Opinion Summary: Enbridge v. Nessel | Deadline Drama Diffused

Welcome back to the High Court Report, your one-stop shop for Supreme Court coverage.

Today, we're covering Enbridge Energy versus Nestle, a 9-0 unanimous decision where the

Supreme Court slammed the door on companies trying to move state lawsuits to federal court

after missing deadlines.

The court ruled that federal removal deadlines operate as mandatory requirements that defendants

cannot extend through claims of extraordinary circumstances even when international treaties

and diplomatic relations get involved.

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This case involves one of North America's most controversial energy infrastructure projects.

A massive pipeline that carries oil from Wisconsin through Michigan to Canada.

We're talking 645 miles total, but the really contentious part runs for four miles under

the Straits of Mackenac.

That's where lakes here on and Michigan connect.

This thing transports petroleum products under some of the most pristine freshwater in

the world.

And Michigan officials wanted it shut down.

On June 27, 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nestle filed a lawsuit in state court

seeking to void a 1953 easement that allowed the pipeline to cross the lake bottom.

She wanted Enbridge, that's the Canadian company that operates the pipeline, to cease operations

permanently.

So Enbridge gets served with this lawsuit on July 12, 2019.

Federal law gives defendants 30 days to move cases from state to federal court.

What did they do?

Here's where things get weird.

They just stayed in state court for months.

The litigated motions participated in hearings, filed briefs, the whole nine yards, but they

never removed the case to federal court.

That seems like a risky strategy when you're facing a state court that wants to shut down

your entire operation.

And then things got even weirder.

In November 2020, over a year after Enbridge's removal deadline expired, Michigan governor

Gretchen Whitmer jumped into the fight.

She issued her own notice revoking the 1953 easement and filed a separate lawsuit against

Enbridge.

So now there are two different Michigan officials suing the same company over the same pipeline.

Exactly.

But here's the kicker.

Enbridge immediately removed the governor's case to federal court within the required

30-day window.

They timely removed the new case, but left the older attorney general case sitting in

state court.

The parties agreed to put the attorney general's case on hold while the federal court decided

whether to keep the governor's case.

The federal district court refused to send it back to state court, finding substantial

federal questions about pipeline safety law and international treaties.

Canada operates under a 1977 treaty with the United States that protects cross-border

pipeline operations.

So this pipeline doesn't just affect Michigan, it affects international relations between

two countries.

Then what happened?

Plot twist.

After losing the federal court battle, governor Whitmer voluntarily dismissed her own lawsuit

in November 2021.

She literally issued a press release saying she disagreed with the federal court keeping

jurisdiction, so she dropped her case to let state courts have the final say.

That sounds like forum shopping.

Textbook forum shopping.

In the same day Whitmer dismissed her federal case, attorney general Nestle announced she

fully supported the move because her state case provided the most viable path to shut down

the pipeline.

So on December 15th, 2021, 887 days after receiving the attorney general's original complaint,

Enbridge finally tried to remove that case to federal court.

887 days, that's not 30 days late, that's almost two and a half years late.

The attorney general immediately moved to send the case back to state court, arguing Enbridge

missed the statutory deadline by a country mile, but the federal district court said not

so fast.

The judge found that equitable principles justified excusing the untimely removal because

of extraordinary circumstances, the international treaty implications, the parallel federal litigation,

and Michigan's obvious forum manipulation.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision.

They agreed that removal deadlines don't count as jurisdictional requirements, which means

courts can potentially bend them under extraordinary circumstances, but they found that the removal

statute contains so many specific exceptions that Congress clearly didn't want courts

adding more through equitable principles.

That created a circuit split.

Different federal appellate courts disagreed about when, if ever, defendants can get extra

time to remove cases after missing the 30-day deadline.

The Supreme Court stepped in to resolve that conflict.

So the formal legal question sounds incredibly technical.

The court considered whether federal courts may apply equitable tolling to extend the 30-day

removal deadline under 28 United States Code section 1,446 B1 when extraordinary circumstances

prevent timely filing.

In normal person language, that means can companies get extra time to move cases to federal

court when really unusual stuff happens that makes the normal 30-day deadline unreasonable?

Exactly.

And in our preview episode, we predicted this would come down to whether the court viewed

removal deadlines as traditional statutes of limitations deserving flexibility or specialized

procedural rules requiring strict enforcement.

The court definitively chose strict enforcement.

What does that mean?

Think of it like this.

Say your employer has a rule that vacation requests must be filed 30 days in advance.

But then a family emergency happens 29 days before you need time off, and the HR office

closes for a week due to a power outage.

Most reasonable employers would say, okay, we'll accept your late request under these

extraordinary circumstances.

That's equitable tolling.

Bending strict rules when unforeseen circumstances make compliance impossible or unfair.

Right.

Federal courts generally presume that Congress wants this kind of flexibility built into

statutory deadlines, unless Congress clearly says otherwise.

The question becomes, did Congress clearly say no exceptions ever for removal deadlines?

The court walked through this analysis step by step.

First, they acknowledge that removal deadlines qualify as non-jurisdictional, which means

they can potentially be waived or extended under certain circumstances.

But they said that doesn't automatically make every non-jurisdictional rule subject to

equitable tolling.

So just because a deadline isn't jurisdictional doesn't mean courts can extend it.

