Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: The opinion of the Court in No. 02-306, Beneficial National Bank versus Anderson will be announced by Justice Stevens.
Argument of Justice Stevens
Mr. Stevens: Respondents are individual taxpayers who pledge their anticipated tax refunds to secure short-term loans from petitioner, a national bank chartered under the National Bank Act.
Respondents sued the bank and two other petitioners in an Alabama State Court claiming that the interest rates on their loans were usurious.
Petitioners removed the case to the Federal District Court asserting that the National Bank Act provides the exclusive cause of action for usury against the national bank that the suit therefore arose under Federal Law and thus could properly be removed to a Federal District Court.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held this removal improper because it could not find clear congressional intent to permit such a removal.
We granted certiorari and today in an opinion filed with the Clerk, we reverse the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit.
The well-pleaded complaint rule provides that we examine only the allegations in the complaint and ignore potential federal defenses.
Thus, as a general rule, a complaint will not be removable if the complaint is not affirmatively allege a federal claim.
Congress has, however, created limited exceptions to this general rule.
In cases interpreting the Labor Management Relations Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, we found that Congress completely preempted any state cause of action and therefore the case is alleging only state law causes of action for certain claims were nonetheless properly removable.
In a long line of cases, this Court has construed the National Bank Act as providing the exclusive cause of action for claims of usury against the national bank.
Consistent with this interpretation, we find that Congress has completely preempted such claims and that the suit was therefore properly removable.
Justice Scalia has filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Thomas joined.
