{"id":76,"date":"2011-04-13T15:23:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T15:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?p=76"},"modified":"2011-07-20T20:33:39","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T00:33:39","slug":"federal-question-jurisdiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Question Jurisdiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In order to establish <a title=\"Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-subject-matter-jurisdiction\/\">Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction<\/a>, a case must satisfy <a title=\"Diversity Jurisdiction\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/diversity-jurisdiction\/\">diversity jurisdiction<\/a> or federal question jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Well-Pleaded Complaint<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint. The seminal case deciding this was <em>Louisville &amp; Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley<\/em>, 211 U.S. 149 (1908), where the plaintiff did not assert a federal question but the defendant answered with a federal question and both parties agreed that the federal question is the only disputed issue in the case. This means that a case that raises a federal defense but no federal<em> claim <\/em>cannot be brought in federal district court.<\/p>\n<p>The concept of the well-pleaded complaint was developed which required a court to evaluate whether a federal question exists based solely on examining everything that is necessary for the plaintiff&#8217;s claim (but nothing beyond that). The reason for this is that courts want to determine if a federal question exists at the outset so that time is not wasted in the wrong forum.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">When is a federal question enough to justify federal question jurisdiction?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In many complaints, a plaintiff will assert that the defendant violated both state <em>and<\/em> federal law. <em>Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson<\/em>, 478 U.S. 804 (1986) determined that federal question jurisdiction would exist only if plaintiffs&#8217; right to relief &#8220;<strong>depended necessarily on a substantial question of federal law.<\/strong>&#8221; To help determine this the court will weigh the centrality of the federal question and the importance of the federal question.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">When a federal question is embedded in a state-law claim<\/span><\/p>\n<p>What if the claim is based on state law but a federal question also exists in the claim? Here, a case can be within federal question jurisdiction if federal law is a &#8220;<strong>necessary element<\/strong>&#8221; of the claim for relief. <em>Grable &amp; Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering &amp; Manufacturing<\/em>, 125 S. Ct. 2363\u00a0 (2005). The &#8220;necessary element&#8221; test from <em>Grable<\/em> should only be applied in cases in which the federal question is embedded in a state-law claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In order to establish Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, a case must satisfy diversity jurisdiction or federal question jurisdiction. The Well-Pleaded Complaint It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint. The seminal case deciding this was Louisville &amp; Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149 (1908), where &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Federal Question Jurisdiction&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[68,71,67],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-procedure","category-jurisdiction","tag-civ-pro","tag-federal-courts","tag-jurisdiction-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal Question Jurisdiction -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In order to establish Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, a case must satisfy federal question jurisdiction or diversity jurisdiction. 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