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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 12–1036
_________________
MISSISSIPPI ex rel. JIM HOOD,
ATTORNEYGENERAL, PETITIONER v. AU OPTRONICSCORPORATION
et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the fifth circuit
[January 14, 2014]
Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Class Action
Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA or Act), defendants in civil suits may
remove “mass actions” from state to federal court. CAFA
defines a “mass action” as “any civil action
. . . in which monetary relief claims of 100 or more
persons are proposed to be tried jointly on the ground that the
plaintiffs’ claims involve common questions of law or
fact.” 28 U. S. C. §1332(d)(11)(B)(i). The
question presented is whether a suit filed by a State as the sole
plaintiff constitutes a “mass action” under CAFA where
it includes a claim for restitution based on injuries suffered by
the State’s citizens. We hold that it does not. According to
CAFA’s plain text, a “mass action” must involve
monetary claims brought by 100 or more persons who propose to try
those claims jointly as named plaintiffs. Because the State of
Mississippi is the only named plaintiff in the instant action, the
case must be remanded to state court.
I
A
Congress enacted CAFA
in order to “amend the procedures that apply to consideration
of interstate class actions.” 119Stat. 4. In doing so,
Congress recognized that “[c]lass action lawsuits are an
important and valuable part of the legal system.” CAFA
§2. It was concerned, however, that certain requirements of
federal diversity jurisdic-tion, 28 U. S. C. §1332,
had functioned to “kee[p] cases of national importance”
in state courts rather than federal courts. CAFA §2.
CAFA accordingly
loosened the requirements for diversity jurisdiction for two types
of cases—“class actions” and “mass
actions.” The Act defines “class action” to mean
“any civil action filed under rule 23 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure or similar State statute or rule of judicial
procedure.” 28 U. S. C. §1332(d)(1)(B). And it
defines “mass action” to mean “any civil action
. . . in which monetary relief claims of 100 or more
persons are proposedto be tried jointly on the ground that the
plaintiffs’claims involve common questions of law or
fact.” §1332(d)(11)(B)(i).
For class and mass
actions, CAFA expanded diversity jurisdiction in two key ways.
First, it replaced the ordinary requirement of complete diversity
of citizenship among all plaintiffs and defendants, see State Farm
Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523 –531
(1967), with a requirement of minimal diversity. Under that
re-quirement, a federal court may exercise jurisdiction over a
class action if “any member of a class of plaintiffs isa
citizen of a State different from any defendant.”
§1332(d)(2)(A). The same rule applies to mass actions. See
§1332(d)(11)(A) (“[A] mass action shall be deemed
. . . removable under [§§1332(d)(2) through
(d)(10)]”). Second, whereas §1332(a) ordinarily requires
each plaintiff’s claim to exceed the sum or value of $75,000,
see Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S.
546 –555 (2005), CAFA grants federal jurisdiction over class
and mass actions in which the aggregate amount in contro-versy
exceeds $5 million. §§1332(d)(2), (d)(6), (d)(11)(A).
Class and mass actions filed in state court that satisfy
CAFA’s requirements may be removed to federal court, 28
U. S. C. §1453, but federal jurisdiction in a mass
action, unlike a class action, “shall exist only over those
plaintiffs” whose claims individually satisfy the $75,000
amount in controversy requirement,
§1332(d)(11)(B)(i).[
1]
B
Respondents
manufacture liquid crystal displays, or LCDs. In March 2011, the
State of Mississippi sued them in state court, alleging that they
had formed an international cartel to restrict competition and
raise prices inthe LCD market. The State claimed that these actions
vio-lated two Mississippi statutes: the Mississippi Antitrust Act,
Miss. Code Ann. §75–21–1 et seq. (2009), and
the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act, §75–24–1
et seq. (2009 and Cum. Supp. 2013). The State sought
injunctive relief and civil penalties under both statutes, along
with punitive damages, costs, and attorney’s fees. It also
sought restitution for its own purchases “of LCD products and
the purchases of its citizens.” App. to Brief in Opposition
65a; §75–24–11.
