Chapter 3- The American Judicial System, Jurisdiction and Venue
Lecture:
This week we take a look at the intricate settings of the U.S. court system. I know there are a lot of legal terms to comprehend. Trying to understand the court system can be a bit confusing. If you recall from civics class, our system of government is bicameral. We have our individual state governments and a federal government. Within these governments, we have state courts and federal courts. As you have read in this chapter, what determines which type of case goes before a certain tribunal is the court’s jurisdiction.
There is a helpful chart on page 83 for you to see a breakdown of all the courts on a generalized level. As you can see, most cases start out in the lower courts. These are also known as trial courts. At this level, the court collects testimony and evidence for the record. As a practitioner, I spend the majority of my time advocating in trial courts. Here, the court hears civil matters such as probate, family, and small claims, to name a few. When decisions are handed down in these courts, they can be appealed to the intermediate court, also known as the “appellate court”.
The appellate court only hears cases from the trial court. Usually, an attorney files an appeal if they believe the court erred in some way, or if there are some reasonable grounds why the case should be revisited. After the appeal has been heard by the appellate court, the non-prevailing party can appeal the matter to the highest court of the state, which is often called the state supreme court. The supreme court is usually the last stop and the court of “last resort”. The decisions here are not generally appealed unless the U.S. Supreme court agrees to hear the case (writ of certiorari).
In the same like manner as the state courts, the federal courts operate the same with some exceptions. First off, there are courts with special jurisdiction such as Bankruptcy court, Tax Court, etc. (See chart on p.29). These courts are limited to these matters only. For example, I do some bankruptcy work in Florida. The court that sits in my district for bankruptcy sits in Orlando, Florida. This is known as the Middle District of Florida. This is the only court I can advocate for my bankruptcy clients because it is the only court that has jurisdiction based on where my county sits.
The other major difference is that federal courts hear matters that involve residents of different states, also known as diversity of citizenship; or federal questions involving the U.S. Constitution. For example, any crime or tort involving a federal statute triggers jurisdiction of a federal court. A lot of folks believe that they can sue anyone and anybody, but that is simply not true. You must have “standing”. What does this mean? Standing means you must have some stake in the outcome of the particular lawsuit at hand. Without standing, a court could properly dismiss the individual from the lawsuit or dismiss the case in its entirety.
Long-arm statutes help the court reach nonresidents for the purposes of services of process (p.88). Service of process is important because without it, an individual will not have to respond to a lawsuit being filed against them. The long-arm statute, just as the name implies, will allow a court to serve a summons upon a nonresident of that state if that individual has had minimum contact with that particular state. Now let’s explore a case study for this week’s assignment.
Discussion Post:
Read case 3.1 Goodyear v. Brown on page 89. Do you think courts should automatically deem a foreign subsidiary to share the “home” of its parent corporation for the purposes of establishing foreign jurisdiction over the foreign subsidiary? Why or why not? in text citation
