Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 1 of 39 FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-13200 ____________________ CITY OF BRUNSWICK, by and through its Mayor and Board of Commissioners, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL, INC. f.k.a. Allied Chemical Corporation, f.k.a. Allied Signal, Inc., THE GEORGIA POWER COMPANY, Defendants-Appellants. ____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 2:22-cv-00132-JRH-BWC ____________________ Before BRANCH, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges. BRANCH, Circuit Judge: USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 2 of 39 2 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 Congress has charged the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) with identifying sites affected by pollution and undertaking necessary remediation efforts or delegating those efforts to third parties. One such site surrounds the City of Brunswick, Georgia. The City sued Honeywell International, Inc., and the Georgia Power Company in Georgia state court asserting that both defendants were liable under state tort law for pollution emanating from that site. The defendants removed the case to federal court, arguing, among various grounds for removal, that federal officer jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) 1 applied, because all the remediation efforts the defendants had undertaken at the site were controlled and delegated by EPA, a federal agency. 1 The federal officer removal statute provides as follows: (a) A civil action or criminal prosecution that is commenced in a State court and that is against or directed to any of the following may be removed by them to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place wherein it is pending: (1) The United States or any agency thereof or any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or of any agency thereof, in an official or individual capacity, for or relating to any act under color of such office or on account of any right, title or authority claimed under any Act of Congress for the apprehension or punishment of criminals or the collection of the revenue. 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 3 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 3 The district court rejected this argument and remanded the case to state court. While this appeal of the remand order was pending, the Supreme Court further delineated the contours of the federal officer removal test. See Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, 608 U.S. ----, 146 S. Ct. 1052 (2026). With the benefit of oral argument and supplemental briefing, we hold that federal officer removal was proper in this case because the defendants’ alleged liability arises out of their obligations under an EPA-mandated consent decree to remediate the plant site, an action that EPA would otherwise have to perform itself. 2 But first, we consider our jurisdiction to hear the appeal. We conclude that we have jurisdiction to review the district court’s remand order, notwithstanding the parties’ subsequent litigation activities in state court, because the remand order was automatically stayed upon the defendants’ notice of appeal. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s remand order. I. Background A. Factual Background Georgia Power, an electric utility incorporated in Georgia, purchased plots of land (“the Plant Site”) in the Brunswick area in 1937 and the following years. Georgia Power used the Plant Site to generate electric power and store petroleum products. As a 2 Because we decide the removal issue on the federal officer removal ground, we do not reach the defendants’ other grounds for removal. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 4 of 39 4 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 result of these operations, hazardous substances, including poly- chlorinated byphenals (PCBs), were released on the Plant Site and into the environment. In the mid-1950s, a corporation that later became Honeywell acquired the Plant Site and additional land in the area from Georgia Power. Honeywell built and operated a chlor-alkali facility at the Plant Site to produce chlorine gas, hydrogen gas, and caustic solution. These operations led to further disposal of hazardous substances, including mercury and PCBs, within the Plant Site. Honeywell operated the Plant Site until 1979, when Honeywell sold it to another corporation, although Honeywell remained involved in the plant’s operations until the plant ceased activity in 1994. Honeywell later reacquired the Plant Site. In 1995, the defendants entered into an Administrative Order on Consent with EPA, agreeing to undertake a remedial investigation and feasibility study at the Plant Site under EPA’s oversight and subject to EPA’s approval. EPA subsequently added the Plant Site to the National Priorities List, a “prioritized list of contaminated sites for cleanup, commonly known as Superfund sites” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”). See Atl. Richfield Co. v. Christian, 590 U.S. 1, 6 (2020) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 9605). 