There is a version of civil procedure that sounds like nothing and decides everything.
A defendant sued in state court can usually move the case to federal court. The right is real, and for a large corporate defendant facing a state Attorney General, it can be worth more than most of the arguments in the case. Federal juries are drawn from a wider map. Federal judges are appointed for life. And a state court asked to void a state easement is, for the defendant, the least appealing room in the building.
That right comes with a deadline: 30 days.
On April 22, 2026, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the deadline means what it says, and that no equitable doctrine will extend it.
What the statute says
The removal clock lives in 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1):
The notice of removal of a civil action or proceeding shall be filed within 30 days after the receipt by the defendant, through service or otherwise, of a copy of the initial pleading setting forth the claim for relief upon which such action or proceeding is based . . .
Thirty days. From service.
What Enbridge did
Michigan’s Attorney General sued Enbridge in Michigan state court, seeking to have the 1953 easement under the Straits of Mackinac declared void and continued operation of Line 5 declared unlawful. Line 5 is a 645-mile petroleum pipeline; roughly four of those miles run beneath the Straits.
Enbridge was served in 2019. It litigated in state court. Then, 887 days after receiving the complaint, it filed a notice of removal to federal court.
Enbridge’s argument was not that it had met the deadline. It was that the deadline should be equitably tolled — that a court, in fairness, could excuse the delay because the grounds for federal jurisdiction had become clearer over time and because the district court had at one point kept the case.
The Sixth Circuit disagreed and ordered the case back to Michigan state court. The Supreme Court affirmed.
Justice Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous Court, held that § 1446(b)(1)’s text, structure, and context are inconsistent with equitable tolling. The 30-day window is not a default that a sympathetic judge can stretch. It is the rule.
The case went back to a Michigan state courtroom, roughly seven years after it was filed.
Minnesota’s stake, and Minnesota’s brief
This is not a Michigan story with a Minnesota footnote. Minnesota is in it twice.
First, the pipeline. The Line 3 replacement project put 337 miles of new pipe across northern Minnesota — the largest single-state segment of a project that laid 13 miles in North Dakota and 14 in Wisconsin. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission issued the certificate of need and route permit in the fall of 2018, found the revised final environmental impact statement adequate and reissued the permits in 2020, and the replacement line entered service in October 2021. Whatever a Minnesotan thinks about that project, the litigation posture of a company operating that much pipe in this state is not an abstraction.
Second, the brief. Minnesota did not merely sign on to the amicus brief supporting Michigan — Minnesota led it. The brief filed October 21, 2025 is captioned Brief of Minnesota, et al., with the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General as counsel, joined by Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
The states’ interest is straightforward. When a state sues in its own courts to enforce its own property and environmental law, a removal clock that can be stretched by equity is a clock that never really runs. A defendant could litigate in state court as long as the state court was going well, and remove when it was not.
The Court closed that option.
The part that applies to everyone else
Line 5 is the headline. The rule is not limited to pipelines, and it is not limited to Attorneys General.
If you are sued in Minnesota state court and you have a basis to be in federal court — diversity of citizenship, a federal question, a federal officer removal theory — the clock starts when you are served, and after April 22, 2026 there is no equitable argument waiting at the end of it. Not “we were negotiating.” Not “we did not have counsel yet.” Not “the federal ground did not become obvious until discovery.”
Three practical consequences follow.
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Forum analysis belongs in the first week, not the first month. Deciding whether to remove is a strategic question that requires knowing the parties’ citizenship, the amount in controversy, and whether any defendant is a citizen of the forum state. Thirty days is not much time to develop facts you did not gather before you were sued.
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Service date, not “when it got to the right person.” Corporate defendants lose removal rights inside their own mailrooms. A summons served on a registered agent starts the clock whether or not it reached the general counsel that week.
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There is a second deadline for some diversity cases. Separate from the 30-day rule, § 1446(c)(1) bars removal on diversity grounds more than one year after the action commenced — but by its terms that bar applies only to removals under § 1446(b)(3), meaning cases that were not removable on the initial pleading and became removable later. It does not reach a case removable on the face of the complaint. The one exception: a district court may excuse it on a finding that the plaintiff acted in bad faith to prevent removal.
And the corollary for plaintiffs: if you chose Minnesota state court deliberately, that choice becomes considerably more durable after day 31.
Why a procedural ruling is worth reading
Cases about deadlines get filed under “technicalities,” and that is exactly backwards. A deadline is where the law decides who gets the benefit of delay.
Enbridge’s position was, at bottom, that a large litigant who waits should be able to explain the wait to a judge. The Court’s answer was that Congress already decided how long the wait can be, and that a rule everyone can count on is worth more than a rule that can be argued about in every case.
That answer helps a state enforcing its easements. It also helps the small business that gets sued and needs to know, in week one, what courthouse it will be defending in — and it binds that business just as tightly.
If you have been served with a complaint in Minnesota and are weighing whether the case belongs in state or federal court, the window is short and it does not reopen. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Enbridge Energy, LP v. Nessel, 608 U. S. ___ (2026) (Sotomayor, J.), No. 24–783, decided April 22, 2026, affirming 104 F.4th 958 (6th Cir. 2024); 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1), (b)(3), (c)(1); Brief of Minnesota et al. as amici curiae, No. 24–783, filed October 21, 2025 (Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, counsel of record for the amici states); Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Line 3 Replacement Project record, Dockets PL-9/CN-14-916 and PL-9/PPL-15-137 (certificate of need and route permit issued 2018; FEIS found adequate and permits reissued 2020); Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Line 3 project pages (in service October 2021); Minnesota Department of Commerce EERA project docket (route mileage by state). This article is general commentary on a published decision and federal statutes, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Removal analysis depends entirely on the facts of a particular case. No outcome is promised or implied.