No text, no futility

The Chitimacha Indian tribe owns a casino. The casino’s former CFO sued the tribe for allegedly violating his civil rights by reporting him to law enforcement. He sued in state court, the defendants removed, and the district judge both denied the CFO’s motion to remand and dismissed the case with prejudice, citing the tribe’s sovereign immunity.

The Fifth Circuit reversed, noting that the controlling statute (28 USC § 1447(c)) requires that a removed case “shall be remanded” if the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Because that language “admits of no exceptions,” it “requires remand even when the district court thinks it futile” (here, because the district court concluded that the same immunity problems would also bar state-court litigation against the tribe.

Further, the dismissal should not have been with prejudice–“it’s precisely because the jurisdiction-less court cannot reach the merits that it also cannot issue with-prejudice dismissals that would carry res judicata effect.” Montie Spivey v. Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, No. 22-30436 (Aug. 16, 2023).