May a Federal Court Remand a Case to State Court After Federal Claims Have Been Deleted

This Article provides a preview of Carnegie-Mellon University v. Honorable Maurice B. Cohill, Jr., argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on November 10, 1987. This case concerns the circumstances under which a lawsuit, properly commenced in a state court and then removed before trial to a federal court, may be sent back (remanded) to the state court. On one level, this case seems only to involve technical interpretations of federal statutes governing procedure in the federal courts. At another level, however, it involves more general and important issues. Among these are how to allocate judicial power and responsibility between the state and federal courts; the authority of federal judges to expand limitations on federal statutes, through exercising judicial discretion and the rights of individuals to control the forum for litigating their disputes by changing their original complaint.