount in controversy, each plaintiff joined in the
litigation must independently meet the jurisdictional amount
requirement. Zahn confirmed that in class actions governed
by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), “[e]ach [class member]
… must satisfy the jurisdictional amount, and any [class member]
who does not must be dismissed from the case.” 414 U. S., at
301.

															   Section 1367, all agree, was designed to
overturn this Court’s decision in Finley v. United
States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989). Finley concerned not diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction (28 U.
S. C. §1332), but original federal-court jurisdiction in cases
arising under federal law (28 U. S. C. §1331). The plaintiff
in Finley sued the United States under the Federal Tort
Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. §1346(b), to recover for the
death of her husband and children in an airplane crash. She alleged
that the Federal Aviation Administration’s negligence contributed
to the fatal accident. She later amended her complaint to add
state-law tort claims against two other defendants, a municipality
and a utility company. 490 U. S., at 546–547. No independent basis
for federal subject-matter jurisdiction existed over the state-law
claims. The plaintiff could not have brought her entire action in
state court, because federal jurisdiction in FTCA actions is
exclusive. §1346(b). Hence, absent federal jurisdiction embracing
the state-law claims, she would be obliged to pursue two discrete
actions, one in federal court, the other in state court. This Court
held, nevertheless, that the District Court lacked jurisdiction
over the “pendent-party” state-law claims. Id., at
555–556. In so holding, the Court stressed that Congress held the
control rein. Id. , at 547–549. Congress could reverse the
result in Finley , and permit pendent jurisdiction over
state-law claims against additional defendants, if it so chose. Id ., at 556. Congress did so in §1367.

															   What more §1367 wrought is an issue on which
courts of appeals have sharply divided. Compare Stromberg Metal
Works, Inc . v. Press Mechanical, Inc. , 77 F. 3d 928,
930 (CA7 1996) (§1367 “supersedes Clark and allows
pendent-party jurisdiction when the additional parties have claims
worth less than [the jurisdictional minimum]”), and In re
Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d 524, 529 (CA5 1995) (“[U]nder
§1367 a district court can exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
members of a class, although they did not meet the
amount-in-controversy requirement, as did the class
representatives.”), with Meritcare Inc. v. St. Paul
Mercury Ins. Co. , 166 F. 3d 214, 222 (CA3 1999) (§1367
“preserves the prohibition against aggregation outlined in [Zahn and Clark] ”), and Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co. , 160 F. 3d 631, 641 (CA10 1998)
(§1367 does not alter “the historical rules prohibiting aggregation
of claims, including Zahn ’s prohibition of such
aggregation in diversity class actions”). The Court today holds
that §1367, although prompted by Finley , a case in which
original access to federal court was predicated on a federal
question, notably enlarges federal diversity jurisdiction. The
Court reads §1367 to overrule Clark and Zahn ,
thereby allowing access to federal court by co-plaintiffs or class
members who do not meet the now in excess of $75,000
amount-in-controversy requirement, so long as at least one
co-plaintiff, or the named class representative, has a
jurisdictionally sufficient claim. Ante , at 1–2.

															   The Court adopts a plausibly broad reading of
§1367, a measure that is hardly a model of the careful drafter’s
art. There is another plausible reading, however, one less
disruptive of our jurisprudence regarding supplemental
jurisdiction. If one reads §1367(a) to instruct, as the statute’s
text suggests, that the district court must first have “original
jurisdiction” over a “civil action” before supplemental
jurisdiction can attach, then Clark and Zahn are
preserved, and supplemental jurisdiction does not open the way for
joinder of plaintiffs, or inclusion of class members, who do not
independently meet the amount-in-controversy requirement. For the
reasons that follow, I conclude that this narrower construction is
the better reading of §1367.

