{"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":"

In order to establish Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction<\/a>, a case must satisfy diversity jurisdiction<\/a> or federal question jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The Well-Pleaded Complaint<\/span><\/p>\n

It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint. The seminal case deciding this was Louisville & 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 claim <\/em>cannot be brought in federal district court.<\/p>\n

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’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

When is a federal question enough to justify federal question jurisdiction?<\/span><\/p>\n

In many complaints, a plaintiff will assert that the defendant violated both state and<\/em> federal law. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson<\/em>, 478 U.S. 804 (1986) determined that federal question jurisdiction would exist only if plaintiffs’ right to relief “depended necessarily on a substantial question of federal law.<\/strong>” To help determine this the court will weigh the centrality of the federal question and the importance of the federal question.<\/p>\n

When a federal question is embedded in a state-law claim<\/span><\/p>\n

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 “necessary element<\/strong>” of the claim for relief. Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Manufacturing<\/em>, 125 S. Ct. 2363\u00a0 (2005). The “necessary element” test from 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":"

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 & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149 (1908), where … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Federal Question Jurisdiction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,17],"tags":[68,71,67],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nFederal 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. It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal Question Jurisdiction -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In order to establish Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, a case must satisfy federal question jurisdiction or diversity jurisdiction. It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MiB Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-13T15:23:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-21T00:33:39+00:00\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"name\":\"MiB Law\",\"description\":\"Lawschool Notes and Outlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/\",\"name\":\"Federal Question Jurisdiction -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-13T15:23:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-07-21T00:33:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\"},\"description\":\"In order to establish Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, a case must satisfy federal question jurisdiction or diversity jurisdiction. It is extremely important to recognize that the federal question must arise out of the complaint.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/federal-question-jurisdiction\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\",\"name\":\"Andrew\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/1.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7e4456f2e886e2b22adb13ba439e70ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andrew\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/miblaw\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}