Civil Procedure Class Notes
NEW
TOPIC! Subject matter jurisdiction!
There
are federal and state courts in each state.
Does any court within a state have the power to hear a case? That’s the question of personal
jurisdiction. Notice that it doesn’t
matter whether we’re in federal or state court.
If
so, which court? That’s the question of subject
matter jurisdiction. Now it does
matter whether we’re in state or federal court.
We’ll
start out with…Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction!
Terminology
of federal jurisdiction
In
each state, there are courts of limited (subject matter) jurisdiction
and general (subject matter) jurisdiction. Make sure to distinguish this from general
(personal) jurisdiction. Does the federal
court have original jurisdiction?
Assuming
there’s a question that is within the limited jurisdiction of the federal
courts, do they hear it at trial, or only on appeal? This is the Mottley issue.
Is
the federal court the only court that can hear a case? This introduces the idea of exclusive versus
concurrent jurisdiction. Most
things that the federal government creates causes of action for can be heard in
state courts, and we call this concurrent jurisdiction.
An
example of exclusive jurisdiction is patents! On the
other hand, an example of concurrent jurisdiction is trademarks. Fairman doesn’t know and doesn’t care why
trademarks are concurrent and patents are exclusive.
Sources
of federal subject matter jurisdiction
Where
does all this subject matter jurisdiction come from? There are three “tiers” of federal subject
matter jurisdiction:
1. The constitutional
tier – Article
III provides jurisdiction for the federal courts. This Article enumerates all the things that
the federal courts may (not must) have jurisdiction over. That is, just because the Constitution allows
the federal courts to have jurisdiction certain things it doesn’t mean that
Congress must allow federal courts to have jurisdiction over all of those
things.
2. The statutory tier
– For example, 28
U.S.C. § 1331 gives the federal courts jurisdiction over “federal questions”. The general idea is that Congress can
proscribe some subset of the federal court jurisdiction that the Constitution
provides.
3. The decisional
tier – For example, Mottley
interprets the constitutional and statutory language.
Why would you want to be in federal
court???
There
are practical reasons and strategic reasons.
1. Federal courts
may be faster! They may have a rocket
docket! Or they may be slower than the
state court in question, which may be more desirable to your side. “Time is almost always on the side of the defense.”
2. You may get a
different jury pool in federal court than state court.
3. Federal judges
are appointed for life! This may shield
them from political pressures and allow them to more impartially decide a
controversial issue.
Among
the practical reasons are:
1. Rules
2. Location
3. Dockets
4. Familiarity
Among
the strategic reasons are:
1. The nature of
the case
2. Judges
3. The jury pool
and again:
4. Dockets
5. Familiarity
Choice
of forum is seen as one of the most critical decisions in the course of litigation. Judges prefer to dismiss cases on jurisdictional
grounds rather than on the merits. “As a
litigator, you always offer the court a jurisdictional ‘out’.”
Does
federal subject matter jurisdiction replace personal jurisdiction? Nope. You
must have both of them. For a
federal court to have the power to enter a binding judgment, it needs personal and
subject matter jurisdiction. This is
what the course is all about.
Why
do you have to have both? They come from
different parts of the Constitution. Subject
matter jurisdiction comes from Article III,
while personal jurisdiction stems from Due Process in the Fourteenth
Amendment. Compare Rule 12(b)(1) (subject
matter jurisdiction) to Rule 12(b)(2) (personal jurisdiction).
Here’s
a simple breakdown of federal subject matter jurisdiction:
·
Claims: Federal question or “arising under” jurisdiction
·
People: Diversity jurisdiction
·
Boats: Admirality jurisdiction
Federal
question jurisdiction – Louisville
& Nashville Railroad v. Mottley
The
Mottleys got a lifetime pass on the railroad, but later Congress banned such
free passes and the railroad rescinded the pass. Congress did this because the railroads gave
out free passes as bribes.
The
railroad says, “We’d love to keep giving you the pass, but it’s illegal and we
can’t do it.”
What
do the Mottleys do? They sue in federal court! We have a contract, and you broke it! We want specific performance! They don’t know it yet, but we’re going to
have a federal question issue.