															I

															A

															   Section 1367, captioned
“Supplemental jurisdiction,” codifies court-recognized doctrines
formerly labeled “pendent” and “ancillary” jurisdiction. Pendent
jurisdiction involved the enlargement of federal-question
litigation to include related state-law claims. Ancillary
jurisdiction evolved primarily to protect defending parties, or
others whose rights might be adversely affected if they could not
air their claims in an ongoing federal-court action. Given
jurisdiction over the principal action, federal courts entertained
certain matters deemed ancillary regardless of the citizenship of
the parties or the amount in controversy. Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383
U. S. 715 (1966), the leading pendent jurisdiction case,
involved a claim against a union for wrongfully inducing the
plaintiff’s discharge. The plaintiff stated a federal claim under
the Taft-Hartley Act, and an allied state-law claim of unlawful
conspiracy to interfere with his employment contract. This Court
upheld the joinder of federal and state claims. “[T]here is power in federal courts to hear the whole,” the Court
said, when the state and federal claims “derive from a common
nucleus of operative fact” and are so linked that the plaintiff
“would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial
proceeding.” Id. , at 725. Gibbs involved the linkage of federal
and state claims against the same defendant. In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 , the Court contained Gibbs . Without congressional authorization, the Court
admonished, the pendent jurisdiction umbrella could not be
stretched to cover the joinder of additional parties. Gibbs had departed from earlier decisions recognizing that
“jurisdiction [must] be explicitly conferred,” the Court said. 490
U. S., at 556. Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the
Court observed, although resting “on a much narrower basis,” R.
Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The
Federal Courts and the Federal System 925 (5th ed. 2003)
(hereinafter Hart & Wechsler), had already signaled that “the Gibbs approach would not be extended to the pendent-party
field,” Finley , 490 U. S., at 556 . While the Finley Court did not “limit or impair” Gibbs itself, 490 U. S., at 556 , for further development of
pendent jurisdiction, the Court made it plain, the initiative would
lie in Congress’ domain. Id. , at 555–556.[ Footnote 1 ]

															   Ancillary jurisdiction, which evolved as a
more sprawling doctrine than pendent jurisdiction, was originally
rooted in “the notion that [when] federal jurisdiction in [a]
principal suit effectively controls the property or fund under
dispute, other claimants thereto should be allowed to intervene in
order to protect their interests, without regard to jurisdiction.” Aldinger, 427 U. S., at 11; see, e.g., Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450 (1861). In Owen Equipment &
Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 (1978), the Court
addressed the permissible scope of the doctrine in relation to the
liberal provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for
joinder of parties and claims. Kroger commenced as a suit between a
citizen of Iowa and a Nebraska corporation. When the Nebraska
defendant impleaded an Iowa corporation as a third-party defendant
under Rule 14(a), the plaintiff asserted state-law claims against
the impleaded party. No independent basis of federal jurisdiction
existed over the newly asserted claims, for both plaintiff and
impleaded defendant were citizens of Iowa. 470 U. S., at 370. The
Court held that the plaintiff could not draw in a co-citizen
defendant in this manner. Id., at 377. Federal courts, by
the time of Kroger , were routinely exercising ancillary
jurisdiction over compulsory counterclaims, impleader claims,
cross-claims among defendants, and claims of parties who intervened
“of right.” See id. , at 375, n. 18 (collecting
cases). In Kroger , however,

															“the nonfederal claim … was asserted by the
plaintiff, who voluntarily chose to bring suit upon a state-law
claim in a federal court. By contrast, ancillary jurisdiction
typically involve[d] claims by a defending party haled into court
against his will, or by another person whose rights might be
irretrievably lost unless he could assert them in an ongoing action
in a federal court.” Id. , at 376.

															Having “chosen the federal rather than the state
forum,” the Court said, the plaintiff had to “accept its
limitations.” Ibid. In sum, in federal-question cases before
§1367’s enactment, the Court recognized pendent-claim jurisdiction, Gibbs , 383 U. S., at 725, but not pendent-party
jurisdiction, Finley , 490 U. S., at 555–556. As to
ancillary jurisdiction, the Court adhered to the limitation that in
diversity cases, throughout the litigation, all plaintiffs must
remain diverse from all defendants. See Kroger , 437 U. S.,
at 374.

															   Although pendent jurisdiction and ancillary
jurisdiction evolved discretely,[ Footnote 2 ] the Court has recognized that they are “two
species of the same generic problem: Under what circumstances may a
federal court hear and decide a state-law claim arising between
citizens of the same State?” Id., at 370. Finley regarded that question as one properly addressed to Congress. See
490 U. S., at 549, 556; 13 Wright & Miller §3523, p. 127 (2d
ed. Supp. 2005); Hart & Wechsler 924–926.