Correct.

The court cited Neutraceutical Court versus Lambert, that's a 2022 case, for the principle

that the mere fact that a time limit lacks jurisdictional force does not render it malleable

in every respect.

Some non-jurisdictional rules remain mandatory and not susceptible to equitable tolling.

How do courts tell the difference?

The court looks for good reason to believe that Congress did not want the equitable tolling

doctrine to apply.

That language comes from Ariano versus McDonough, a 2023 case, and here the court found several

good reasons.

First, they pointed to the mandatory language, section 1446, B, 1, says removal, shall be

filed within 30 days.

That's not suggestive.

That's a command.

But lots of statutes use shall language and still allow equitable tolling, right?

True.

So the court said mandatory language alone doesn't rebut the presumption, but it points

in that direction.

The decisive factor comes from what they called the statutes structure.

Here's the key insight, and this matches exactly what we anticipated in our preview.

The court found that Congress already built multiple specific exceptions into the removal

statute.

Exceptions that reflect exactly the kind of equitable considerations that defendants

want courts to add through case-by-case analysis.

What kind of exceptions?

Several.

Section 1446, B, 3, provides an extension when a case initially appears non-removable, but

defendants later discover it can be removed.

Section 1446, C, 1, creates an exception if plaintiffs acted in bad faith.

Other statutes explicitly allow courts to extend removal deadlines for cause-shown in

cases involving foreign governments, intellectual property disputes, and fatal accidents.

So Congress already considered equitable factors, and decided exactly when to allow extensions?

Exactly.

The court cited United States versus Brockamp.

That's a 1997 case for the rule that an explicit listing of exceptions set forth in detail

strongly indicates Congress didn't intend courts to add other unmentioned open-ended

equitable exceptions.

And here's what really sealed it for the court.

Congress treats criminal removal differently from civil removal.

Under Section 1455, B, 1, criminal defendants can ask courts to extend removal deadlines

for good cause-shown, but Congress provided no similar general extension power for civil

defendants.

That suggests Congress knew how to authorize judicial flexibility when it wanted to, but

chose not to do so for regular civil cases.

Bingo.

The court also emphasized practical concerns about efficiency.

Civil statutes reflect an obvious concern with efficiency, and general interest in avoiding

prolonged litigation on threshold non-marit's questions.

Allowing case-by-case equitable tolling would undermine Congress's goal of resolving

forum questions early and definitively.

So the court held unanimously that Section 1446, B, 1, 30-day removal deadline, cannot

be equitably told, even assuming the provision qualifies as a statute of limitations subject

to equitable tolling presumption, the statute's text, structure, and context rebut that

presumption.

The Sixth Circuit got it right, and Enbridge's 887-day late removal attempt fails.

Nine justices, zero separate opinions.

That's about as definitive as Supreme Court decisions get.

The court affirmed the Sixth Circuit's judgment and ordered the case remanded to Michigan

State Court.

Enbridge loses, the attorney general wins, and the pipeline dispute continues in the forum

she originally chose.

Even for what this actually means.

So what actually changes after this decision?

For any company facing a State Court lawsuit, it means the 30-day removal clock starts

ticking the moment you get served.

And extraordinary circumstances won't save you if you miss it.

And that includes really extraordinary circumstances, like international treaties, diplomatic crises,

parallel federal litigation, and obvious state forum manipulation.

This particularly affects complex business litigation, where companies might face tactical

decisions about removal timing.

Maybe you want to see how the State Court judge handles early motions before deciding

whether federal court looks more attractive.

That strategy just became much riskier.

You get one chance to remove within 30 days.

And if you choose to litigate in State Court, you generally stay there forever.

For environmental and regulatory cases, this creates more predictability, but potentially

traps defendants in hostile state forums.

A company like Enbridge might find itself defending federal pipeline safety law in a State

court system where the attorney general explicitly wants to shut down their operations.

The ruling also eliminates a source of uncertainty and satellite litigation.

Courts won't waste months analyzing whether extraordinary circumstances justify late removal.

Either you removed within 30 days, or you didn't.

But Congress can always revisit this if they think the rule operates too harshly.

The court specifically noted they didn't resolve other equitable doctrines like waiver,

estoppel, or forfeiture that might apply in unusual situations.

So what questions did the court leave open?

Plenty.

Can defendants' wave removal deadlines through litigation conduct?

Can plaintiffs be stopped from arguing untimeliness if they manipulated proceedings?

Those fights continue under different legal theories.

And the underlying dispute over line five continues in Michigan State Court, where the attorney

general will try to shut down a pipeline that carries oil for millions of Americans and

Canadians.

Bottom line, this decision makes removal deadlines much less flexible and forum selection much

more permanent.

Companies need to decide quickly whether they want state or federal court because they

won't get second chances.

Thanks for listening to today's High Court Report episode.

Remember, please follow, rate, subscribe, share, and review the podcast on Apple, Spotify,

YouTube, anywhere you podcast.

Follow on LinkedIn for written rundowns.

Just search the High Court Report.

And if you have questions about this case, reach out via LinkedIn or email at scotus.cases.pod

at gmail.com.

Think of it as the Supreme Court's way of saying, you snooze, you lose, even when international

incidents wake you up.

Though probably with more Latin phrases and fewer pipeline puns, talk to you soon.