What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a Sixth Circuit decision holding that Enbridge Energy waited too long to remove Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's Line 5 lawsuit to federal court, ruling that the civil removal statute's 30-day deadline cannot be saved by equitable tolling.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that Enbridge missed the deadline by waiting 887 days after receiving the attorney general's complaint before removing the case. The court said §1446(b)(1)'s "text, structure, and context are inconsistent with equitable tolling," making Enbridge's removal untimely and requiring remand to Michigan state court.
The case centers on Enbridge's 645-mile Line 5 petroleum pipeline, including a four-mile segment crossing the Straits of Mackinac under a 1953 easement from Michigan. Nessel filed the state case in June 2019 seeking to halt Line 5 operations, alleging the easement is void and that continued operations violate Michigan law because of oil-spill risks.
Enbridge did not initially remove Nessel's case, instead litigating in state court. After Michigan's governor later filed a separate Line 5 suit and Enbridge obtained a favorable federal remand ruling in that case, Enbridge removed the attorney general's case in December 2021, prompting Nessel to argue the removal was untimely.
The justices said the 30-day removal deadline is nonjurisdictional, but that does not make it malleable in every respect. The opinion reasoned that Congress built specific exceptions into the removal scheme, including later-ascertained removability, bad-faith treatment in diversity cases and cause-based extensions in particular categories of cases, undermining Enbridge's broader tolling argument.
The ruling resolves a split among federal appeals courts over whether equitable tolling is available under §1446(b)(1) in at least some circumstances. The immediate consequence is that the attorney general's Line 5 suit must return to Michigan state court, while the high court left unresolved whether other equitable doctrines such as waiver, forfeiture or estoppel could apply in removal-timing disputes.