															B

															   Shortly before the Court decided Finley, Congress had established the Federal Courts Study
Committee to take up issues relating to “the federal courts’
congestion, delay, expense, and expansion.” Judicial Conference of
the United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee 3
(Apr. 2, 1990) (hereinafter Committee Report). The Committee’s
charge was to conduct a study addressing the “crisis” in federal
courts caused by the “rapidly growing” caseload. Id. , at 6
(internal quotation marks omitted).

															   Among recommendations, the
Committee urged Congress to “authorize federal courts to assert
pendent jurisdiction over parties without an independent federal
jurisdictional base.” Id. , at 47. If adopted, this
recommendation would overrule Finley . Earlier, a
subcommittee had recommended that Congress overrule both Finley and Zahn . Report of the Subcommittee on
the Role of the Federal Courts and Their Relationship to the States
547, 561, n. 33 (Mar. 12, 1990), reprinted in 1 Judicial Conference
of the United States, Federal Courts Study Committee, Working
Papers and Subcommittee Reports (July 1, 1990) (hereinafter
Subcommittee Report). In the subcommittee’s view, “[f]rom a policy
standpoint,” Zahn “ma[de] little sense.” Subcommittee
Report 561, n. 33.[ Footnote 3 ]
The full Committee, however, urged only the overruling of Finley and did not adopt the recommendation to overrule Zahn . Committee Report 47–48.

															   As a separate matter, a substantial majority
of the Committee “strongly recommend[ed]” the elimination of
diversity jurisdiction, save for “complex multi-state litigation,
interpleader, and suits involving aliens.” Id. , at 38–39;
accord Subcommittee Report 454–458. “[N]o other step,” the
Committee’s Report maintained, “will do anywhere nearly as much to
reduce federal caseload pressures and contain the growth of the
federal judiciary.” Committee Report 39.

															   Congress responded by adopting, as part of the
Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 5089,[ Footnote 4 ] recommendations of the Federal
Courts Study Committee ranked by the House Committee on the
Judiciary as “modest” and “noncontroversial”. H. R. Rep. No.
101–734, pp. 15–16 (1990) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.); see
also 136 Cong. Rec. 36288 (1990). Congress did not take up the
Study Committee’s immodest proposal to curtail diversity
jurisdiction. It did, however, enact a supplemental jurisdiction
statute, codified as 28 U. S. C. §1367.

															II

															A

															   Section 1367, by its terms,
operates only in civil actions “of which the district courts have
original jurisdiction.” The “original jurisdiction” relevant here
is diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction, conferred by §1332. The
character of that jurisdiction is the essential backdrop for
comprehension of §1367.

															   The Constitution broadly provides
for federal-court jurisdiction in controversies “between Citizens
of different States.” Art. III, § 2, cl. 1. This Court has read
that provision to demand no more than “minimal diversity,” i.e. , so long as one party on the plaintiffs’ side and one
party on the defendants’ side are of diverse citizenship, Congress
may authorize federal courts to exercise diversity jurisdiction.
See State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523 , 530–531
(1967). Further, the Constitution includes no amount-in-controversy
limitation on the exercise of federal jurisdiction. But from the
start, Congress, as its measures have been construed by this Court,
has limited federal court exercise of diversity jurisdiction in two
principal ways. First, unless Congress specifies otherwise,
diversity must be “complete,” i.e. , all parties on
plaintiffs’ side must be diverse from all parties on defendants’
side. Strawbridge v. Curtiss , 3 Cranch 267
(1806); see 13B Wright & Miller §3605 (2d ed. 1984). Second,
each plaintiff’s stake must independently meet the
amount-in-controversy specification: “When two or more plaintiffs,
having separate and distinct demands, unite for convenience and
economy in a single suit, it is essential that the demand of each
be of the requisite jurisdictional amount.” Troy Bank, 222
U. S., at 40.