3 A few years later, EPA began to mandate remediation actions, such as 3 Once a contaminated site is designated a Superfund site, “EPA may clean [the site] itself or compel responsible parties to perform the cleanup.” Atl. Richfield, 590 U.S. at 6 (citing 42 U.S.C. §§ 9604, 9606, 9615). USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 5 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 5 ordering “Honeywell to remove one foot of soil from thirteen acres of the marsh and sediment in creeks in front of the old Honeywell trash dump.” Following extensive investigation activities and additional remedial work on the Plant Site, in 2015 EPA issued a Record of Decision (EPA’s official cleanup plan pursuant to CERCLA) selecting remedial actions to be implemented at the Plant Site. The defendants then entered into a consent decree with EPA, incorporating that Record of Decision, to implement the EPA- selected remedial actions subject to EPA’s oversight and control. B. Procedural Background The City initially filed suit in the Superior Court of Glynn County, Georgia, on October 20, 2022. The suit alleged continuing nuisance and continuing trespass under Georgia law for the defendants’ failure to adequately remediate the pollutants emanating from the defendants’ land and affecting the City’s property. The City alleged that “Honeywell’s activities at the Plant Site caused and continue to cause toxic mercury and PCBs to be spilled, discharged and deposited into the Turtle River, its tributaries, surrounding marshlands and onto property of the City of Brunswick.” These pollutants, it alleged, entered the City’s property “in amounts, concentrations and combinations that are harmful to health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the City of Brunswick, and to animals, birds and aquatic life.” According to the City, “[d]efendants’ continuing failure and refusal to permanently remove their pollution from property of the City of USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 6 of 39 6 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 Brunswick[] unreasonably and substantially interferes with the City’s right to exclude others and the pollutants of others from its property” and with “the City’s use and enjoyment of its property.” The City therefore alleged that the defendants were “liable for all . . . remediation costs and damages” related to the hazardous waste on City property. The defendants timely removed the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia based on three distinct grounds for subject-matter jurisdiction: (1) federal officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442; (2) federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331; and (3) diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), asserting that Georgia Power had been fraudulently joined to defeat diversity. The City subsequently moved to remand the case back to state court. The district court granted the City’s motion for remand, rejecting each of the defendants’ asserted grounds for removal. As relevant to this appeal, the court concluded that the defendants were not “acting under” a federal officer when they allegedly released pollutants into the waters and marshlands around the City’s property, and that EPA’s supervision of the defendants’ remediation efforts was not enough to show otherwise, thus federal officer removal was not warranted. 4 The district court instructed the Clerk to “REMAND this case to the Superior Court of Glynn County, Georgia” and to “CLOSE this case” on 4 The district court also rejected the defendants’ reliance on federal question and diversity jurisdiction. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 7 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 7 September 1, 2023, and the district court’s remand order was docketed in state court on September 6, 2023. The defendants timely appealed the district court’s order on September 25 and 26, 2023. After the district court issued its remand order and we docketed the defendants’ appeal, the parties continued litigating this case in state court. Glynn County Superior Court received a certified copy of the order remanding the case on September 6, 2023, and reasserted jurisdiction over the matter. The superior court initially stayed the proceedings pending appeal, but later granted the City’s motion to withdraw the stay in April 2024. Both Honeywell and Georgia Power filed answers and motions to dismiss the City’s complaint in the state court proceedings. As litigation continued, the City amended its complaint twice. Meanwhile, the City filed a motion to dismiss this appeal, arguing that the defendants had waived their right to appeal the remand order by substantially litigating the case in state court. 5 Upon being notified of the City’s amended complaints in state court, we ordered supplemental briefing on the question of whether the City’s amended complaints had any effect on our jurisdiction over the appeal. After that supplemental briefing, and after oral argument was held, we requested further briefing on whether we should stay the appeal pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Plaquemines 5 We carried this motion with the case. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 8 of 39 8 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 Parish, 146 S. Ct. 1052, which considered the proper test for federal officer removal. Additionally, we requested briefing on whether Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. 