Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. v. Illinois

459 U.S. 1049, 103 S. Ct. 469, 74 L. Ed. 2d 618, 51 U.S.L.W. 3417, 18 ERC (BNA) 1415, 1982 U.S. LEXIS 173

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: November 29, 1982
• Docket: 82-386
• Status: Published

Opinions

C. A. 7th Cir. Certiorari denied.

Opinion of

Justice Blackmun

respecting the denial of the petition for writ of certiorari.

I realize that it is a tradition here that one seldom writes in support of the Court’s decision to deny a petition for a writ of certiorari. See, however, Castorr v. Brundage, ante, p. 928 (Stevens, J.); James v. United States, ante, p. 1044 (Brennan, J.); Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, Inc., 338 U. S. 912 (1950) (Frankfurter, J.).

The reason I write in this case is that I fear that the content of the final paragraphs of the dissent will tend to create confusion in an area of law that seems to me to be fairly clear. It has been well established for many years that federal-question jurisdiction is present “only when the plaintiff’s statement of his own cause of action shows that it is based upon [federal] laws or [the Federal] Constitution.” Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149, 152 (1908). It is insufficient “that the defendant would set up in defense certain laws of the United States.” Id., at 153.

The dissent asserts, post, at 1051, that the Second Circuit in North American Phillips Corp. v. Emery Air Freight Corp., 579 F. 2d 229 (1978), held that “the lack of reference to federal law in the complaint does not control the determination whether a federal question is presented.” It would be more accurate to say that the Second Circuit held that lack of reference to federal law does not control the determination whether a federal claim is presented by the complaint. In the present case, as the dissent explains, post, at 1052, the issue is whether “a defendant’s federal pre-emption claim presents a federal question.” In other words, the issue is whether a federal question is presented by a federal defense to a state-law claim. If a federal claim is presented by the complaint, there is federal-question jurisdiction even if the complaint is phrased in state-law terms; if, however, the complaint presents only a state-law claim, a federal defense does not create federal-question jurisdiction.

I thus perceive no conflict between the present case and North American Phillips, and no conflict between the present case and other cases cited by petitioner. In each of those cases, the courts followed Mottley and focused on the federal basis for the plaintiff’s claim. Here, in contrast, the plaintiff’s claim has no federal basis. The plaintiff could not have stated a federal cause of action no matter how it pleaded its case. Because there is no conflict, the Court, it seems to me, is on sound ground in denying the petition for a writ of certiorari.