Court Grants Federal Officer Removal Case

This afternoon, the Supreme Court announced that it has agreed--contrary the Solicitor General's recommendation--to review the Eighth Circuit's decision concluding that tobacco giant Philip Morris could remove a case to federal court on the basis of the federal officer removal statute. On Wednesday, I previewed the case (Watson v. Philip Morris) in a post you can access here, and explained why I thought the Court should take the case. Needless to say, this is one of those cases in which getting cert granted was more than half the battle. This one is exceedingly easy to predict: the Court will reverse the Eighth Circuit. Period.

Update: Ted Frank of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who's much more sympathetic to the plight of the downtrodden tobacco companies than I am, discusses the case here and reacts to the grant here.