Fourth Circuit upholds derivative jurisdiction requirement under section 1442

In PALMER v. CITY NATIONAL BANK, a panel of the Fourth Circuit held that the doctrine of derivative jurisdiction, which requires that a federal court’s jurisdiction over a removed case mirror the jurisdiction that the state court had prior to removal, survives and is applicable to the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C.A. 1442. Congress specifically eliminated the doctrine for cases removed under 28 U.S.C. § 1441, the general removal statute, but failed to make these changes to section 1442. Hence, derivative jurisdiction still lives in cases removed under section 1442.