Respondents filed a
notice to remove the case from state to federal court, arguing that
the case was removable under CAFA as either a “class
action” or a “mass action.” The District Court
ruled that the suit did not qualify asa “class action”
because it was “not brought pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 23 or a ‘similar State statute or rule of judicial
procedure.’ ” 876 F. Supp. 2d 758, 769 (SD
Miss. 2012). But it held that the suit did qualify as a “mass
action,” because “[i]t is a civil action ‘in
which monetary relief claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to
be tried jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims
involve common questions of law or fact.’ ” Id.,
at 771. The District Court reached that conclusion on the basis of
Fifth Circuit precedent in Louisiana ex rel. Caldwell v.
Allstate Ins. Co., 536 F. 3d 418 (CA5 2008), which it
understood to “stan[d] for the proposition that the words
‘persons’ and ‘plaintiffs’ in [the mass
action definition] are to be defined as ‘real parties in
interest.’ ” 876 F. Supp. 2d, at 771.
Applying that rule, the court found that 100 or more unidentified
Mississippi consumers had purchased LCD screens and were therefore
real parties in interest to the State’s restitution claim.
Ibid. The court noted the “possibility that a ‘mass
action’ should be thought of as a ‘mass
joinder,’ ”—that is, as a suit involving 100
or more “named plaintiffs.” Ibid., n. 9. But it
deemed that interpretation to be foreclosed by Caldwell.
The District Court
nonetheless remanded the case to state court on the basis of
CAFA’s “general public exception,” which excludes
from the “mass action” definition “any civil
action in which . . . all of the claims in the action are
asserted on behalf of the general public (and not on behalf of
individual claimants or members of a purported class) pursuant to a
State statute specifically authorizing such action.” 28
U. S. C. §1332(d)(11)(B)(ii)(III).
The Court of Appeals
reversed. 701 F. 3d 796 (CA5 2012). It agreed with the
District Court’s determination that Mississippi’s suit
is not a “class action” under CAFA.[
2] Id., at 799. It also agreed that, under
Caldwell, the suit qualifies as a “mass action” because
“[t]he real parties in interest in Mississippi’s suit
are those more than 100 . . . individual citizens who
purchased the [LCD] products within Mississippi.” 701
F. 3d, at 800. It disagreed, however, with the District
Court’s ruling that the suit falls within the general public
exception. Id., at 802–803.[
3] Judge Elrod concurred in the judgment, noting that
after the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Caldwell, three Courts
of Appeals had deemed similar lawsuits not to be mass actions
removable under CAFA.[
4] We
granted certiorari to resolve this split of authority, 569
U. S. ___ (2013), and now reverse.
II
A
Our analysis begins
with the statutory text. Sebelius v. Cloer, 569 U. S. ___, ___
(2013) (slip op., at 6). The statute provides:
“[T]he term mass action means any
civil action (except a [class action]) in which monetary relief
claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried jointly
onthe ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve common
questions of law or fact, except that jurisdiction shall exist only
over those plaintiffs whose claims in a mass action satisfy the
jurisdictional amount requirements under subsection (a).”
§1332(d)(11)(B)(i).
The parties do not
dispute that this provision encompasses suits that are brought
jointly by 100 or more named plaintiffs who propose to try their
claims together. The question is whether the provision also
includes suits brought by fewer than 100 named plaintiffs on the
theory that there may be 100 or more unnamed persons who are real
parties in interest as beneficiaries to any of the
plaintiffs’ claims. Respondents argue that the provision
covers such suits because “claims of 100 or more
persons” refers to “the persons to whom the claim
belongs, i.e., the real parties in interest to the claims,”
regardless of whether those persons are named or unnamed. Brief for
Respondents 19 (emphasis in original). We disagree.
