Papp v. Fore-Kast Sales Co. — civil — reversal — Jordan

The Third Circuit today reversed a district court decision that remanded a removed case to state court. The court held that the federal-officer removal statute extends to contractors who possess a colorable defense and that the contractor met that standard here. In practice, that means that the court extended the government-contractor defense to failure-to-warn cases. The court rejected the district court’s view that, to invoke the removal statute in a failure-to-warn suit, the defendant-contractor had to show that a federal officer directly prohibited the contractor from warning third parties. The opinion relied heavily on the court’s 2015 ruling in Defender Ass’n of Phila.

Today’s opinion contains an important appellate-practice holding. The court ruled that the appellee had forfeited an alternative basis for affirmance that it raised only in a two-sentence footnote describing the issue as fully briefed below. Allowing parties to preserve arguments through incorporation by reference would nullify the word limits, the court said, and “[t]hat cannot be permitted.” I’m no fan of incorporation by reference, but offhand I would have thought appellees could get away with it due to the rule that the court could affirm on any ground supported by the record.

Joining Jordan were Vanaskie and Krause. Arguing counsel were Martin Gaynor III of Boston for the contractor and Jeffrey Blumstein of Szaferman Lakind for the appellee.