															   The statute today governing federal court
exercise of diversity jurisdiction in the generality of cases,
§1332, like all its predecessors, incorporates both a
diverse-citizenship requirement and an amount-in-controversy
specification.[ Footnote 5 ] As
to the latter, the statute reads: “The district courts shall have
original jurisdiction [in diversity-of-citizenship cases] where the
matter in controversy exceeds the sum … of $75,000.” §1332(a). This
Court has long held that, in determining whether the
amount-in-controversy requirement has been satisfied, a single
plaintiff may aggregate two or more claims against a single
defendant, even if the claims are unrelated. See, e.g.,
Edwards v. Bates County, 163 U. S. 269 , 273
(1896). But in multiparty cases, including class actions, we have
unyieldingly adhered to the nonaggregation rule stated in Troy
Bank . See Clark , 306 U. S., at 589 (reaffirming the
“familiar rule that when several plaintiffs assert separate and
distinct demands in a single suit, the amount involved in each
separate controversy must be of the requisite amount to be within
the jurisdiction of the district court, and that those amounts
cannot be added together to satisfy jurisdictional requirements”); Snyder v. Harris, 394 U. S. 332 , 339–340
(1969) (abandonment of the nonaggregation rule in class actions
would undercut the congressional “purpose . . . to check, to some
degree, the rising caseload of the federal courts”).

															   This Court most recently addressed “[t]he
meaning of [§1332’s] ‘matter in controversy’ language” in Zahn , 414 U. S., at 298. Zahn , like Snyder decided four years earlier, was a class action. In Snyder , no class member had a claim large enough to
satisfy the jurisdictional amount. But in Zahn , the named
plaintiffs had such claims. 414 U. S., at 292. Nevertheless, the
Court declined to depart from its “longstanding construction of the
‘matter in controversy’ requirement of §1332.” Id. , at
301. The Zahn Court stated:

															“ Snyder invoked the well-established rule
that each of several plaintiffs asserting separate and distinct
claims must satisfy the jurisdictional-amount requirement if his
claim is to survive a motion to dismiss. This rule plainly mandates
not only that there may be no aggregation and that the entire case
must be dismissed where none of the plaintiffs claims [meets the
amount-in-controversy requirement] but also requires that any
plaintiff without the jurisdictional amount must be dismissed from
the case, even though others allege jurisdictionally sufficient
claims.” Id. , at 300.

															The rule that each plaintiff must independently
satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, unless Congress
ex-pressly orders otherwise, was thus the solidly established
reading of §1332 when Congress enacted the Judicial Improvements
Act of 1990, which added §1367 to Title 28.

															B

															   These cases present the question
whether Congress abrogated the nonaggregation rule long tied to
§1332 when it enacted §1367. In answering that question, “context
[should provide] a crucial guide.” Rosario Ortega v. Star-Kist Foods, Inc., 370 F. 3d 124, 135 (2004). The
Court should assume, as it ordinarily does, that Congress
legislated against a background of law already in place and the
historical development of that law. See National Archives and
Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U. S. 157 , 169
(2004). Here, that background is the statutory grant of diversity
jurisdiction, the amount-in-controversy condition that Congress,
from the start, has tied to the grant, and the nonaggregation rule
this Court has long applied to the determination of the “matter in
controversy.”

															   Section 1367(a) provides:

															“Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or
as expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil
action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the
district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other
claims that are so related to claims in the action within such
original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or
controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.
Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include claims that involve
the joinder or intervention of additional parties.”

															The Court is unanimous in reading §1367(a) to
permit pendent-party jurisdiction in federal-question cases, and
thus, to overrule Finley . The basic jurisdictional grant,
§1331, provides that “[t]he district courts shall have original
jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution,
laws, or treaties of the United States.” Since 1980, §1331 has
contained no amount-in-controversy requirement. See 94 Stat. 2369
(eliminating §1331’s amount-in-controversy requirement). Once there
is a civil action presenting a qualifying claim arising under
federal law, §1331’s sole requirement is met. District courts, we
have held, may then adjudicate, additionally, state-law claims
“deriv[ing] from a common nucleus of operative fact.” Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Section 1367(a) enlarges that
category to include not only state-law claims against the defendant
named in the federal claim, but also “[state-law] claims that
involve the joinder or intervention of additional
parties.”[ Footnote 6 ]