To start, the statute
says “100 or more persons,” not “100 or more
named or unnamed real parties in interest.” Had Congress
intended the latter, it easily could have drafted language to that
effect. Indeed, when Congress wanted a numerosity requirement in
CAFA to be satisfied by counting unnamed parties in interest in
addition to named plaintiffs, it explicitly said so: CAFA provides
that in order for a class action to be removable, “the
numberof members of all proposed plaintiff classes” must be
100 or greater, §1332(d)(5)(B), and it defines “class
members” to mean “the persons (named or unnamed) who
fall within the definition of the proposed or certified
class,” §1332(d)(1)(D). Congress chose not to use the
phrase “named or unnamed” in CAFA’s mass action
provision, a decision we understand to be intentional. See Dean v.
United States, 556 U. S. 568, 573 (2009)
(“ ‘[W]here Congress includes particular language
in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the
same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally
and purposely in the disparate inclusion or
exclusion’ ”).
More fundamentally,
respondents’ interpretation cannot be reconciled with the
fact that the “100 or more persons” referred to in the
statute are not unspecified individuals who have no actual
participation in the suit, but instead the very
“plaintiffs” referred to later in the
sentence—the parties who are proposing to join their claims
in a single trial. Congress made this understanding evident in two
key ways.
First, we presume that
“ ‘Congress is aware of existing law when it
passes legislation.’ ” Hall v. United States, 566
U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 9). Here, Congress used
the terms “persons” and “plaintiffs” just
as they are used in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20, governing
party joinder. Where §1332(d)(11)(B)(i) requires that the
“claims of 100 or more persons [must be] proposed to be tried
jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve
common questions of law or fact,” Rule 20 provides that
“[p]ersons may join in one action as plaintiffs if they
assert any right to relief jointly . . . and any question
of law or fact common to all plaintiffs will arise in the
action.” Thus, just as it is used in Rule 20, the term
“persons” in §1332(d)(11)(B)(i) refers to the
individuals who are proposing to join as plaintiffs in a single
action.
Second,
respondents’ interpretation of “persons” cannot
square with the statute’s requirement that the claims of the
“100 or more persons” must be proposed for joint trial
“on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve
common questions of law or fact.” §1332(d)(11)(B)(i). It
is difficult to imagine how the claims of one set of unnamed
individ-uals could be proposed for joint trial on the ground that
the claims of some completely different group of named plaintiffs
share common questions. The better understanding is that Congress
meant for the “100 or more persons” and the proposed
“plaintiffs” to be one and the same.
Recognizing that the
statute’s use of the term “persons” could be a
reference to proposed plaintiffs, respondents assert that
“plaintiffs,” like “persons,” should be
construed to “includ[e] both named and unnamed real parties
in in-terest.” Brief for Respondents 24. But that
stretchesthe meaning of “plaintiff” beyond recognition.
The term “plaintiff” is among the most commonly
understood of legal terms of art: It means a “party who
brings a civil suit in a court of law.” Black’s Law
Dictionary 1267 (9th ed. 2009); see also Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary 1729 (1961) (defining
“plaintiff” to mean “one who commences a personal
action or lawsuit,” or “the complaining party in any
litigation”). It certainly does not mean “anyone, named
or unnamed, whom a suit may benefit,” as respondents
suggest.[
5]
Moreover, Congress used
the term “plaintiffs” twice in the mass action
provision. The provision encompasses actions in which monetary
“claims of 100 or more persons are proposed to be tried
jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs’ claims involve
common questions,” and it then provides that
“jurisdiction shall exist only over those plaintiffs whose
claims in a mass action satisfy the jurisdictional amount
requiremen[t]” of $75,000. §1332(d)(11)(B)(i). If
respondents are correct that “plaintiffs” means unnamed
parties in interest where it is used the first time, then so too
the second. After all, the “pre-sumption that a given term is
used to mean the same thing throughout a statute” is
“at its most vigorous when a term is repeated within a given
sentence.” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118 (1994)
.
