OCTOBER TERM, 1998
Syllabus
MURPHY BROTHERS, INC.
v. MICHETTI PIPE STRINGING,
INC.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 97-1909. Argued March 1, 1999-Decided April 5, 1999
On January 26, 1996, respondent Michetti Pipe Stringing, Inc.
(Michetti), filed a complaint in Alabama state court seeking
damages for an alleged breach of contract and fraud by petitioner
Murphy Bros., Inc. (Murphy). Michetti did not serve Murphy then,
but three days later it faxed a "courtesy copy" of the file-stamped
complaint to a Murphy vice president. Michetti officially served
Murphy under local law by certified mail on February 12, 1996. On
March 13, 1996 (30 days after service but 44 days after receiving
the faxed copy of the complaint), Murphy removed the case under 28
U. S. C. § 1441 to the Federal District Court. Michetti moved to
remand the case to the state court on the ground that Murphy filed
the removal notice 14 days too late under § 1446(b), which
specifies, in relevant part, that the notice "shall be filed within
thirty days after the receipt by the defendant,
through service
or otherwise, of a copy of the [complaint]." (Emphasis added.)
Because the notice had not been filed within 30 days of the date on
which Murphy's vice president received the facsimile transmission,
Michetti asserted, the removal was untimely. The District Court
denied the remand motion on the ground that the 30-day removal
period did not commence until Murphy was officially served with a
summons. On interlocutory appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed and
remanded, instructing the District Court to remand the action to
state court. Emphasizing the statutory words "receipt ... or
otherwise," the Eleventh Circuit held that the defendant's receipt
of a faxed copy of the filed initial pleading sufficed to commence
the 30-day removal period.
Held: A named defendant's time to remove is triggered by
simultaneous service of the summons and complaint, or receipt of
the complaint, "through service or otherwise," after and apart from
service of the summons, but not by mere receipt of the complaint
unattended by any formal service. Pp. 350-356.
(a) Service of process, under longstanding tradition in our
system of justice, is fundamental to any procedural imposition on a
named defendant. In the absence of such service (or waiver of
service by the defendant), a court ordinarily may not exercise
power over a party the
345
complaint names as defendant. See
Omni Capital Int'l,
Ltd. v.
Rudolf Wolff &
Co., 484 U. S. 97, 104.
Accordingly, one becomes a party officially, and is required to
take action in that capacity, only upon service of a summons or
other authority-asserting measure stating the time within which the
party served must appear and defend. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 4(a)
and 12(a)(1)(A). Unless a named defendant agrees to waive service,
the summons continues to function as the
sine qua non
directing an individual or entity to participate in a civil action
or forgo procedural or substantive rights. Pp. 350-351.
(b) In enacting § 1446(b), Congress did not endeavor to break
away from the traditional understanding. Prior to 1948, a defendant
could remove a case any time before the expiration of the time to
respond to the complaint under state law. Because that time limit
varied from State to State, however, the removal period
correspondingly varied. To reduce the disparity, Congress in 1948
enacted the original version of § 1446(b), which required that the
removal petition in a civil action be filed within 20 days after
commencement of the action or service of process, whichever was
later. However, as first framed, § 1446(b) did not give adequate
time or operate uniformly in States such as New York, where service
of the summons commenced the action and could precede the filing of
the complaint, so that the removal period could have expired
before the defendant obtained access to the complaint. To
ensure such access before commencement of the removal period,
Congress in 1949 enacted the current version of § 1446(b). Nothing
in the 1949 amendment's legislative history so much as hints that
Congress, in making changes to accommodate atypical state
commencement and complaint filing procedures, intended to dispense
with the historic function of service of process as the official
trigger for responsive action by a named defendant. pp.
351-353.
(c) Relying on the "plain meaning" of § 1446(b) that the panel
perceived, the Eleventh Circuit was of the view that "[receipt]
through service or otherwise" opens a universe of means besides
service for putting the defendant in possession of the complaint.
However, the Eleventh Circuit did not delineate the dimensions of
that universe. Nor can one tenably maintain that the words "or
otherwise" provide a clue. Cf.,
e. g., Potter v.
