I just hit you with my car, and now you want to sue me. You cannot choose to sue me in whichever court you please, though--that would give you unfair strategic advantages and would thus violate my constitutional right to due process. You still get some flexibility, though. So, how do we decide whether a court is appropriate for your litigation? Well, in order for a specific court to be the proper place for your claim, that court must have both subject-matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction. (There are other requirements as well, but they are less important so we can save them for a later date.)
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction:
Subject-Matter Jurisdiction is simply the right of a court to hear the type of case that you're presenting. If you're trying to sue me in a state court, you've got nothing to worry about. Most state courts are courts of "general jurisdiction"--they can hear claims that have to do only with state law (like torts) and they can typically hear claims that concern federal law. (Again, there are some small exceptions but they're small enough that we needn't worry about them.)
If you're trying to sue me in federal court (perhaps you think that a federal court is more likely to get you a favorable outcome), that's going to be a more difficult challenge for you. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction--that means they need jurisdiction conferred on them by both the Constitution and by Congress. (The Constitution is pretty liberal with its grants of federal subject-matter jurisdiction, so we're really only worried about statutory authorization.) There are three basic ways for you to get your claim into federal court: (1) if the cause of action concerns a "federal question" (basically, if federal law is implicated in either the original claim or a defense to the claim); (2) if there is diversity jurisdiction, or (3) if supplemental jurisdiction exists.
Diversity Jurisdiction is very simple to explain: if you're black/Hispanic/Asian and I'm white, the federal courts are more interested in our litigation--cuz nothing say "compelling drama" like an interracial dispute--so they get to hear the claim.
Naw, just kidding...by "diversity" we mean "diversity of residence:" if you're domiciled in California and I'm domiciled in Texas, it putatively wouldn't be fair to you if you were forced to litigate in TX (and it wouldn't be fair to me if I had to defend myself in front of a hippie jury in California). So, the U.S. constitution lets us go to a theoretically more impartial location, a federal court. This rule made more sense in the 19th century, when certain states did not get along well with others--now it seems like a bit of an anachronism. Plus, we don't wanna clog up the federal courts with insignificant personal injury claims--that's the job of drug offenses! So, the plaintiff has to be suing for at least $75,000. (In legal terms, we need an "amount in controversy" of at least $75k.)
[Aside: it gets more complicated when you have co-plaintiffs and co-defendants--do we need complete diversity or will partial diversity suffice? What if we're suing a corporation instead--where is the corporation domiciled? Etc.]
[Second Aside: being in a federal court doesn't mean that federal law applies...that'd be way too easy, haha. For example, if you're suing me for driving negligently, there's no federal law on negligence, so a federal court (who again is allowed to hear this case because there is diversity jurisdiction) would still be applying state law. But TX state law or CA state law?! Trust me, you don't want me to get into that.]
Supplemental jurisdiction is more confusing, so let me just give you the Chicago-Kent School of Law version: supplemental jurisdiction allows a federal court to decide a claim--even when the federal court has no other basis for jurisdiction over the claim--when the claim is closely linked to another claim that the same federal court does have independent jurisdiction over. Supplemental jurisdiction exists because it (theoretically) facilitates efficiency in the judicial system and conserves resources.
So, if you and I are both from, say, Illinois and I hit you with my car, you typically can't get yourself into federal court. There's no federal question implicated here (negligence is state law) and there's no diversity of citizenship. BUT if you somehow had both your negligence claim and a related federal question claim against me, the negligence claim could "piggyback" its way into federal court.
Supplemental jurisdiction is muddled in many ways, AND it's discretionary--the federal court can choose to say, "Nah, we don't want this case" and we'd have to go back to state court. (A federal court might pass on the case if, for instance, it thinks the jury will get confused by the two claims.) So, we're not gonna get into it further--at least you know it exists.
I think this post is already too long, so we'll leave personal jurisdiction for the next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment