US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS
CITY OF CHICAGO ET AL. v. INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS ET AL.
Subscribe to Cases that cite 522 U.S. 156OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
CITY OF CHICAGO ET AL. v. INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 96-910. Argued October 14, 1997-Decided December 15,1997
Following the preliminary determination of Chicago's Historical and Architectural Landmarks Commission (Commission) that two of respondent ICS' buildings qualified for protection under the city's Landmarks Ordinance, the city enacted a Designation Ordinance creating a landmark district that included the buildings. ICS then applied to the Commission for permits to allow demolition of all but the facades of the buildings. The Commission denied ICS' permit applications. ICS then filed actions in state court under the Illinois Administrative Review Law for judicial review of the Commission's decisions, alleging, among other things, that the two ordinances and the manner in which the Commission conducted its proceedings violated the Federal and State Constitutions, and seeking on-the-record review of the Commission's decisions. Petitioners (collectively the City) removed the suits to Federal District Court on the basis of federal question jurisdiction. The District Court consolidated the cases, exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims, and granted summary judgment for the City, ruling that the ordinances and the Commission's proceedings were consistent with the Federal and State Constitutions and that the Commission's findings were supported by the evidence and were not arbitrary and capricious. The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded to state court, ruling that a federal district court lacks jurisdiction of a case containing state law claims for on-the-record review of local administrative action.
Held: A case containing claims that local administrative action violates federal law, but also containing state law claims for on-the-record review of the administrative findings, can be removed to federal district court. Pp. 163-174.
(a) The District Court properly exercised federal question jurisdiction over ICS' federal claims, and properly recognized that it could thus also exercise supplemental jurisdiction over ICS' state law claims. Defendants generally may remove "any civil action brought in a State court of which the [federal] district courts ... have original jurisdiction." 28 U. S. C. § 1441(a). The district courts' original jurisdiction
encompasses cases "arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States," § 1331, and an action satisfies this requirement when the plaintiff's well-pleaded complaint raises issues of federal law, Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58, 63. lCS' state court complaints raised a number of such issues in the form of various federal constitutional challenges to the Landmarks and Designation Ordinances, and to the manner in which the Commission conducted its proceedings. Once the case was removed, lCS' state law claims were properly before the District Court under the supplemental jurisdiction statute. That statute provides, "in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the[y] shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that ... form part of the same case or controversy." § 1367(a). Here, lCS' state law claims are legal "claims" in the sense that that term is generally used to denote a judicially cognizable cause of action, and they and the federal claims derive from a common nucleus of operative fact, see Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725. Pp. 163-166.
(b) lCS' argument that the District Court lacked jurisdiction because its complaints contained state law claims requiring deferential, on-therecord review of the Commission's decisions stems from the erroneous premise that those claims must be "civil actions" within the federal courts' "original jurisdiction" under § 1441(a) for removal purposes. Because this is a federal question case, the District Court's original jurisdiction derives not from lCS' state law claims, but from its federal claims, which satisfy § 1441(a)'s requirements. Having thus established federal jurisdiction, the relevant inquiry respecting the accompanying state claims is whether they fall within a district court's supplemental jurisdiction, and that inquiry turns on whether they satisfy § 1367(a)'s requirements. lCS' proposed approach would effectively read the supplemental jurisdiction statute out of the books: The whole point of supplemental jurisdiction is to allow the district courts to exercise pendent jurisdiction over claims as to which original jurisdiction is lacking. Pp. 166-168.
(c) This Court also disagrees with lCS' reasoning to the extent lCS means to suggest that a claim involving deferential review of a local administrative decision can never be "so related to claims ... within ... original jurisdiction that [it] formEs] part of the same case or controversy" for purposes of supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(a). While Congress could establish an exception to supplemental jurisdiction for such claims, the statute, as written, bears no such construction, as it confers jurisdiction without reference to the nature of review. Nor do Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Stude, 346 U. S. 574, 581, and Horton v.