McCauley, 186 F. Supp. 146, 149. The interpretation of §
1446(b) adopted here adheres to tradition, makes sense of the
phrase "or otherwise," and assures defendants adequate time to
decide whether to remove an action to federal court. The various
state provisions for service of the summons and the filing or
service of the complaint fit into one or another of four main
categories. See
ibid. In each of those categories, the
defendant's removal period will be no less than 30 days
346
Syllabus
from service, and in some of the categories, it will be more
than 30 days from service, depending on when the complaint is
received. First, if the summons and complaint are served together,
the 30-day removal period runs at once. Second, if the defendant is
served with the summons but is furnished with the complaint
sometime after, the removal period runs from the receipt of the
complaint. Third, if the defendant is served with the summons and
the complaint is filed in court, but under local rules, service of
the complaint is not required, the removal period runs from the
date the complaint is made available through filing. Finally, if
the complaint is filed in court prior to any service, the removal
period runs from the service of the summons. See
ibid.
Notably, Rule 81(c), amended in 1949, uses the identical "receipt
through service or otherwise" language in specifying the 20-day
period in which the defendant must answer the complaint once the
case has been removed. Rule 81(c) has been interpreted to afford
the defendant at least 20 days after service of process to respond.
See
Silva v.
Madison, 69 F.3d
1368,1376-1377. In
Silva, the Seventh Circuit
distinguished its earlier decision in
Roe v.
O'Donohue, 38 F.3d
298 (defendant need not receive service before time for removal
under § 1446(b) begins to run), but did not adequately explain why
one who has not yet lawfully been made a party to an action should
be required to decide in which court system the case should be
heard. If, as the
Silva court rightly determined, the
"service or otherwise" language was not intended to abrogate the
service requirement for purposes of Rule 81(c), that same language
also was not intended to bypass service as a starter for §
1446(b)'s clock. The fact that the Seventh Circuit could read the
phrase "or otherwise" differently in
Silva and
Roe,
moreover, undercuts the Eleventh Circuit's position that the phrase
has an inevitably "plain meaning." Furthermore, the so-called
"receipt rule" -starting the time to remove on receipt of a copy of
the complaint, however informally, despite the absence of any
formal service-could operate with notable unfairness to defendants
in foreign nations. Because facsimile machines transmit
instantaneously, but formal service abroad may take much longer
than 30 days, plaintiffs would be able to dodge international
treaty requirements and trap foreign opponents into keeping their
suits in state courts. Pp. 353-356.
(d) In sum, it would take a clearer statement than Congress has
made to read its endeavor to extend removal time (by adding receipt
of the complaint) to effect so strange a change-to set removal
apart from all other responsive acts, to render removal the sole
instance in which one's procedural rights slip away before service
of a summons, i.
e., before one is subject to any court's
authority. P. 356.
125 F.3d
1396, reversed and remanded.
347
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and BREYER, JJ., joined.
REHNQUIST, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA and
THOMAS, JJ., joined,
post, p. 357.
Deborah Alley Smith argued the cause for petitioner.
With her on the briefs was
Rhonda Pitts Chambers.
J.
David Pugh argued the cause for respondent. With him
on the brief was
James F. Archibald III. *
JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. This case
concerns the time within which a defendant named in a state-court
action may remove the action to a federal court. The governing
provision is 28 U. s. C. § 1446(b), which specifies, in relevant
part, that the removal notice "shall be filed within thirty days
after the receipt by the defendant, through service or otherwise,
of a copy of the [complaint]." The question presented is whether
the named defendant must be officially summoned to appear in the
action before the time to remove begins to run. Or, may the 30-day
period start earlier, on the named defendant's receipt, before
service of official process, of a "courtesy copy" of the filed
complaint faxed by counsel for the plaintiff?
We read Congress' provisions for removal in light of a bedrock
principle: An individual or entity named as a defendant is not
obliged to engage in litigation unless notified of the action, and
brought under a court's authority, by formal process. Accordingly,
we hold that a named defendant's time to
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the
United States by Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney
General Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Kent L. Jones,
Barbara L. Herwig, and Robert D. Kamenshine; for the American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations by
Laurence Gold, Jonathan P. Hiatt, and Marsha S. Berzon; and for the
Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., by Patrick W Lee and
Robert P. Charrow.