736 (2023), required an automatic stay of district court proceedings once the defendants had filed notices of appeal, such that the district court’s remand order was without effect. The parties briefed the Coinbase issue as it relates to federal officer removal and agreed that we should stay the appeal pending Plaquemines Parish, which we did. After the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Plaquemines Parish, we lifted the stay and requested and received supplemental briefs from the parties addressing the effect of that opinion on this appeal. We now consider this appeal in the light of all the parties’ briefing on the relevant issues. II. Standard of Review We review questions of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Wilson v. Hearos, LLC, 128 F.4th 1254, 1259 (11th Cir. 2025). We also review a district court’s remand order de novo. Evans v. Walter Indus., Inc., 449 F.3d 1159, 1161 (11th Cir. 2006). III. Discussion This appeal requires us to address two distinct questions: (1) whether we have jurisdiction to review the defendants’ appeal and (2) whether the defendants properly removed this case to federal court. We answer both questions in the affirmative. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 9 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 9 A. We have jurisdiction to review this appeal Because the parties litigated this case in state court after the district court’s remand, the City disputes our jurisdiction over this appeal. First, the City argues that we should dismiss the appeal because the defendants sought “resolution in their favor” in state court upon remand and thus “waived their right to proceed in federal district court” (elsewhere, “waived removal jurisdiction”). Second, the City contends that its decision to amend the underlying complaint in state court moots this appeal because the initial complaint—the subject of this appeal—no longer governs the case following the City’s amended complaints in state court. The defendants respond that they did not waive their right to appeal by litigating in state court because they had no other option once the state court lifted its stay pending appeal. They further argue that the City’s amended complaints did not divest us of jurisdiction because, among other things, 28 U.S.C. § 1447 provides for appeal as of right following remand orders in cases involving federal officer removal. We agree with the defendants that we have subject matter jurisdiction to review the remand order, holding that the defendants’ timely appeal triggered an automatic stay, such that the state court proceedings are rendered void for our purposes. 6 6 Because we hold that the notice of appeal automatically stayed the remand order, the amended complaints filed in the post-remand state court proceedings have no legal effect in this Court. We therefore reject USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 10 of 39 10 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 The federal officer removal statute allows for the removal from state court to federal court of any “civil action or criminal prosecution” against “any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or of any agency thereof . . . for or relating to any act under color of such office.” 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). 7 If a district court determines that removal was improper, it may order the case remanded to state court. See id. § 1447(c). Generally, we lack jurisdiction to review remand orders. See id. § 1447(d) (“An order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise . . . .”). But § 1447(d) specially allows appeals in cases involving federal officer removal under § 1442, providing that remand orders “shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.” Id. (emphasis added); see Thomas v. Phoebe Putney Health Sys., 972 F.3d 1195, 1200–01 & n.4 (11th Cir. 2020). Additionally, every appeal implicates the “Griggs principle”: “An appeal, including an interlocutory appeal, ‘divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.’” Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. 736, 740 (2023) (quoting Griggs v. Provident Consumer Disc. Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58 (1982)). In Coinbase, the Supreme Court applied this “longstanding tenet of American procedure” in the context of a motion to compel Honeywell’s argument that we may look to the second amended complaint filed in the state court when analyzing the merits of the removal itself. 7 We will discuss the merits of the defendants’ federal officer removal argument pursuant to § 1442 in a later section. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 11 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 11 arbitration, concluding that “the Griggs rule requires that a district court stay its proceedings while the interlocutory appeal on the question of arbitrability is ongoing.” Id. at 740, 744. The question before us is whether the Griggs principle requires the automatic stay of all district court proceedings during appeals of remand orders in federal officer removal cases. The defendants argue that Coinbase’s application of Griggs applies to appeals of remand orders under the federal officer removal statute, because appeals divest the district court of control over the aspects of the case involved in the appeal, and appeals regarding federal officer removal, as do appeals of arbitrability, involve the entire case. The City, on the other hand, contends that Coinbase’s reasoning was narrow and turned on the fact that discovery would not be available in arbitration, while in this context parties would engage in discovery in both federal and state court. We conclude that, under the Griggs principle as applied in Coinbase, the defendants’ notice of appeal stayed the entirety of the district court’s proceedings and divested the district court of jurisdiction to remand the case, rendering the subsequent state court proceedings without legal effect. To begin, Griggs explained that “[t]he filing of a notice of appeal is an event of jurisdictional significance—it confers jurisdiction on the court of appeals and divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” 459 U.S. at 58. This principle grew from the general understanding that “a federal district court and a federal court of appeals should USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 12 of 39 12 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 not attempt to assert jurisdiction over a case simultaneously.” Id. While neither the Supreme Court nor this Court have previously applied the Griggs principle to appeals of remand orders concerning federal officer removal, in Coinbase the Supreme Court applied Griggs to determine that a notice of appeal of arbitrability automatically stayed all district court proceedings. 