															   The Court divides, however, on the impact of
§1367(a) on diversity cases controlled by §1332. Under the
majority’s reading, §1367(a) permits the joinder of related claims
cut loose from the nonaggregation rule that has long attended
actions under §1332. Only the claims specified in §1367(b)[ Footnote 7 ] would be excluded from
§1367(a)’s expansion of §1332’s grant of diversity jurisdiction.
And because §1367(b) contains no exception for joinder of
plaintiffs under Rule 20 or class actions under Rule 23, the Court
concludes, Clark and Zahn have been
overruled.[ Footnote 8 ]

															   The Court’s reading is surely plausible,
especially if one detaches §1367(a) from its context and attempts
no reconciliation with prior interpretations of §1332’s
amount-in-controversy requirement. But §1367(a)’s text, as the
First Circuit held, can be read another way, one that would involve
no rejection of Clark and Zahn .

															   As explained by the First Circuit in Ortega , and applied to class actions by the Tenth Circuit
in Leonhardt , see supra , at 3, §1367(a) addresses
“civil action[s] of which the district courts have original
jurisdiction,” a formulation that, in diversity cases, is sensibly
read to incorporate the rules on joinder and aggregation tightly
tied to §1332 at the time of §1367’s enactment. On this reading, a
complaint must first meet that “original jurisdiction” measurement.
If it does not, no supplemental jurisdiction is authorized. If it
does, §1367(a) authorizes “supplemental jurisdiction” over related
claims. In other words, §1367(a) would preserve undiminished, as
part and parcel of §1332 “original jurisdiction” determinations,
both the “complete diversity” rule and the decisions restricting
aggregation to arrive at the amount in controversy.[ Footnote 9 ] Section 1367(b)’s office, then,
would be “to prevent the erosion of the complete diversity [and
amount-in-controversy] requirement[s] that might otherwise result
from an expansive application of what was once termed the doctrine
of ancillary jurisdiction.” See Pfander, Supplemental Jurisdiction
and Section 1367: The Case for a Sympathetic Textualism, 148
U. Pa. L. Rev. 109, 114 (1999); infra , at 17–18.
In contrast to the Court’s construction of §1367, which draws a
sharp line between the diversity and amount-in-controversy
components of §1332, see ante , at 6; supra , at 9,
n. 5, the interpretation presented here does not sever the two
jurisdictional requirements.

															   The more restrained reading of §1367 just
outlined would yield affirmance of the First Circuit’s judgment in Ortega , and reversal of the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment in Exxon . It would not discard entirely, as the Court does,
the judicially developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary
jurisdiction as they existed when Finley was
decided.[ Footnote 10 ]
Instead, it would recognize §1367 essentially as a codification of
those doctrines, placing them under a single heading, but largely
retaining their substance, with overriding Finley the only
basic change: Supplemental jurisdiction, once the district court
has original jurisdiction, would now include “claims that involve
the joinder or intervention of additional parties.” §1367(a).

															   Pendent jurisdiction, as earlier explained,
see supra , at 4–5, applied only in federal-question cases
and allowed plaintiffs to attach nonfederal claims to their
jurisdiction-qualifying claims. Ancillary jurisdiction applied
primarily, although not exclusively, in diversity cases and
“typically involve[d] claims by a defending party haled
into court against his will.” Kroger, 437 U. S., at 376
(emphasis added); see also id. , at 375, n. 18; supra , at 5–6. As the First Circuit observed, neither
doctrine permitted a plaintiff to circumvent the dual requirements
of §1332 (diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy)
“simply by joining her [jurisdictionally inadequate] claim in an
action brought by [a] jurisdictionally competent diversity
plaintiff.” Ortega , 370 F. 3d, at 138.