David C.
Lewis filed a brief for the Defense
Research Institute as
amicus curiae.
348
remove is triggered by simultaneous service of the summons and
complaint, or receipt of the complaint, "through service or
otherwise," after and apart from service of the summons, but not by
mere receipt of the complaint unattended by any formal service.
I
On January 26, 1996, respondent Michetti Pipe Stringing, Inc.
(Michetti), filed a complaint in Alabama state court seeking
damages for an alleged breach of contract and fraud by petitioner
Murphy Bros., Inc. (Murphy). Michetti did not serve Murphy at that
time, but three days later it faxed a "courtesy copy" of the
file-stamped complaint to one of Murphy's vice presidents. The
parties then engaged in settlement discussions until February 12,
1996, when Michetti officially served Murphy under local law by
certified mail.
On March 13, 1996 (30 days after service but 44 days after
receiving the faxed copy of the complaint), Murphy removed the case
under 28 U. S. C. § 1441 to the United States District Court for
the Northern District of Alabama.1 Michetti moved to remand the
case to the state court on the ground that Murphy filed the removal
notice 14 days too late. The notice of removal had not been filed
within 30 days of the date on which Murphy's vice president
received the facsimile transmission. Consequently, Michetti
asserted, the removal was untimely under 28 U. S. C. § 1446(b),
which provides:
"The notice of removal of a civil action or proceeding shall be
filed within thirty days after the receipt by the defendant,
through service or otherwise, of a copy of the initial
pleading setting forth the claim for relief upon which such action
or proceeding is based, or within thirty days after the service of
summons upon the de-
1 Murphy invoked the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court
under 28 U. S. C. § 1332 based on diversity of citizenship.
Michetti is a Canadian company with its principal place of business
in Alberta, Canada; Murphy is an Illinois corporation with its
principal place of business in that State.
349
fendant if such initial pleading has then been filed in court
and is not required to be served on the defendant, whichever period
is shorter." (Emphasis added.)
The District Court denied the remand motion on the ground that
the 30-day removal period did not commence until Murphy was
officially served with a summons. The court observed that the
phrase "or otherwise" was added to § 1446(b) in 1949 to govern
removal in States where an action is commenced merely by the
service of a summons, without any requirement that the complaint be
served or even filed contemporaneously. See App. A-24. Accordingly,
the District Court said, the phrase had "no field of operation" in
States such as Alabama, where the complaint must be served along
with the summons. See ibid.
On interlocutory appeal permitted pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §
1292(b), the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and
remanded, instructing the District Court to remand the action to
state court.
125 F.3d
1396, 1399 (1997). The Eleventh Circuit held that "the clock
starts to tick upon the defendant's receipt of a copy of the filed
initial pleading."
Id., at 1397. "By and large," the
appellate court wrote, "our analysis begins and ends with" the
words "receipt ... or otherwise."
Id., at 1397-1398
(emphasis deleted). Because lower courts have divided on the
question whether service of process is a prerequisite for the
running of the 30-day removal period under § 1446(b),2 we granted
certiorari. 525 U. S. 960 (1998).
2 Compare
Reece v.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,
98 F.3d
839, 841
(CA5 1996) (removal period begins with receipt
of a copy of the initial pleading through any means, not just
service of process);
Roe v.
O'Donohue, 38 F. 3d 298,
303 (CA7 1994) ("Once the defendant possesses a copy of the
complaint, it must decide promptly in which court it wants to
proceed."), with
Bowman v.
Weeks Marine, Inc., 936 F.
Supp. 329, 333 (SC 1996) (removal period begins only upon proper
service of process);
Baratt v.
Phoenix Mut. Life Ins.
Co., 787 F. Supp. 333, 336 (WDNY 1992) (proper service is a
prerequisite to commencement of removal period).