599 U.S. at 741. The Court’s reasoning in Coinbase demonstrates that Griggs calls for an automatic stay in this context as well. At issue in Coinbase was the appeal of the district court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration. Id. Congress had provided, by statute, for immediate appeal of a district court’s denial of such motions, but the statutory provision did not explicitly call for an automatic stay of district court proceedings upon appeal. Id. at 740. The Court determined, nonetheless, that the “Griggs principle resolve[d] th[e] case.” Id. at 741. Griggs held that an appeal divested the district court of jurisdiction over “those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” 459 U.S. at 58. Because the appeal in Coinbase would decide “whether the case belongs in arbitration or instead in the district court,” the Court found that “the entire case [wa]s essentially ‘involved in the appeal.’” 599 U.S. at 741 (quoting Griggs, 459 U.S. at 58)). And Congress did not need to explicitly require a stay in the statutory text of the Federal Arbitration Act because, “absent contrary indications, the background Griggs principle already require[d] an automatic stay.” Id. at 743–44. The Court observed that when Congress does not want the Griggs principle to apply, it “typically says so” expressly, pointing to a litany of “statutory ‘non-stay’ provisions” where USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 13 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 13 Congress had clearly chosen to “authorize an interlocutory appeal, but not to automatically stay district court proceedings pending that appeal.” Id. at 744 (emphasis in original); see id. at 744 n.6 (collecting statutes with express “non-stay” provisions). In support of its conclusion, the Court cited circuit decisions “in the analogous contexts of qualified immunity and double jeopardy” and of other interlocutory appeals that had similarly held that district court proceedings were automatically stayed for the pendency of the appeal. Id. at 742–43. The Court further pointed out that this “common practice reflects common sense”: “continuation of proceedings in the district court largely defeats the point of the appeal” and functionally “nullified” Congress’s choice to provide an interlocutory appeal of such orders. Id. (quotation omitted). Without a stay, the benefits of arbitration, such as avoiding extensive discovery, could be lost and parties could be forced to settle while awaiting the appellate court’s decision. Id. at 743. Thus, the Court concluded that the district court “was required to stay its proceedings” once Coinbase appealed its order. Id. at 747. The Coinbase Court’s reasoning clearly supports requiring an automatic stay of all district court proceedings in this case. First, the Court presented the Griggs principle as a “rule” that required its conclusion that appeals of arbitrability decisions automatically stayed underlying proceedings—a rule that operated in the background of statutory grants of appellate review, unless Congress clearly indicated otherwise. Id. at 743–44. The provision USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 14 of 39 14 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 granting review in this case, § 1447(d), includes no express “non- stay” language, so Coinbase indicates that the background Griggs principle applies. Second, just as an appeal of a motion to compel arbitration decides the forum in which proceedings will continue, the appeal of a remand order decides “whether the case belongs in [state court] or instead in the district court.” Id. at 741. In both contexts, “the entire case is essentially ‘involved in the appeal.’” Id. (quoting Griggs, 459 U.S. at 58). And third, Coinbase’s concern about nullifying Congress’s grant of appellate review also applies here: the City’s own mootness arguments demonstrate the very real possibility of undermining appellate review in federal officer removal cases absent an automatic stay. Unless the district court or state court grants a discretionary stay pending appeal, it is likely that state court proceedings during the appeal would require the defendants to engage in litigation in state court—the very action the City contends moots this appeal—or that the plaintiff would amend its complaint—the grounds for the City’s other mootness argument— in order to avoid a possible reversal on appeal. Recognizing an automatic stay in this context preserves Congress’s choice to grant appellate review of decisions denying federal officer removal. For these three reasons, it necessarily follows from Coinbase that the Griggs rule requires an automatic stay of all district court USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 15 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 15 proceedings pending appeal of a remand order in the context of federal officer removal. 