Yet if the term
“plaintiffs” is stretched to include all unnamed
individuals with an interest in the suit, then
§1332(d)(11)(B)(i)’s requirement that
“jurisdiction shall exist only over those plaintiffs whose
claims [exceed $75,000]” becomes an administrative nightmare
that Congress could not possibly have intended, see Griffin v.
Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 575 (1982) . How is a
district court to identify the unnamed parties whose claims in a
given case are for less than $75,000? Would the court in this case,
for instance, have to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine the
identity of each of the hundreds of thousands of unnamed
Mississippi citizens who purchased one of respondents’ LCD
products between 1996 and 2006 (the period alleged in the
complaint)? Even if it could identify every such person, how would
it ascertain the amount in controversy for each individual claim?
Respondents suggest that “[i]n some circumstances, defendants
may be able to identify from their payment records any persons who
may have claims for overpayments,” but they stop notably
short of claiming to possess such decades-old records themselves.
Brief for Respondents 25.
Furthermore, what would
happen with individuals whose claims were valued at less than
$75,000? The District Court in this case suggested that if the suit
were deemed a mass action, it would sever the claim for
“restitution for losses incurred by individuals claiming less
than or equal to $75,000 each” and remand that claim back to
state court, while allowing the other claims (including the
restitution claims exceeding $75,000) to proceed in federal court.
876 F. Supp. 2d, at 775. Even respondents do not defend that
outcome, presumably because it would mean that much of the
State’s lawsuit could proceed in state court after all,
simultaneously with the newly severed parallel federal
action.[
6]
We think it unlikely
that Congress intended that federal district courts engage in these
unwieldy inquiries. By contrast, interpreting
“plaintiffs” in accordance with its usual
meaning—to refer to the actual named parties who bring an
action—leads to a straightforward, easy to administer rule
under which a court would examine whether the plaintiffs have
pleaded in good faith the requisite amount. See Horton v. Liberty
Mut. Ins. Co., 367 U. S. 348, 353 (1961) . Our decision thus
comports with the commonsense observation that “when judges
must decide jurisdictional matters, simplicity is a virtue.”
See Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, 568 U. S. ___, ___
(2013) (slip op., at 6).
B
Our reading of the
mass action provision’s text is reinforced by the statutory
context. See Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 566 U. S. ___,
___ (2012) (slip op., at 5–6).
First, the provision of
CAFA governing transfer motions confirms our view that the term
“plaintiffs” refers to actual named parties as opposed
to unnamed real parties in interest. That provision,
§1332(d)(11)(C)(i), provides that once a mass action has been
removed to federal court, it “shall not thereafter be
transferred to any other court . . . unless a majority of
the plaintiffs in the action request transfer.” If
respondents are correct that “plaintiffs” means
“unnamed parties in interest,” it will be surpassingly
difficult for a court to decide in a case like this one whether an
action may be transferred. The District Court itself acknowledged
this problem, noting that it would have to identify and communicate
with “hundreds of thousands if not millions of real parties
in interest” to “pol[l] [them] about their preferred
forum” if respondents’ interpretation were correct. 876
F. Supp. 2d, at 777.
The context in which
the mass action provision was enacted lends further support to our
conclusion. Congress’ overriding concern in enacting CAFA was
with class actions. See Preamble, 119Stat. 4 (describing CAFA as an
“[a]ct to amend the procedures that apply to consideration of
interstate class actions”); CAFA §2 (Congress’
findings with respect to class actions). The mass action provision
thus functions largely as a backstop to ensure that CAFA’s
relaxed jurisdictional rules for class actions cannot be evaded by
a suit that names a host of plaintiffs rather than using the class
device. Respondents’ argument fails to recognize this key
distinction. Their position is ultimately that “[t]his action
is similar to a class action,” such that it should be
removed. Brief for Respondents 27. But if Congress had wanted
representative actions brought by States as sole plaintiffs to be
removable under CAFA on the theory that they are in substance no
different from class actions, it would have done so through the
class action provision, not the one governing mass
actions.[
7]
III
Rather than relying
on the text of CAFA as the source of its real party in interest
inquiry, the Court of Appeals appeared to find such an inquiry
necessary on the basis of what it understood to be a background
principle: that “federal courts look to the substance of the
action and not only at the labels that the parties may
attach.” Caldwell, 536 F. 3d, at 424. This was
error.