350
II
Service of process, under longstanding tradition in our system
of justice, is fundamental to any procedural imposition on a named
defendant. At common law, the writ of
capias ad respondendum
directed the sheriff to secure the defendant's appearance by taking
him into custody. See 1 J. Moore, Moore's Federal Practice ~
0.6[2.-2], p. 212 (2d ed. 1996) ("[T]he three royal courts,
Exchequer, Common Pleas, and King's Bench ... obtained an
in
personam jurisdiction over the defendant in the same manner
through the writ of
capias ad respondendum."). The
requirement that a defendant be brought into litigation by official
service is the contemporary counterpart to that writ. See
International Shoe Co. v.
Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 316 (1945)
("[T]he
capias ad respondendum has given way to personal
service of summons or other form of notice.").
In the absence of service of process (or waiver of service by
the defendant), a court ordinarily may not exercise power over a
party the complaint names as defendant. See
Omn i
Capital
Int'l, Ltd. v.
Rudolf Wolff &
Co., 484 U. S. 97, 104 (1987)
("Before a ... court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a
defendant, the procedural requirement of service of summons must be
satisfied.");
Mississippi Publishing Corp. v.
Murphree, 326
U. S. 438, 444-445 (1946) ("[S]ervice of summons is the
procedure by which a court ... asserts jurisdiction over the person
of the party served."). Accordingly, one becomes a party
officially, and is required to take action in that capacity, only
upon service of a summons or other authority-asserting measure
stating the time within which the party served must appear and
defend. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(a) ("[The summons] shall ...
state the time within which the defendant must appear and defend,
and notify the defendant that failure to do so will result in a
judgment by default against the defendant."); Rule 12(a)(1)(A) (a
defendant shall serve an answer within 20 days of being
351
served with the summons and complaint). Unless a named defendant
agrees to waive service, the summons continues to function as the
sine qua non directing an individual or entity to
participate in a civil action or forgo procedural or substantive
rights.
III
When Congress enacted § 1446(b), the legislators did not
endeavor to break away from the traditional understanding. Prior to
1948, a defendant could remove a case any time before the
expiration of her time to respond to the complaint under state law.
See,
e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 72 (1940 ed.). Because the time
limits for responding to the complaint varied from State to State,
however, the period for removal correspondingly varied. To reduce
the disparity, Congress in 1948 enacted the original version of §
1446(b), which provided that "[t]he petition for removal of a civil
action or proceeding may be filed within twenty days after
commencement of the action or service of process, whichever is
later." Act of June 25, 1948,62 Stat. 939, as amended, 28 U. S. C.
§ 1446(b). According to the relevant House Report, this provision
was intended to "give adequate time and operate uniformly
throughout the Federal jurisdiction." H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th
Cong., 1st Sess., A135 (1947).
Congress soon recognized, however, that § 1446(b), as first
framed, did not "give adequate time and operate uniformly" in all
States. In States such as New York, most notably, service of the
summons commenced the action, and such service could precede the
filing of the complaint. Under § 1446(b) as originally enacted, the
period for removal in such a State could have expired
before
the defendant obtained access to the complaint.
To ensure that the defendant would have access to the complaint
before commencement of the removal period, Congress in 1949 enacted
the current version of § 1446(b): "The petition for removal of a
civil action or proceeding shall be
352
filed within twenty days [now thirty days] 3 after the receipt
by the defendant, through service or otherwise, of a copy of the
initial pleading setting forth the claim for relief upon which such
action or proceeding is based." Act of May 24, 1949, § 83(a), 63
Stat. 101. The accompanying Senate Report explained:
"In some States suits are begun by the service of a summons or
other process without the necessity of filing any pleading until
later. As the section now stands, this places the defendant in the
position of having to take steps to remove a suit to Federal court
before he knows what the suit is about. As said section is herein
proposed to be rewritten, a defendant is not required to file his
petition for removal until 20 days after he has received (or it has
been made available to him) a copy of the initial pleading filed by
the plaintiff setting forth the claim upon which the suit is based
and the relief prayed for. It is believed that this will meet the
varying conditions of practice in all the States." S. Rep. No. 303,
81st Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1949).
See also H. R. Rep. No. 352, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1949)
("The first paragraph of the amendment to subsection (b) corrects
[the New York problem] by providing that the petition for removal
need not be filed until 20 days after the defendant has received a
copy of the plaintiff's initial pleading.").4 Nothing in the
legislative history of the 1949
3 Congress extended the period for removal from 20 days to 30
days in 1965. See Act of Sept. 29, 1965, 79 Stat. 887.
