Subject-matter jurisdiction (also called jurisdiction ''ratione materiae')'' is the authority of a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

to hear cases of a particular type or cases relating to a specific subject matter. For instance,

bankruptcy court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...

only has the authority to hear bankruptcy cases. Subject-matter jurisdiction must be distinguished from

personal jurisdiction Personal jurisdiction is a court's jurisdiction over the ''parties'', as determined by the facts in evidence, which bind the parties to a lawsuit, as opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction, which is jurisdiction over the ''law'' involved in the ...

, which is the power of a court to render a judgment against a particular defendant, and

territorial jurisdiction A jurisdiction is an area with a set of laws under the control of a system of courts or government entity which are different from neighbouring areas. Each federated state, state in a federation such as Australia, Germany and the United States ...

, which is the power of the court to render a judgment concerning events that have occurred within a well-defined territory. Unlike personal or territorial jurisdiction, lack of subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be waived. A judgment from a court that did not have subject-matter jurisdiction is forever a nullity. To decide a case, a court must have a combination of subject (''subjectam'') and either personal (''personam'') or territorial (''locum'') jurisdiction. Subject-matter jurisdiction, personal or territorial jurisdiction, and adequate

notice Notice is the legal concept describing a requirement that a party be aware of legal process affecting their rights, obligations or duties. There are several types of notice: public notice (or legal notice), actual notice, constructive notice Se ...

are the three most fundamental constitutional requirements for a valid judgment.

United States

State courts

Many state court systems are divided into divisions such as criminal, civil law,

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, and probate. A court within any one of those divisions would lack subject-matter jurisdiction to hear a case regarding matters assigned to another division. Most

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

court systems, however, include a superior court that has "general" jurisdiction; that is, it is competent to hear any case over which no other state court has

exclusive jurisdiction Exclusive jurisdiction exists in civil procedure if one court has the power to adjudicate a case to the exclusion of all other courts. The opposite situation is concurrent jurisdiction (or non-exclusive jurisdiction) in which more than one court ...

. Because the United States federal courts have

over a very small percentage of cases, such as

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

disputes,

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

disputes, and

United States bankruptcy court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...

disputes, state courts have the authority to hear the vast majority of cases.

U.S. federal courts

Subject-matter jurisdiction is significantly more limited in

United States federal courts 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 ...

. The maximal constitutional bounds of federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction are defined by Article III Section 2 of the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...

. Federal courts' actual subject-matter jurisdiction derives from Congressional enabling statutes, such as and . 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 ...

has not extended federal courts' subject-matter jurisdiction to its constitutional limits. For example, the amount-in-controversy requirement for

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

is based on , not a constitutional restriction. Moreover, Congress could constitutionally overrule the complete-diversity rule in diversity cases. By far the most important two categories of federal subject-matter jurisdiction in non-criminal cases are

federal question jurisdiction In United States law, federal question jurisdiction is a type of subject-matter jurisdiction that gives United States federal courts the power to hear civil cases where the plaintiff alleges a violation of the United States Constitution, federa ...

and diversity jurisdiction. The enabling statute for federal question jurisdiction, , provides that the district courts have original jurisdiction in ''all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States''. As mentioned before, this jurisdiction is ordinarily not exclusive; states too can hear claims based on federal law. The enabling statute for diversity jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, grants the district courts jurisdiction in an action that meets two basic conditions: *''Complete diversity requirement''. No defendant is a citizen of the same state as any plaintiff. *''Amount in controversy requirement''. The matter in controversy exceeds $75,000 Federal courts also have

removal jurisdiction In the United States, removal jurisdiction allows a defendant to move a civil action filed in a state court to the United States district court in the federal judicial district in which the state court is located. A federal statute governs remova ...

, which is the authority to try cases removed by defendants from state courts. The contours of removal jurisdiction are almost identical to those of original jurisdiction. According to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a federal court has the authority to dismiss a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction upon motion of a party or ''

sua sponte In law, ''sua sponte'' (Latin: "of his, her, its or their own accord") or ''suo motu'' ("on its own motion") describes an act of authority taken without formal prompting from another party. The term is usually applied to actions by a judge taken wi ...

'', upon its own initiativ

In federal criminal cases (offenses against the laws of the United States), the federal district courts of the United States have subject matter jurisdiction granted under .

References

{{Reflist, 30em Civil procedure American legal terminology Jurisdiction

United States

State courts

U.S. federal courts

See also

References