Mary Anna Rivet, et al. v. Regions Bank of Louisiana et al. (522 U.S. 470)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 24, 1998 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 522 U.S. 470 · 118 S. Ct. 921
- Decided
- February 24, 1998
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. Congress has provided for removal of eases from state court to federal court when the plaintiff’s eomplaint alleges a claim arising under federal law. Congress has not authorized removal based on a defense or anticipated defense federal in character. This ease presents the question whether removal may be predicated on a defendant’s assertion that a prior federal judgment has disposed of the entire matter and thus bars plaintiffs from later pursuing a state-law-based case. We reaffirm that removal is improper in such a ease. In so holding we clarify and confine to its specific context the Court’s second footnote in Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U. S. 894, 897, n. 2 (1981). The defense of claim preclusion, we emphasize, is properly made in the state proceeding, subject to this Court’s ultimate review. I This case arose out of a series of mortgages and conveyances involving a parcel of real property in New Orleans. In 1983, a partnership that owned the Louisiana equivalent of a leasehold estate in the property mortgaged that interest to respondent Regions Bank of Louisiana (Bank). One year later, to secure further borrowing, the partnership granted a second mortgage to petitioners Mary Anna Rivet, Minna Ree Winer, Edmond G. MLranne, and Edmond G. MIranne, Jr. The partnership thereafter filed for bankruptcy,…
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