We have interpreted the
diversity jurisdiction statute to require courts in certain
contexts to look behind the pleadings to ensure that parties are
not improperly creating or destroying diversity jurisdiction. We
have held, for example, that a plaintiff may not keep a case out of
federal court by fraudulently naming a nondiverse defendant. Wecker
v. National Enameling & Stamping Co., 204 U. S. 176
–186 (1907). Nor may a plaintiff create diversity by
collusively assigning his interest in an action. Kramer v.
Caribbean Mills, Inc., 394 U. S. 823 –830 (1969); see
also 28 U. S. C. §1359. And in cases involving a
State or state official, we have inquired into the real party in
interest because a State’s presence as a party will destroy
complete diversity. Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Missouri
Railroad and Warehouse Comm’rs, 183 U. S. 53 –59
(1901).
But the question in
this case is not simply whether there exists some background
principle of analyzing the real parties in interest to a suit; the
question is whether Congress intended that courts engage in that
analysis when deciding whether a suit is a mass action. Recognizing
this fact, respondents do not argue that the real party in interest
inquiry employed in the above cases somehow supersedes the text of
CAFA; they instead argue that we should read CAFA in light of those
cases because “ ‘Congress expects its statutes to
be read in conformity with this Court’s
precedents.’ ” Brief for Respondents 19 (quoting
United States v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482, 495 (1997) ). For two
reasons, however, we conclude that Congress did not intend the
background inquiry to apply to the mass action provision.
First, it makes sense
to infer Congress’ intent to incorporate a background
principle into a new statute where the principle has previously
been applied in a similar manner. But that is not the case here.
The background real party in interest inquiry identifies what
party’s (or parties’) citizenship should be considered
in determining diversity. The inquiry that respondents urge is
quite dif-ferent: It is an attempt to count up additional unnamed
parties in order to satisfy the mass action provision’s
numerosity requirement. Respondents offer no reason to believe that
Congress intended to extend the real party inquiry to this new
circumstance, and so any presumption that Congress wanted to
incorporate the inquiry, if it exists in this case at all, would be
comparatively weak. Cf. Meyer v. Holley, 537 U. S. 280, 286
(2003) (“Congress’ silence, while permitting an
inference that Congress intended to apply ordinary background tort
principles, cannot show that it intended to apply an unusual
modification of those rules”).[
8]
Second, even if the
background principle had previously been applied in the manner
sought by respondents, Congress provided express indications that
it did not want the principle to apply to the mass action
provision. It specified that “the term ‘mass
action’ shall not include any civil action in which
. . . the claims are joined upon motion of a
defendant.” §1332(d)(11)(B)(ii)(II). By prohibiting
defendants from joining unnamed individuals to a lawsuit in order
to turn it into a mass action, Congress demonstrated its focus on
the persons who are actually proposing to join together as named
plaintiffs in the suit. Requiring district courts to pierce the
pleadings to identify unnamed persons interested in the suit would
run afoul of that intent. Moreover, as already discussed, Congress
repeatedly used the word “plaintiffs” to describe the
100 or more persons whose claims must be proposed for a joint
trial. That word refers to actual, named parties—a concept
inherently at odds with the background inquiry into unnamed real
parties in interest, who by definition are never plaintiffs.
Congress thus clearly displaced a background real party in interest
inquiry, even assuming one might otherwise apply. Cf. Barnhart v.
Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438, 459, n. 16 (2002) .
* * *
For the foregoing
reasons, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