8 We are not alone in concluding that Griggs and Coinbase require an automatic stay in this context. The Fourth Circuit recently considered the same question in the context of federal officer removal and determined that “[u]nder a fair[] reading of Coinbase, the district court was automatically stayed from mailing the remand order.” City of Martinsville v. Express Scripts, Inc., 128 F.4th 265, 268 (4th Cir. 2025). The court distilled from Coinbase three principles it believed resolved the question: First, when the question on appeal is “the whole ballgame” (such as whether the district court or the arbitrator should act as factfinder), the appeal divests the district court of “control over more or less the whole case,” otherwise the appeal would be pointless. Id. at 269. Second, an automatic stay is, as its name implies, self-executing, so a district court must “immediately . . . halt all proceedings covered by the Griggs principle when a proper notice of appeal is docketed, whether or not the parties ask it to.” Id. at 269–70. And third, “because Griggs identifies a background principle,” Congress need not affirmatively include an automatic stay provision (although it can certainly create exceptions to the general principle); “the default rule is that an appeal automatically stays all aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” Id. at 270. Based on these principles— applied in an analysis closely tracking our discussion above—the 8 No party in this case requested a stay in federal court, but Coinbase is clear that the stay is “automatic.” See, e.g., 599 U.S. at 742. USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 16 of 39 16 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 Fourth Circuit concluded it was “clear that the Griggs principle applies just as forcefully here as it did in Coinbase itself.” Id. 9 9 The Ninth Circuit, considering the same automatic stay question in the federal officer removal context, limited Coinbase to the arbitration context. California v. Express Scripts, Inc., 139 F.4th 763, 768 (9th Cir. 2025), cert. denied, 146 S. Ct. 1507 (2026) (mem.). The court pointed out that federal officer removal from state court presents “unique federalism issues” not present in the arbitration context and highlighted that “a stay is an ‘intrusion into the ordinary processes of administration and judicial review.’” Id. (quoting Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 427 (2009)). According to the Ninth Circuit, a stay in a case involving an improper removal might “infringe upon the rights of state courts” to hear “cases that should rightfully be heard in their fora, in violation of comity principles.” Id. at 769. Thus, the Ninth Circuit determined that stays in this context should be discretionary rather than automatic. Id. Federalism and comity with state courts are certainly important principles. See, e.g., Leonard v. Ala. State Bd. of Pharmacy, 61 F.4th 902, 907 (11th Cir. 2023). But the Griggs principle is a rule of federal appellate procedure that stays only federal district court proceedings. And, in any event, Congress struck a balance when it explicitly allowed defendants to appeal remand orders in the federal officer removal context—an exception from the non-appealability of most remand orders. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), (d). It did so without including an express non-stay provision, as it has done elsewhere. See Coinbase, 599 U.S. at 744. So a free-floating federalism concern cannot overcome Congress’s decision to provide a meaningful appeal of decisions denying federal officer removal. The Ninth Circuit also asserted that the “unique features of arbitration” demonstrate why the Coinbase Court would conclude that an automatic stay was warranted in that context, and that the same concerns did not attach in the federal officer removal context. California, 139 F.4th at 770. But as we discussed above, Coinbase stated the Griggs rule as a clear background principle—regardless of the type of case—that “divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” 599 U.S. at 740 (quotations omitted). And in appeals of both arbitrability decisions and federal USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 17 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 17 Relying, then, on the Griggs principle as explained in Coinbase, we hold that the appeal of a motion to remand under § 1447(d) triggers an automatic stay of all district court proceedings—including the remand order—pending resolution of the appeal. See Coinbase, 599 U.S. at 740. Thus, any subsequent state court proceedings are rendered void for our purposes. See Maseda v. Honda Motor Co., Ltd., 861 F.2d 1248, 1254–55 (11th Cir. 1988) (noting that “after removal,” “[a]ny subsequent proceedings in state court on the case are void ab initio”); cf. Lee v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 102 F.4th 1177, 1180 (11th Cir. 2024) (observing that, in the bankruptcy context, “actions taken in violation of the automatic stay are void and without effect,” including foreclosure actions in state court (quotations omitted)). It is irrelevant to our conclusion that, in this case, the district court had already mailed the remand order to the state court when the defendants filed their notice of appeal.10 The Griggs principle officer removal denials, the question on appeal is “whether the case should be litigated in the district court”; in both contexts, “the entire case is essentially involved in the appeal.” Id. at 741 (quotations omitted). The Ninth Circuit also asserted that “[a]ll other circuits where this question has been raised, besides the Fourth Circuit, appear to have reached the same conclusion.” California, 139 F.4th at 766 n.2. But it cites no published circuit decisions analyzing the Coinbase issue in this context and refusing to apply it. For these reasons, we are unpersuaded by the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning and conclude that Coinbase does indeed counsel application of the Griggs principle in the federal officer removal context. 