															   Not only would the reading I find persuasive
“alig[n] statutory supplemental jurisdiction with the judicially
developed doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction,” ibid. , it would also synchronize §1367 with the removal
statute, 28 U. S. C. §1441. As the First Circuit carefully
explained:

															“Section 1441, like §1367, applies only if the
‘civil action’ in question is one ‘of which the district courts …
have original jurisdiction.’ §1441(a). Relying on that language,
the Supreme Court has interpreted §1441 to prohibit removal unless
the entire action, as it stands at the time of removal, could have
been filed in federal court in the first instance. See,
e.g. , Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson , 537 U. S. 28 , 33
(2002); Okla. Tax Comm’n v. Graham , 489 U. S. 838 , 840
(1989) (per curiam). Section 1441 has thus been held to incorporate
the well-pleaded complaint rule, see City of Chicago [v. International College of Surgeons , 522 U. S. 156 , 163 (1997)];[ Footnote 11 ] the complete diversity
rule, see Caterpillar, Inc. v. Lewis , 519 U. S. 61 , 73 (1996); and rules for
calculating the amount in controversy, see St. Paul Mercury
Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co. , 303 U. S. 283 , 291–292
(1938).” Ortega , 370 F. 3d, at 138 (citations omitted
and footnote added).

															   The less disruptive view I take
of §1367 also accounts for the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs and
Rule 23 class actions in §1367(b)’s text. If one reads §1367(a) as
a plenary grant of supplemental jurisdiction to federal courts
sitting in diversity, one would indeed look for exceptions in
§1367(b). Finding none for permissive joinder of parties or class
actions, one would conclude that Congress effectively, even if
unintentionally, overruled Clark and Zahn . But if
one recognizes that the nonaggregation rule delineated in Clark and Zahn forms part of the determination
whether “original jurisdiction” exists in a diversity case, see supra , at 14, then plaintiffs who do not meet the
amount-in-controversy requirement would fail at the §1367(a)
threshold. Congress would have no reason to resort to a §1367(b)
exception to turn such plaintiffs away from federal court, given
that their claims, from the start, would fall outside the court’s
§1332 jurisdiction. See Pfander, 148 U. Pa. L. Rev., at
148.

															   Nor does the more moderate reading assign
different meanings to “original jurisdiction” in diversity and
federal-question cases. See ante , at 14. As the First
Circuit stated:

															“ ‘[O]riginal jurisdiction’ in §1367(a) has
the same meaning in every case: [An] underlying statutory grant of
original jurisdiction must be satisfied. What differs between
federal question and diversity cases is not the meaning of
‘original jurisdiction’ but rather the [discrete] requirements of
sections 1331 and 1332. Under §1331, the sole issue is whether a
federal question appears on the face of the plaintiff’s
well-pleaded complaint; the [citizenship] of the parties and the
amounts they stand to recover [do not bear on that determination].
Section 1332, by contrast, predicates original jurisdiction on the
identity of the parties ( i.e. , [their] complete diversity)
and their [satisfaction of the amount-in-controversy
specification]. [In short,] the ‘original jurisdiction’ language in
§1367 operates differently in federal-question and diversity cases
not because the meaning of that term varies, but because the
[jurisdiction-granting] statutes are different.” Ortega ,
370 F. 3d, at 139–140.

															   What is the utility of §1367(b)
under my reading of §1367(a)? Section 1367(a) allows parties other
than the plaintiff to assert reactive claims once
entertained under the heading ancillary jurisdiction. See supra , at 5 (listing claims, including compulsory
counterclaims and impleader claims, over which federal courts
routinely exercised ancillary jurisdiction). As earlier observed,
see supra , at 14, §1367(b) stops plaintiffs from
circumventing §1332’s jurisdictional requirements by using
another’s claim as a hook to add a claim that the plaintiff could
not have brought in the first instance. Kroger is the
paradigm case. See supra , at 5–6. There, the Court held
that ancillary jurisdiction did not extend to a plaintiff’s claim
against a nondiverse party who had been impleaded by the defendant
under Rule 14. Section 1367(b), then, is corroborative of
§1367(a)’s coverage of claims formerly called ancillary, but
provides exceptions to assure that accommo-dation of added claims
would not fundamentally alter “the jurisdictional requirements of
section 1332.” See Pfander, supra, at 135–137.

