Federal Court Must Sever and Remand Jones Act Claim Without Assessing Claim’s Validity if Case Is Otherwise Removable

If a case is properly removable to federal court notwithstanding the presence of a Jones Act claim, the Jones Act claim should be severed and remanded to the state court without an independent analysis of the claim’s merit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana held yesterday.  In 1993, the Fifth Circuit explained in Lackey v. Atlantic Richfield Co. that if a defendant argues that the plaintiff “fraudulently pleaded [a Jones Act claim] to prevent removal,” the federal court may analyze the merit of the Jones Act claim to determine whether there was any possibility of recovery on the merits in assessing its removal jurisdiction.  In the case pending before the Louisiana federal court, however, the court determined that the plaintiff’s Jones Act claim was irrelevant for the court’s jurisdictional analysis because the court found the suit removable on the basis of OCSLA jurisdiction.  Because the Jones Act claim’s validity could not “frustrate federal jurisdiction,” the court found the Lackey rationale inapplicable and rejected the argument that the Jones Act claim should be dismissed instead of being severed and remanded.  The court had original jurisdiction of the non-Jones Act claims because they alleged injuries 1) occurring in a crane basket that was attached to an offshore platform (an OCSLA situs), 2) in work furthering mineral development on the Outer Continental Shelf (drilling operations to produce oil and gas), and 3) that would not have occurred but for the plaintiff’s employment.