United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

law, federal question jurisdiction is a type of

subject-matter jurisdiction Subject-matter jurisdiction (also called jurisdiction ''ratione materiae')'' is the authority of a court to hear cases of a particular type or cases relating to a specific subject matter. For instance, bankruptcy court only has the authority ...

that gives

United States federal court The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...

s the power to hear

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

cases where the plaintiff alleges a violation of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...

federal law Federal law is the body of law created by the federal government of a country. A federal government is formed when a group of political units, such as states or provinces join in a federation, delegating their individual sovereignty and many po ...

, or a

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations An international organization or international o ...

to which the United States is a party. The federal question jurisdiction statute is codified at .

Statute

Overview

Article III of the United States Constitution Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Under Article Three, the judicial branch consists of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as lower courts created by United ...

permits federal courts to hear such cases, so long as the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

passes a statute to that effect. However, when Congress passed the

Judiciary Act of 1789 The Judiciary Act of 1789 (ch. 20, ) was a United States federal statute enacted on September 24, 1789, during the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. Article III, Secti ...

, which authorized the newly created federal courts to hear such cases, it initially chose not to allow the lower federal courts to possess federal question jurisdiction for fear that it would make the courts too powerful. The

Federalists The term ''federalist'' describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters called themselves ''Federalists''. History Europe federation In Europe, proponents of de ...

briefly created such jurisdiction in the

Judiciary Act of 1801 The Midnight Judges Act (also known as the Judiciary Act of 1801; , and officially An act to provide for the more convenient organization of the Courts of the United States) represented an effort to solve an issue in the U.S. Supreme Court during ...

, but it was repealed the following year, and not restored until 1875. Unlike

diversity jurisdiction In the law of the United States, diversity jurisdiction is a form of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives United States federal courts, U.S. federal courts the power to hear lawsuits that do not involve a federal question jurisdiction, federal ...

, which is based on the parties coming from different states, federal question jurisdiction no longer has any

amount in controversy Amount in controversy (sometimes called jurisdictional amount) 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 cour ...

requirement—Congress eliminated this requirement in actions against the United States in 1976, and in all federal question cases in 1980. Therefore, a federal court can hear a federal question case even if no money is sought by the

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

. To meet the requirement of a case "arising under" federal law, the federal question must appear on the face of the plaintiff's

complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

.Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149 (1908) There has been considerable dispute over what constitutes a "federal question" in these circumstances, but it is now settled law that the plaintiff cannot seek the jurisdiction of a federal court merely because it anticipates that the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

is going to raise a defense based on the Constitution, or on a federal statute. This "well-pleaded complaint" rule has been criticized by legal scholars, but Congress has so far chosen not to change the law, although the Supreme Court has made clear it is free to do so.

Related cases

Eight years after ''Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company v. Mottley,'' Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes established the Holmes Test in '' American Well Works Co. v. Layne & Bowler Co.'' The opinion delivered for the court included the phrase: "A suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action." For almost a hundred years this test was the foundation for federal question qualification under § 1331 until the Supreme Court modified it in ''Mims v. Arrow Financial Services'' (2012) to be whether “federal law creates otha private right of action and furnishes the substantive rules of decision.”{{Cite journal, last=Mulligen, first=Lumen, date=2012, title=You Cannot Go Holmes Again, url=https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=nulr, journal=Northwestern University Law Review

References

United States civil procedure Jurisdiction *

Statute

Overview

Related cases

See also

References