Long v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (2025)

Our plain-English summary of Long v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, March 10, 2025).

Richard Long sued fifty-one defendants in Oregon state court, alleging that asbestos-containing products they made caused his malignant pleural mesothelioma. After discovery showed Long had been present on Navy ships, Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation removed the case to federal court under the federal officer removal statute. Long asked for the case to be sent back to state court, and the district court agreed. Foster Wheeler appealed. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. It explained that Foster Wheeler had to show a causal connection between conduct directed by the federal government and Long's claims. Long had disclaimed any claim against Foster Wheeler based on exposure on Navy vessels and said he would rely only on exposure on civilian ships. Because of that, his claims did not challenge anything Foster Wheeler did under Navy direction. The court also rejected Foster Wheeler's argument that admiralty jurisdiction allowed the case to stay in federal court, because the saving to suitors clause prevents that when a plaintiff files a maritime claim in state court. The disposition was not published.

We wrote this summary from the court's opinion with the help of AI. It is not the court's wording, and it is not legal advice. The full opinion is below.

The decision

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 10, 2025
• Docket: No. 24-1557
• Stage: Appeal from jurisdiction, venue or removal
• Unpublished opinion. Many courts limit citing unpublished opinions as precedent.
• State: Oregon

Outcome. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order remanding Richard Long's case to Oregon state court, rejecting Foster Wheeler's federal officer removal and admiralty jurisdiction arguments.

What the court held. Federal officer removal requires a causal nexus between federally directed conduct and the plaintiff's claims, which is absent where the plaintiff disclaims exposure on Navy vessels. The saving to suitors clause bars a federal court from keeping a case removed from state court on admiralty jurisdiction alone.

Issues decided: Government Contractor Defense and Removal, Maritime Law and Navy Ships, Venue, Removal and Transfer.

The people and their exposure

• Richard D. Long: pleural mesothelioma

The defendants

• Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (manufacturer)
• 3M Company (manufacturer)

Decisions this opinion cites

Earlier decisions in our library that the court cited:

• Leite v. Crane Co. (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 2014). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district courts' denial of the plaintiffs' motions to remand, holding Crane Co. had shown by a preponderance of the evidence a colorable government contractor defense and a causal nexus supporting federal officer removal.

The court's opinion

The text below is Google Scholar's copy of the court's opinion, a public record. Numbers in brackets, such as [*921], mark where each page of the printed reporter begins.

RICHARD D. LONG, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

FOSTER WHEELER ENERGY CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant, and

3M COMPANY, etal., Defendants.

No. 24-1557.

Argued and Submitted February 4, 2025 Phoenix, Arizona.

Filed March 10, 2025.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon; D.C. No. 3:23-cv-01325-AR, Karin J. Immergut, District Judge, Presiding.

Before: HAWKINS, BYBEE, and BADE, Circuit Judges.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

MEMORANDUM[*]

Plaintiff-Appellee Richard Long sued fifty-one defendants in Oregon state court for manufacturing asbestos-containing products that allegedly caused him to develop malignant pleural mesothelioma. After discovery revealed that Long was present on Navy ships, defendant Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (Foster Wheeler) removed Long's case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1442, the federal officer removal statute. Long filed a motion to remand his case to Oregon state court. The district court granted Long's motion to remand, and Foster Wheeler appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), and we affirm.

1. Foster Wheeler bears the burden of establishing that "a causal nexus [exists] between federally directed conduct and [Long's] claims." See Doe v. Cedars-Sinai Health Sys., 106 F.4th 907, 913 (9th Cir. 2024). Because Long has disclaimed, with respect to his claims against Foster Wheeler, "causes of action for any exposures of any kind to asbestos dust while [he] was working on Navy vessels," and separately stated that "the only exposure evidence [he] will discuss will be the exposures on civilian ships, not Navy ships, not Coast Guard ships, not current civilian ships that were commissioned by the military," Long does not challenge any "act that [Foster Wheeler] contends it performed under the direction of the Navy" or other military branch. See Leite v. Crane Co., 749 F.3d 1117, 1124 (9th Cir. 2014). Consequently, no "causal nexus exists between [Long's] claims and the actions [Foster Wheeler] took pursuant to a federal officer's direction." Id. at 1120. The district court did not err in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction over Long's claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1442. 2. Foster Wheeler also argues that the district court should have denied Long's motion to remand because it had admiralty jurisdiction over Long's claims. But the "saving to suitors" clause of 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) forbids district courts from retaining improperly removed cases based off admiralty jurisdiction. "[W]hen a plaintiff brings a maritime cause of action against a person in state court, a federal court lacks admiralty jurisdiction over that claim. In order to remove such a claim to federal court, the defendant must assert some other basis of jurisdiction, such as diversity jurisdiction." County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., 32 F.4th 733, 763 (9th Cir. 2022) (internal citation omitted). The district court did not err in concluding that it lacked admiralty jurisdiction over Long's claims.

AFFIRMED.

[*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

Sources

• The opinion on Google Scholar
• Oregon asbestos laws
• Oregon asbestos exposure sites