Ruhrgas Ag v. Marathon Oil Co.

Ruhrgas Ag v. Marathon Oil Co.

Opinion

 [*577]  [***766]  [**1566]    JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

 This case concerns the authority of the federal courts to adjudicate controversies. ] Jurisdiction to resolve cases on the merits requires both authority over the category of claim in suit (subject-matter jurisdiction) and authority over the parties (personal jurisdiction), so that the court's decision will bind them. In Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 140 L. Ed. 2d 210, 118 S. Ct. 1003 (1998), this Court adhered to the rule that ] a federal court may not hypothesize subject-matter jurisdiction for the purpose of deciding [****8]  the merits. Steel Co.  [**1567]  rejected a doctrine, once approved by several Courts of Appeals, that allowed federal tribunals to pretermit jurisdictional objections "where (1) the merits question is more readily resolved, and (2) the prevailing party on the merits would be the same as the prevailing party were jurisdiction denied." 523 U.S. at 93.  [***767]  Recalling "a long and venerable line of our cases," 523 U.S. at 94, Steel Co. reiterated: "The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter . . . is 'inflexible and without exception,'" 523 U.S. at 94-95 (quoting Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U.S. 379, 382, 28 L. Ed. 462, 4 S. Ct. 510 (1884)); for "jurisdiction is power to declare the law," and "'without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause,'" 523 U.S. at 94 (quoting Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506, 7 Wall. 506, 514, 19 L. Ed. 264 (1869)). The Court, in Steel Co., acknowledged that "the absolute purity" of the jurisdiction-first rule had been diluted in a few extraordinary cases, 523 U.S. at 101, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR, joined by JUSTICE KENNEDY, joined the majority on the understanding that the Court's opinion did not catalog "an exhaustive list of circumstances" in which exceptions [****9]  to the solid rule were appropriate, 523 U.S. at 110.

Steel Co. is the backdrop for the issue now before us: If, as Steel Co. held, jurisdiction generally must precede merits in dispositional order, must subject-matter jurisdiction precede personal jurisdiction on the decisional line? Or, do federal district courts have discretion to avoid a difficult question  [*578]  of subject-matter jurisdiction when the absence of personal jurisdiction is the surer ground? The particular civil action we confront was commenced in state court and removed to federal court. The specific question on which we granted certiorari asks "whether a federal district court is absolutely barred in all circumstances from dismissing a removed case for lack of personal jurisdiction without first deciding its subject-matter jurisdiction." Pet. for Cert. i.

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