A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly an American phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.
Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Under Article Three, the judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as lower courts created by Congress. Article Three empowers the courts to handle cases or controversies arising under federal law, as well as other enumerated areas. Article Three also defines treason.
In the United States, a state court has jurisdiction over disputes with some connection to a U.S. state. State courts handle the vast majority of civil and criminal cases in the United States; the United States federal courts are far smaller in terms of both personnel and caseload, and handle different types of cases.
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district court has at least one courthouse, and many districts have more than one. District courts' decisions are appealed to the U.S. court of appeals for the circuit in which they reside, except for certain specialized cases that are appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties against one or more parties in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used with respect to a civil action brought by a plaintiff who requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint or else risk default judgment. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is entered in favor of the defendant. A variety of court orders may be issued in connection with or as part of the judgment to enforce a right, award damages or restitution, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. A collective settlement is a settlement of multiple similar legal cases. The term also has other meanings in the context of law. Structured settlements provide for future periodic payments, instead of a one time cash payment.
A declaratory judgment, also called a declaration, is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a civil dispute. The declaratory judgment is generally considered a statutory remedy and not an equitable remedy in the United States, and is thus not subject to equitable requirements, though there are analogies that can be found in the remedies granted by courts of equity. A declaratory judgment does not by itself order any action by a party, or imply damages or an injunction, although it may be accompanied by one or more other remedies.
Justiciability concerns the limits upon legal issues over which a court can exercise its judicial authority. It includes, but is not limited to, the legal concept of standing, which is used to determine if the party bringing the suit is a party appropriate to establishing whether an actual adversarial issue exists. Essentially, justiciability seeks to address whether a court possesses the ability to provide adequate resolution of the dispute; where a court believes that it cannot offer such a final determination, the matter is not justiciable.
The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primarily of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts. It also includes a variety of other lesser federal tribunals.
Amount in controversy is a term used in civil procedure to denote the amount at stake in a lawsuit, in particular in connection with a requirement that persons seeking to bring a lawsuit in a particular court must be suing for a certain minimum amount before that court may hear the case.
The Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted the Case or Controversy Clause of Article III of the United States Constitution as embodying two distinct limitations on exercise of judicial review: a bar on the issuance of advisory opinions, and a requirement that parties must have standing.
The Tucker Act is a federal statute of the United States by which the United States government has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to certain lawsuits.
In law, intervention is a procedure to allow a nonparty, called intervenor to join ongoing litigation, either as a matter of right or at the discretion of the court, without the permission of the original litigants. The basic rationale for intervention is that a judgment in a particular case may affect the rights of nonparties, who ideally should have the right to be heard.
Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. The organizations particularly target the distribution of files via the Internet using peer-to-peer software. Efforts by trade groups to curb such infringement have been unsuccessful with chronic, widespread and rampant infringement continuing largely unabated.
The Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA") is a 1946 federal statute that permits private parties to sue the United States in a federal court for most torts committed by persons acting on behalf of the United States. Historically, citizens have not been able to sue their state—a doctrine referred to as sovereign immunity. The FTCA constitutes a limited waiver of sovereign immunity, permitting citizens to pursue some tort claims against the government. It was passed and enacted as a part of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946.
Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288 (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that provided the first elaboration of the doctrine of "Constitutional avoidance".
In law, an appearance occurs when a party to a lawsuit physically appears in court, or to a formal act through which a defendant submits to the jurisdiction of the court in which the lawsuit is pending.
Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154 (2010), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving copyright law. The Court held that failure to register a copyright under Section 411 (a) of the United States Copyright Act does not limit a Federal Court's jurisdiction over claims of infringement regarding unregistered works.
Mark A. Kearney is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Jeremy Daniel Kernodle is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
