Subject-matter jurisdiction

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Seal of the United States Bankruptcy Court, which has subject-matter jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases United States Bankruptcy Court Seal.png
Seal of the United States Bankruptcy Court, which has subject-matter jurisdiction over bankruptcy cases

Subject-matter jurisdiction, also called jurisdiction ratione materiae, [1] is a legal doctrine holding that a court can only hear and decide cases of a particular type (i.e., cases relating to a specific subject matter). The subject matter jurisdiction of a court may be described as either limited jurisdiction, meaning it is able to hear only certain types of cases, or general jurisdiction, meaning it is presumed able to hear and decide all types of cases. For instance, a bankruptcy court only has the authority to hear bankruptcy cases.

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Subject-matter jurisdiction must be distinguished from personal jurisdiction, which is the power of a court to render a judgment against a particular defendant, and territorial jurisdiction, which is the power of the court to render a judgment concerning events that have occurred within a well-defined territory. Unlike personal or territorial jurisdiction, lack of subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be waived. [2] A judgment from a court that did not have subject-matter jurisdiction is forever a nullity. [3] [4] To decide a case, a court must have a combination of subject (subjectam) and either personal (personam) or territorial (locum) jurisdiction.

Subject-matter jurisdiction, personal or territorial jurisdiction, and adequate notice are the three most fundamental constitutional requirements for a valid judgment.

United States

General jurisdiction vs. limited jurisdiction

The subject matter jurisdiction of state courts and federal courts in the United States often overlaps. Many types of cases can be heard either in state or federal courts. However, the federal courts are all courts of limited jurisdiction, while most states have both courts of limited jurisdiction and courts of general jurisdiction.

State courts

Most U.S. state court systems include a superior court that has "general" jurisdiction; that is, it is competent to hear any case over which no other state or federal court has exclusive jurisdiction. (Superior Courts might nonetheless organize themselves into specialized departments or divisions, the court as a whole still has general jurisdiction.) Because the percentage of claims over which the United States federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, such as copyright disputes, patent disputes, and United States bankruptcy court disputes, makes up a small percentage of overall cases, state courts have the authority to hear the vast majority state and federal of cases.

U.S. federal courts

Subject-matter jurisdiction is significantly more limited in United States federal courts. The maximal constitutional bounds of federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction are defined by Article III Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Federal courts' actual subject-matter jurisdiction derives from Congressional enabling statutes, such as 28 U.S.C.   §§ 1330 1369 and 28 U.S.C.   §§ 1441 1452. The United States Congress has not extended federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction to its constitutional limits. For example, the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C.   § 1332, not a constitutional restriction. Moreover, Congress could constitutionally overrule the complete diversity rule in diversity cases, which predominantly holds that each plaintiff must be a citizen of a different state than each defendant. [5]

The two primary categories of federal subject-matter jurisdiction in civil cases are federal question jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. The enabling statute for federal question jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C.   § 1331, provides that the district courts have original jurisdiction in all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. As mentioned before, this jurisdiction by default is not exclusive; states can also hear claims based on federal law. The enabling statute for diversity jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, grants the district courts jurisdiction in a most types of actions, so long as they meet two basic conditions:

Federal courts separately may exert diversity jurisdiction over class action cases so long as they meet the jurisdictional requirements of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, namely:

Federal courts also have removal jurisdiction, which is the authority to try cases removed by defendants from state courts. The contours of removal jurisdiction are almost identical to those of original jurisdiction.

According to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a federal court has the authority to dismiss a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction upon motion of a party or sua sponte , upon its own initiative.

In federal criminal cases (offenses against the laws of the United States), the federal district courts of the United States have subject matter jurisdiction granted under 18 U.S.C.   § 3231.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal jurisdiction (United States)</span> Legal scope of the powers of the U.S. federal government

Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.

Jurisdiction is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple levels.

Personal jurisdiction is a court's jurisdiction over the parties, as determined by the facts in evidence, which bind the parties to a lawsuit, as opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction, which is jurisdiction over the law involved in the suit. Without personal jurisdiction over a party, a court's rulings or decrees cannot be enforced upon that party, except by comity; i.e., to the extent that the sovereign which has jurisdiction over the party allows the court to enforce them upon that party. A court that has personal jurisdiction has both the authority to rule on the law and facts of a suit and the power to enforce its decision upon a party to the suit. In some cases, territorial jurisdiction may also constrain a court's reach, such as preventing hearing of a case concerning events occurring on foreign territory between two citizens of the home jurisdiction. A similar principle is that of standing or locus standi, which is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States district court</span> Trial court of the U.S. federal judiciary

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.