What
was the federal question that the Mottleys believed allowed them to sue in federal
court? The Mottleys thought the statute was in
violation of the Fifth Amendment. The railroad is prohibited from giving the
Mottleys their pass because it would violate a federal statute. However, the Mottleys think that violates the
Fifth
Amendment. It sorta seems like a federal
question.
The
two specific issues that the Mottleys argue are:
1. Does the statute
apply to the Mottleys?
2. If so, does it
violate the Constitution?
Neither
of these questions get answered at this stage of the litigation.
Instead,
the Supreme Court steps in and says that the federal district court didn’t have
subject matter jurisdiction in the first place.
Here’s
the really hard question. Why wasn’t
this question a federal question?
The
federal question was not part of the claim, but rather part of the anticipated defense. The
court interprets the statute from which federal subject matter jurisdiction is
derived.
The Well-Pleaded Complaint Rule
This is all you need to know to understand why Mottley comes out the way it does.
We
look for a federal question on the face of the complaint. If the federal complaint, as filed by the plaintiff,
does not state the federal question, then there is no federal question.
Where
did the federal question come from in Mottley?
The
Mottleys’ complaint must look really simple: “We have this contract, they’re breaching,
and we want damages.” There’s no federal
question there! There a federal issue,
but it would come up in the defendant’s answer.
But
why isn’t that enough? The court doesn’t
answer this question clearly.
(I
think the answer is going to be “efficiency vs. fairness” where efficiency wins
out.)
It’s
an efficiency rule! You get tons of
cases filed every day in federal court, and we need a good solid rule to be
able to tell, from the outset, whether or not we have jurisdiction. We don’t have to have the rule that
way, but by having things run this way it will make it easier for the court and
for the litigants, once they learn the rule.
Why
are anticipated defenses not good enough?
It’s
related to the efficiency argument. A
good lawyer can make a lot of different federal arguments that the defense could
make. But the other side might
not make that argument. In fact,
sometimes they will strategically not make that argument.
What
if the railroad has already filed its answer saying exactly what the Mottleys
predicted? What will the court do? Say there is a Rule 12(b)(1)
motion in front of you. Do you grant
it? This is going to be different from personal
jurisdiction. The railroad has not
waived their jurisdictional argument.
Even if the answer is done, the federal question must be in the original
complaint.
The
Well-Pleaded Complaint Rule talks only about the complaint.
You
could certainly criticize this rule on that basis: there might be cases with
important questions of federal law that don’t come up in the original cause of
action. These would get booted out of federal
court.
What
happens to the Mottleys? They get dismissed. They file again in state court. It goes all the way back to the Supreme Court! They try the case on the merits and the
Mottleys lose! How could this be
efficient??? Why couldn’t they rule on
the merits in the first place?
Constitutional
versus statutory power
The
language in the Constitution and in the current federal question jurisdiction statute
is the same. They both say “arising
under”. But what the Supreme Court tells
us is that this phrases doesn’t mean the same thing in these two
documents! How come?
Under
the statute, the federal question must “arise under” a well-pleaded
complaint. You sort of read “well-pleaded
complaint” into the statute. This is
what allows the Mottleys’ state case to ultimately be heard on appeal by the Supreme
Court.
Think
of two concentric circles. The Mottleys’
case falls under Article III,
which means that the Supreme Court can hear it.
However, it does not fall under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (or
the contemporary equivalent), therefore, the lower federal courts do not
have subject matter jurisdiction.
Is
this madness?
How
can we justify the Supreme Court having power over the Mottleys’ case on appeal
from state court, but not on appeal from federal court?
Could
Congress provide for original federal jurisdiction over the Mottleys’ claim? Sure!
We could make the statutory limits coequal to the constitutional limits.
For
example, you could add the words “or defense” to the language of § 1331. Would that be constitutional? Sure!
The Constitution doesn’t have anything like a Well-Pleaded Complaint
Rule. Congress has basically chosen not
to do this.
Yeazell
has two hypotheticals.
1. The worker who
argues that the employer failed to pay federal minimum wage. On its face, this is a federal question and
the federal courts would have original federal jurisdiction.
2. A newspaper
offers a First Amendment defense to a suit.
There is no original federal jurisdiction here. But note that this one really has the more
important federal issue. There would,
however, be appellate jurisdiction for this case.