Supreme Court hears dispute over whether federal courts keep supplemental jurisdiction after plaintiffs drop federal claims

The Supreme Court heard argument in Royal Canin v. Wolschleager over whether federal courts retain supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §1367 when a plaintiff drops federal claims after a case is removed to federal court. Petitioner's counsel, Miss Wellington, argued that the Eighth Circuit’s decision below is ‘‘an extreme outlier’’ and that the statute and a century of precedent support letting district courts, in their discretion, keep state-law claims that are related to removed federal claims.

Wellington told the justices that ‘‘the text of section 1367 states that there is supplemental jurisdiction unless Congress has expressly provided otherwise’’ and urged the Court to read the statute to preserve the longstanding removal-context rule reflected in decisions such as Cohill and Saint Paul…