Interpleader is a civil procedure device that allows a plaintiff or a defendant to initiate a lawsuit in order to compel two or more other parties to litigate a dispute. An interpleader action originates when the plaintiff holds property on behalf of another, but does not know to whom the property should be transferred. It is often used to resolve disputes arising under insurance contracts.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diversity jurisdiction</span> U.S. court jurisdiction over persons of different states or nationalities

In the law of the United States, diversity jurisdiction is a form of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives United States federal courts the power to hear lawsuits that do not involve a federal question. For a federal court to have diversity jurisdiction over a lawsuit, two conditions must be met. First, there must be "diversity of citizenship" between the parties, meaning the plaintiffs must be citizens of different U.S. states than the defendants. Second, the lawsuit's "amount in controversy" must be more than $75,000. If a lawsuit does not meet these two conditions, federal courts will normally lack the jurisdiction to hear it unless it involves a federal question, and the lawsuit would need to be heard in state court instead.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal question jurisdiction</span> Type of U.S. court subject-matter jurisdiction

In United States law, federal question jurisdiction is a type of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives United States federal courts the power to hear civil cases where the plaintiff alleges a violation of the United States Constitution, federal law, or a treaty to which the United States is a party. The federal question jurisdiction statute is codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1331.

Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149 (1908), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held that under the existing statutory scheme, federal question jurisdiction could not be predicated on a plaintiff's anticipation that the defendant would raise a federal statute as a defense. Instead, such jurisdiction can only arise from a complaint by the plaintiff that the defendant has directly violated some provision of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. This reading of the federal question jurisdiction statute is now known as the well-pleaded complaint rule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Case or Controversy Clause</span> Clause of the U.S. Constitution regarding judicial review

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Removal jurisdiction</span>

In the United States, removal jurisdiction allows a defendant to move a civil action or criminal case filed in a state court to the United States district court in the federal judicial district in which the state court is located. A federal statute governs removal.

A court of general jurisdiction, in the law of the United States, is a court with authority to hear cases in law and in equity of all kinds – criminal, civil, family, probate, and other legal claims.

Northern Pipeline Construction Company v. Marathon Pipe Line Company, 458 U.S. 50 (1982), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that Article III jurisdiction could not be conferred on non-Article III courts.

Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court decision involving Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides a private cause of action to victims of employment discrimination. The Court ruled that Title VII's "employee-numerosity requirement," which limits potential defendants to those maintaining at least fifteen employees, is not a limit on a court's jurisdiction to hear Title VII claims. The requirement is instead a substantive element of a Title VII claim, which means that a defendant must raise the issue prior to verdict or the requirement will be waived.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supplemental jurisdiction</span>

Supplemental jurisdiction, also sometimes known as ancillary jurisdiction or pendent jurisdiction, is the authority of United States federal courts to hear additional claims substantially related to the original claim even though the court would lack the subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the additional claims independently. 28 U.S.C. § 1367 is a codification of the Supreme Court's rulings on ancillary jurisdiction and pendent jurisdiction and a superseding of the Court's treatment of pendent party jurisdiction.

In law, the venue is the location where a case is heard.

Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U.S. 61 (1996), held that federal jurisdiction predicated on diversity of citizenship can be sustained even if there did not exist complete diversity at the time of removal to federal court, so long as complete diversity exists at the time the district court enters judgment.

Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U.S. 546 (2005), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that 28 U.S.C. § 1367 permits supplemental jurisdiction over joined claims that do not individually meet the amount-in-controversy requirements of § 1332, provided that at least one claim meets the amount-in-controversy requirements.

References

  1. "European Union Terminology | subject-matter jurisdiction". IATE.
  2. William Marshall, The "Facts" of Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, 35 DePaul L. Rev. 23 (1985).
  3. Rhode Island v. Massachusetts , 37 U.S. 657 (1838)
  4. Joyce v. United States, 474 U.S. 215 (1973)
  5. 28 U.S.C.   § 1332
  6. 28 U.S.C.   § 1332(d)(2)