															   While §1367’s enigmatic text[ Footnote 12 ] defies flawless
interpretation, see supra , at 13, n. 8,[ Footnote 13 ] the precedent-preservative
reading, I am persuaded, better accords with the historical and
legal context of Congress’ enactment of the supplemental
jurisdiction statute, see supra , at 6–8, 11, and the
established limits on pendent and ancillary jurisdiction, see supra , at 4–6. It does not attribute to Congress a
jurisdictional enlargement broader than the one to which the
legislators adverted, cf. Finley , 490 U. S., at 549, and
it follows the sound counsel that “close questions of [statutory]
construction should be resolved in favor of continuity and against
change.” Shapiro, Continuity and Change in Statutory
Interpretation, 67 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 921, 925
(1992).[ Footnote 14 ]

															***

															   For the reasons stated, I would
hold that §1367 does not overrule Clark and Zahn .
I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for
the First Circuit and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit. Footnote 1 “[B]oth the Finley result
and its implications” sparked “considerable criticism.” Hart &
Wechsler 926; see also 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, &
R. Freer, Federal Practice and Procedure §3567.2, p. 91 (2d ed.
Supp. 2005) (hereinafter Wright & Miller) (characterizing the Finley decision as “surprising”). Footnote 2 See generally 13B Wright & Miller §§3567,
3567.1, 3567.2 (2d ed. 1984) (discussing pendent jurisdiction); 13 id. , §3523 (discussing ancillary jurisdiction); Hart &
Wechsler 922–926 (discussing pendent jurisdiction); id. ,
at 1488–1490 (discussing ancillary jurisdiction). Footnote 3 Anomalously, in holding that each class
member “must satisfy the jurisdictional amount,” Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 , 301 (1973), the Zahn Court did not refer to Supreme Tribe of
Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U. S. 356 , 366
(1921), which established that in a class action, the citizenship
of the named plaintiff is controlling. But see Zahn , 414
U. S., at 309–310 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (urging Zahn ’s
inconsistency with Ben-Hur ). Footnote 4 The omnibus Act encompassed the Civil Justice
Reform Act of 1990 (Title I), the creation of new judgeships (Title
II), the Federal Courts Study Committee Implementation Act of 1990
(Title III), and the establishment of the National Commission on
Judicial Discipline and Removal (Title IV). Footnote 5 Endeavoring to preserve the “complete
diversity” rule first stated in Strawbridge v. Curtiss , 3 Cranch 267 (1806), the Court’s opinion drives a
wedge between the two components of 28 U. S. C. §1332, treating the
diversity-of-citizenship requirement as essential, the
amount-in-controversy requirement as more readily disposable. See ante , at 6, 14–15. Section 1332 itself, however, does not
rank order the two requirements. What “[o]rdinary principl[e] of
statutory construction” or “sound canon of interpretation,” ante , at 10, allows the Court to slice up §1332 this way?
In partial explanation, the Court asserts that amount in
controversy can be analyzed claim-by-claim, but the diversity
requirement cannot. See ante , at 6. It is not altogether
clear why that should be so. The cure for improper joinder of a
nondiverse party is the same as the cure for improper joinder of a
plaintiff who does not satisfy the jurisdictional amount. In both
cases, original jurisdiction can be preserved by dismissing the
nonqualifying party. See Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61 , 64 (1996) (diversity); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826 , 836–838
(1989) (same); Zahn , 414 U. S., at 295, 300 (amount in
controversy); Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583 , 590 (1939) (same). Footnote 6 The Court noted in Zahn, 414 U. S.,
at 302, n. 11, that when the exercise of §1331
federal-question jurisdiction and §1332 diversity jurisdiction were
conditioned on the same jurisdictional-amount limitation, the same
nonaggregation rule applied under both heads of federal
jurisdiction. But cf. ante , at 14–15. The Court added,
however, that “Congress ha[d] exempted major areas of
federal-question jurisdiction from any jurisdictional-amount
requirements,” thus diminishing the impact of §1331’s “matter in
controversy” specification in cases arising under federal law. Zahn, 414 U. S., at 302, n. 11. Footnote 7 Title 28 §1367(b) provides:

