Removal, Remands, and Reforming Federal Appellate Review

That the Supreme Court of necessity largely leaves law development to the federal appellate courts, and state courts, is not particularly noteworthy. Such circumstances, however, make it important for students of federal jurisdiction not to be fixated on Supreme Court decisions, to the exclusion of lower court opinions. This article focuses on lower court interpretation of one statute circumscribing the jurisdiction of the federal appellate courts. Section 1447(d) of the Judicial Code states that an order of a district court remanding a case to a state court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise. \u27 Despite that seemingly clear language, the Supreme Court in 1976 in Thermtron Products,Inc. v. Hermansdorfer held that appellate review of such an order was available when the district judge remanded for reasonsnotauthorizedbySection1447(c). Section1447(c)generally provides that cases improperly removed can be remanded. This Article critiques this largely unnoticed expansion of federal appellate jurisdiction