Commercial Litigation and Arbitration

Factors in Determining Whether to Exercise Supplemental Jurisdiction Once Federal Jurisdiction Has Been Found Lacking — Ninth Circuit Articulation

From Wadhwa v. Aurora Loan Servs., LLC, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45489 (E.D. Cal. April 27, 2011):

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3), a district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims if "the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction . . . ." 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); see also Acri v. Varian Assocs., Inc., 114 F.3d 999, 1000 (9th Cir. 1997) ("[A] federal district court with power to hear state law claims has discretion to keep, or decline to keep, them under the conditions set out in § 1367(c)."). Factors for a court to consider in deciding whether to dismiss supplemental state claims include judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity. Imagineering, Inc. v. Kiewit Pac. Co., 976 F.2d 1303, 1309 (9th Cir. 1992), abrogated on other grounds by Diaz v. Gates, 420 F.3d 897, 900 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). "[I]n the usual case in which federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors . . . will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims." Reynolds v. Cnty. of San Diego, 84 F.3d 1162, 1171 (9th Cir. 1996) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted), overruled on other grounds by Acri, 114 F.3d at 1001.

Plaintiffs' case has been pending for just over four months. The court has not yet issued a Status (Pretrial Scheduling) Order, and the case has yet to proceed beyond the motion to dismiss stage. As none of the parties have posed any extraordinary or unusual circumstances suggesting that the court should retain jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state law claims in the absence of any federal claims, the court will decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(c)(3) over plaintiffs' state law claims and will accordingly grant Aurora, MERS, and Greenpoint's motion to dismiss those claims.

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