State Court Injunctions, Removed Actions & § 1292(a)(1)
28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) gives the courts of appeals jurisdiction to immediately review many district court decisions involving injunctive relief. But § 1292(a)(1)’s text includes an important qualifier. It applies to “[i]nterlocutory orders of the district courts.” Normally this qualifier does little work. After all, most (if not nearly all) § 1292(a)(1) appeals involve injunctions issued by a district court.
In Schuler v. Adams, the Sixth Circuit had to address its jurisdiction to review a state court’s preliminary injunction. The case had been removed to federal court after the state court had issued the injunction. The Sixth Circuit held that it lacked appellate jurisdiction. The order—though granting injunctive relief—was not “of the district court[].” And removal did not transform the state court’s order into one of the district court.
The Schuler Litigation
Simplifying a fair bit, Schuler started out as a state court dispute over restrictions on construction in wetlands. The plaintiffs sued to prohibit construction. Shortly thereafter, the state court issued a preliminary injunction against any construction on the property.
Around that time, the defendants impleaded the the Army Corps of Engineers (which potentially had some say in the land-use dispute). The Corps then removed the case to federal court under the federal-officer removal statute. Once in federal court, the defendants tried to appeal the preliminary injunction.
§ 1292(a)(1) & State Court Injunctions
The Sixth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the state court injunction. To be sure, the courts of appeals normally have jurisdiction to immediately review orders granting a preliminary injunction. But the statute that gives appellate courts this power—28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1)—applies only to decisions “of the district courts.” The preliminary injunction in Schuler did not come from a federal district court. It came from a state court. So under § 1292(a)(1)’s plain text, the order was not appealable.
The Sixth Circuit went on to explain that it could not treat the state court’s preliminary-injunction order as if it was made by the district court. To be sure, 28 U.S.C. § 1450 provides that state court injunctions remain in effect after removal. That way, removal does not alter the status quo. But § 1450 does not say anything about transforming state court orders into orders of the district court. To secure review, a party must first ask the district court to modify or dissolve the preliminary injunction. The district court’s refusal to do so would then (probably) be appealable via § 1292(a)(1).
The Sixth Circuit also pointed out that any other holding would require it to address the appropriateness of an injunction in the first instance. State courts are not bound by the federal rules regarding the propriety of preliminary injunctions. With no district court decision addressing that propriety, a court of appeals would have nothing to review.
Finally, the Sixth Circuit noted that the only other published case addressing the issue—the First Circuit’s decision in Concordia Partners, LLC v. Pick—reached the same conclusion.
Schuler v. Adams, 2022 WL 669460 (6th Cir. Mar. 7, 2022), available at the Sixth Circuit and Westlaw.
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