We'll hear argument next. Case 24-724, the Haines Celestial Group v. Palmquist.

Ms. Harrington.

Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court.

The Fifth Circuit erred in holding that it was required to vacate the District Court's final judgment

after determining that Whole Foods should have been dismissed.

For nearly 200 years, this Court has instructed that even if a

federal court makes a jurisdictional error at the inception of a case, a final judgment in

that case should stand if the District Court had jurisdiction over the suit in the form it took

at the time of final judgment. That is exactly what happened here, because the only parties left

were completely diverse. Excuse me. Plaintiff's primary argument is that Whole Foods was a party

in the district court through trial into final judgment because the order dismissing it could have

been, and eventually was, reversed on appeal. But if you accept that argument, that would wipe out the fraudulent

joined their doctrine completely. In order to be a party in a suit, you have to be subject to

the district court's jurisdiction. But when a nominal defendant is dismissed as fraudulently

joined, that defendant is never subject to the jurisdiction of the federal court. The whole

reason a fraudulent joinder case is even removable in the first place

is because the fraudulently joined defendant is not treated as a real defendant.

So if you view that dismissed defendant as a party through final judgment

based on the possibility of reversal on appeal,

then there would never be jurisdiction

in a fraudulent joinder case, because even if the dismissal was later determined to be correct,

the non-diverse defendant would have been lurking through the whole case to final judgment.

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