															“In any civil action of which the district courts
have original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this
title, the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction
under subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made
parties under Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as
plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as
plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising
supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent
with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332.” Footnote 8 Under the Court’s construction of §1367, see ante , at 13, 19, Beatriz Ortega’s family members can
remain in the action because their joinder is merely permissive,
see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 20. If, however, their presence was
“needed for just adjudication,” Rule 19, their dismissal would be
required. The inclusion of those who may join, and exclusion of
those who should or must join, defies rational explanation, but cf. ante , at 18, and others adopting the interpretation the
Court embraces have so acknowledged, see Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc. , 77
F. 3d 928, 932 (CA7 1996) (recognizing the anomaly and
inquiring: “What sense can this make?”); cf. 14B Wright &
Miller §3704, p. 168 (3d ed. 1998) (distinction between Rule 19 and
Rule 20 “seems incongruous, and serves no apparent public policy
purpose”). Footnote 9 On this reading of §1367(a), it is immaterial
that §1367(b) “does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the
claims of the additional parties at issue here.” Ante , at
12. Because those claims would not come within §1367(a) in the
first place, Congress would have had no reason to list them in
§1367(b). See infra , at 16–17. Footnote 10 The Court’s opinion blends the two doctrines,
according no significance to their discrete development. See ante , at 5–9. Footnote 11 The point of the Court’s extended discussion
of Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), in the instant
cases, see ante , at 15–17, slips from my grasp. There was
no disagreement in that case, and there is none now, that 28 U.
S. C. §1367(a) is properly read to authorize the exercise of
supplemental jurisdiction in removed cases. International
College of Surgeons was unusual in that the federal court
there was asked to review a decision of a local administrative
agency. Such review, it was unsuccessfully argued, was “appellate”
in character, and therefore outside the ken of a court empowered to
exercise “original” jurisdiction. Compare 522 U. S., at 166–168,
with id ., at 176–177 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Footnote 12 The Court notes the passage this year of the
Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), Pub. L. 109–2, 119 Stat. 4, ante , at 24–25, only to dismiss that legislation as
irrelevant. Subject to several exceptions and qualifications, CAFA
provides for federal-court adjudication of state-law-based class
actions in which diversity is “minimal” (one plaintiff’s diversity
from one defendant suffices), and the “matter in controversy” is an
aggregate amount in excess of $5,000,000. Significant here, CAFA’s
enlargement of federal-court diversity jurisdiction was
accomplished, “clearly and conspicuously,” by amending §1332. Cf. Rosario Ortega , 370 F. 3d 124, 142 (CA1 2004). Footnote 13 If §1367(a) itself renders unnecessary the
listing of Rule 20 plaintiffs and Rule 23 class actions in
§1367(b), see supra , at 16–17, then it is similarly
unnecessary to refer, as §1367(b) does, to “persons proposed to be
joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19.” On one account, Congress
bracketed such persons with persons “seeking to intervene as
plaintiffs under Rule 24” to modify pre-§1367 practice. Before
enactment of §1367, courts entertained, under the heading ancillary
jurisdiction, claims of Rule 24(a) intervenors “of right,” see Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 , 375, n. 18 (1978), but
denied ancillary jurisdiction over claims of “necessary” Rule 19
plaintiffs, see 13 Wright & Miller §3523, p. 127 (2d ed. Supp.
2005). Congress may have sought simply to underscore that those
seeking to join as plaintiffs, whether under Rule 19 or Rule 24,
should be treated alike, i.e. , denied joinder when
“inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section
1332.” See Ortega , 370 F. 3d, at 140, and n. 15
(internal quotation marks omitted); H. R. Rep., at 29 (“Subsection
(b) makes one small change in pre- Finley practice,” i.e. , it eliminates the Rule 19/Rule 24 anomaly.). Footnote 14 While the interpretation of §1367 described
in this opinion does not rely on the measure’s legislative history,
that history, as Justice Stevens has shown, see ante , at 1
(dissenting opinion), is corroborative of the statutory reading set
out above.

Summary: The Supreme Court held that in a diversity action, a federal court can exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional plaintiffs' claims that don't meet the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement, as long as they are part of the same case or controversy and at least one named plaintiff satisfies the amount. This decision interprets 28 U.S.C. §1367, resolving a conflict between Courts of Appeals.