10 Section 1447(c), which applies to removals generally, requires the district court clerk to mail a “certified copy of the order of remand . . . to the clerk of USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 18 of 39 18 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 operated to stay the remand order even though it had already been mailed. Congress explicitly provided that “an order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed” pursuant to federal officer removal “shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.”11 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). The administrative task of mailing the remand order to the state court cannot operate to prevent the very opportunity for review Congress explicitly provided in federal officer removal cases. Such would be the case if the district court lost jurisdiction over a case to the state court as soon as it mailed a remand order whenever it did so before the defendants filed notices of appeal. Other circuits have agreed that the mailing of a reviewable remand order does not divest the the State court,” at which time the “State court may thereupon proceed with such case.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). While the district court docket does not indicate exactly when the remand order was mailed in this case, it does include the court’s remand order, dated September 1, 2023, instructing the Clerk to “REMAND this case to the Superior Court of Glynn County, Georgia” and to “CLOSE this case.” The docket further reflects that the Clerk entered judgment and closed the case that same day. The Superior Court docket shows that the district court’s remand order was docketed on September 6, 2023. The defendants’ timely notices of appeal followed on September 25 and 26, 2023. 11 This “or otherwise” language has been interpreted to mean that the district court retains jurisdiction to “review . . . vacate or reinstate” reviewable remand orders. Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc., 84 F.4th 362, 371–72 (5th Cir. 2023) (quoting In re Shell Oil Co., 631 F.2d 1156, 1158 (5th Cir. 1980)); see Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (holding that all decisions from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued before the close of business on September 30, 1981, are “binding as precedent in the Eleventh Circuit”). USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 19 of 39 23-13200 Opinion of the Court 19 district court of jurisdiction. See Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc., 84 F.4th 362, 371–72 (5th Cir. 2023) (holding that a district court had jurisdiction to issue a discretionary stay of a reviewable remand order even after the order was mailed); Shapiro v. Logistec USA, Inc., 412 F.3d 307, 312 (2d Cir. 2005) (holding that, unlike unreviewable remand orders, which divest the district court of jurisdiction when the order is mailed, “the mailing of [a reviewable] remand order to the state court does not strip the federal court of jurisdiction”); Hudson United Bank v. LiTenda Mortg. Corp., 142 F.3d 151, 158 (3d Cir. 1998) (concluding that “the mailing of a remand order does not divest a district court of jurisdiction to entertain a motion for reconsideration” in cases involving reviewable remand orders). Because the district court retains jurisdiction to reconsider or amend reviewable remand orders after such orders are mailed, the Griggs principle acted to stay the district court’s reviewable remand order in this case when the defendants filed notices of appeal, even though the order had already been mailed. And, again, because the remand order was stayed, the subsequent state court proceedings were “void ab initio” for our purposes. See Maseda, 861 F.2d at 1254–55. We therefore disregard both the City’s amended complaints in state court and the defendants’ litigation activity there. For this reason, the City’s argument that USCA11 Case: 23-13200 Document: 82-1 Date Filed: 08/03/2026 Page: 20 of 39 20 Opinion of the Court 23-13200 its amended complaints in state court mooted this appeal fails, and we deny the City’s motion to dismiss this appeal. 12 Having concluded that we have jurisdiction, we now turn to the merits of this appeal. 12 The City’s motion to dismiss fails for another reason. The City argues that the defendants waived any right they had to proceed in federal court when they “s[ought] resolution on the merits in their favor” in state court after remand. Specifically, the City points to the defendants’ respective answers to the complaint, motions to dismiss, and participation in a hearing on pending motions. The City argues that by seeking relief in state court, the defendants have consented to the state court’s jurisdiction. True, a defendant with valid grounds for removal can nonetheless waive the right to remove by “taking some substantial offensive or defensive action in the state court action indicating a willingness to litigate in that tribunal before filing a notice of removal with the federal court.” Yusefzadeh v. Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, LL