SCOTUS Cert Grant on Appellate Jurisdiction in Baltimore Climate Change Lawsuit

Today the Supreme Court granted certiorari in BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. (We covered earlier the Fourth Circuit’s decision from last March.)

The question presented involves the permissible scope of an appellate court’s review of a district court’s order remanding a case to state court. From the cert. petition:

Section 1447(d) of Title 28 of the United States Code generally precludes appellate review of an order remanding a removed case to state court. But Section 1447(d) expressly provides that an “order remanding a case * * * removed pursuant to” the federal-officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442, or the civil-rights removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1443, “shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.” Some courts of appeals have interpreted Section 1447(d) to permit appellate review of any issue encompassed in a district court’s remand order where the removing defendant premised removal in part on the federal-officer or civil-rights removal statutes; other courts of appeals, including the Fourth Circuit in this case, have held that appellate review is limited to the federal-officer or civil-rights ground for removal. The question presented is as follows:

Whether 28 U.S.C. 1447(d) permits a court of appeals to review any issue encompassed in a district court’s order remanding a removed case to state court where the removing defendant premised removal in part on the federal-officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442, or the civil-rights removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1443.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog and at the Supreme Court website.