4 The second half of the revised § 1446(b), providing that the
petition for removal shall be filed "within twenty days after the
service of summons upon the defendant if such initial pleading has
then been filed in court and is not required to be served on the
defendant, whichever period is shorter," § 83(b), 63 Stat. 101, was
added to address the situation in States such as Kentucky, which
required the complaint to be filed at the time the summons issued,
but did not require service of the complaint along with the
summons. See H. R. Rep. No. 352, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 14
(1949)
353
amendment so much as hints that Congress, in making changes to
accommodate atypical state commencement and complaint filing
procedures, intended to dispense with the historic function of
service of process as the official trigger for responsive action by
an individual or entity named defendant.5
IV
The Eleventh Circuit relied on the "plain meaning" of § 1446(b)
that the panel perceived. See 125 F. 3d, at 1398. In the Eleventh
Circuit's view, because the term" '[r]eceipt' is the nominal form
of 'receive,' which means broadly 'to come into possession of' or
to 'acquire,'" the phrase "'[receipt] through service or otherwise'
opens a universe of means besides service for putting the defendant
in possession of the complaint."
Ibid. What are the
dimensions of that "universe"? The Eleventh Circuit's opinion is
uninformative. Nor can one tenably maintain that the words "or
otherwise" provide a clue. Cf.
Potter v.
McCauley,
186 F. Supp. 146, 149 (Md. 1960) ("It is not possible to state
definitely in general terms the precise scope and effect of the
word 'otherwise' in its context here because its proper application
in particular situations will vary with state procedural
requirements.");
Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc. v.
("Th[e first clause of revised § 1446(b)], however, without
more, would create further difficulty in those States, such as
Kentucky, where suit is commenced by the filing of the plaintiff's
initial pleading and the issuance and service of a summons without
any requirement that a copy of the pleading be served upon or
otherwise furnished to the defendant. Accordingly ... the amendment
provides that in such cases the petition for removal shall be filed
within 20 days after the service of the summons.").
5 It is evident, too, that Congress could not have foreseen the
situation posed by this case, for, as the District Court
recognized, "[i]n 1949 Congress did not anticipate use of facsmile
[sic] transmissions." App. A-23, n. 1. Indeed, even the photocopy
machine was not yet on the scene at that time. See 9 New
Encyclopredia Britannica 400 (15th ed. 1985) (noting that
photocopiers "did not become available for commercial use until
1950").
354
Harbor Ins. Co., 145 F. R. D. 674, 679 (Ariz. 1993)
("[I]f in fact the words 'service or otherwise' had a plain
meaning, the cases would not be so hopelessly split over their
proper interpretation.").
The interpretation of § 1446(b) adopted here adheres to
tradition, makes sense of the phrase "or otherwise," and assures
defendants adequate time to decide whether to remove an action to
federal court. As the court in
Potter observed, the various
state provisions for service of the summons and the filing or
service of the complaint fit into one or another of four main
categories. See 186 F. Supp., at 149. In each of the four
categories, the defendant's period for removal will be no less than
30 days from service, and in some categories, it will be more than
30 days from service, depending on when the complaint is
received.
As summarized in
Potter, the possibilities are as
follows.
First, if the summons and complaint are served together, the
30-day period for removal runs at once. Second, if the defendant is
served with the summons but the complaint is furnished to the
defendant sometime after, the period for removal runs from the
defendant's receipt of the complaint. Third, if the defendant is
served with the summons and the complaint is filed in court, but
under local rules, service of the complaint is not required, the
removal period runs from the date the complaint is made available
through filing. Finally, if the complaint is filed in court prior
to any service, the removal period runs from the service of the
summons. See ibid.
Notably, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 81(c), amended in 1949,
uses the identical "receipt through service or otherwise" language
in specifying the time the defendant has to answer the complaint
once the case has been removed:
"In a removed action in which the defendant has not answered,
the defendant shall answer or present the other defenses or
objections available under these rules
355
within 20 days after the receipt through service or otherwise of
a copy of the initial pleading setting forth the claim for relief
upon which the action or proceeding is based."
Rule 81(c) sensibly has been interpreted to afford the defendant
at least 20 days after service of process to respond. See
Silva v.
Madison, 69 F.3d
1368, 1376-1377
(CA7 1995). In
Silva, the Seventh
Circuit Court of Appeals observed that "nothing ... would justify
our concluding that the drafters, in their quest for evenhandedness
and promptness in the removal process, intended to abrogate the
necessity for something as fundamental as service of process."
Id., at 1376. In reaching this conclusion, the court
distinguished an earlier decision,
Roe v.
O'Donohue,
38 F.3d
298 (CA7 1994), which held that a defendant need not
receive service of process before his time for removal under §
1446(b) begins to run. See 69 F. 3d, at 1376. But, as the United
States maintains in its
amicus curiae brief, the
Silva court "did not adequately explain why one who has not
yet lawfully been made a party to an action should be required to
decide in which court system the case should be heard." Brief for
United States as
Amicus Curiae 13, n. 4. If, as the Seventh
Circuit rightly determined, the "service or otherwise" language was
not intended to abrogate the service requirement for purposes of
Rule 81(c), that same language also was not intended to bypass
service as a starter for § 1446(b)'s clock. The fact that the
Seventh Circuit could read the phrase "or otherwise" differently in
Silva and
Roe, moreover, undercuts the Eleventh
Circuit's position that the phrase has an inevitably "plain
meaning." 6
6 Contrary to a suggestion made at oral argument, see Tr. of
Oral Arg. 6-7, 28 U. S. C. § 1448 does not support the Eleventh
Circuit's position. That section provides that "[i]n all cases
removed from any State court to any district court of the United
States in which anyone or more of the defendants has not been
served with process or in which the service has
356
Furthermore, the so-called "receipt rule" -starting the time to
remove on receipt of a copy of the complaint, however informally,
despite the absence of any formal servicecould, as the District
Court recognized, operate with notable unfairness to individuals
and entities in foreign nations. See App. A-24. Because facsimile
machines transmit instantaneously, but formal service abroad may
take much longer than 30 days,7 plaintiffs "would be able to dodge
the requirements of international treaties and trap foreign
opponents into keeping their suits in state courts."
Ibid.
***
In sum, it would take a clearer statement than Congress has made
to read its endeavor to extend removal time (by adding receipt of
the complaint) to effect so strange a change-to set removal apart
from all other responsive acts, to render removal the sole instance
in which one's procedural rights slip away before service of a
summons, i.
e., before one is subject to any court's
authority. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in this opinion, the
judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh
Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
not been perfected prior to removal ... such process or service
may be completed or new process issued in the same manner as in
cases originally filed in such district court." Nothing in § 1448
requires the defendant to take any action. The statute simply
allows the plaintiff to serve an unserved defendant or to perfect
flawed service once the action has been removed. In fact, the
second paragraph of § 1448, which provides that "[t]his section
shall not deprive any defendant upon whom process is served after
removal of his right to move to remand the case," explicitly
reserves the unserved defendant's right to take action (move to
remand)
after service is perfected.
7 See,
e. g., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(f) (describing means
of service upon individuals in a foreign country).
357
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA and JUSTICE
THOMAS join, dissenting.
Respondent faxed petitioner a copy of the file-stamped complaint
in its commenced state-court action, and I believe that the receipt
of this facsimile triggered the 30-day removal period under the
plain language of 28 U. S. C. § 1446(b). The Court does little to
explain why the plain language of the statute should not control,
opting instead to superimpose a judicially created service of
process requirement onto § 1446(b). In so doing, it departs from
this Court's practice of strictly construing removal and similar
jurisdictional statutes. See
Shamrock Oil &
Gas
Corp. v.
Sheets, 313 U. S. 100, 108-109
(1941). Because I believe the Eleventh Circuit's analysis of the
issue presented in this case was cogent and correct, see
125 F.3d
1396, 1397-1398 (1997), I would affirm the dismissal of
petitioner's removal petition for the reasons stated by that
court.
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