The Origins of an Expanded Federal Court Jurisdiction: Railroad Development and the Ascendancy of the Federal Judiciary

1984 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip L. Merkel
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Union Pacific ◽  
Pacific Railroad ◽  
Transcontinental Railroad

The years following the Civil War witnessed a rapid expansion in the power of the federal judiciary. In this article, Professor Merkel reveals that the construction of the transcontinental railroad played an important role in this development. Beginning in 1868, the management of the federally chartered Union Pacific Railroad sought legislation that would authorize the company to remove lawsuits from hostile state courts to more sympathetic federal forums. Congress was accommodating, passing laws that expanded the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts. Consequently, these courts resolved many questions of transportation law, often in ways that benefitted the railroads.

The Federal Courts, Localism, and the National Economy, 1865–1900

1979 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony A. Freyer
Keyword(s):  
National Economy ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Interstate Commerce ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Right

It is a truism of American constitutional history that the federal judiciary was expected to facilitate interstate commerce. The right of individuals to remove cases to a federal court from locally prejudiced state courts was recognized under a wide range of circumstances. But it seemed less and less natural, as more and more of the nation's business came to be transacted by the “trusts” on a national basis, for corporations to be accorded the same rights. Professor Freyer shows that a major campaign, which had some success in the 1880s, was mounted to deny corporations the right of escape to federal courts. In the end, however, the nation's lawmakers recognized that the problem of the growing concentration of capital would have to be solved by something more sophisticated than frontier justice.

Pendent Jurisdiction in Australia—Section 32 of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976

1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. C. Gummow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Statutory Law ◽  
The Future

The Federal Court of Australia has only the jurisdiction conferred on it by statute. However, many disputes falling within that jurisdiction, particularly in trade practices matters, will also involve elements of common law or other State or federal statutory law. Section 32 invests in the Federal Court additional jurisdiction in some such cases in respect of “associated matters”. This may be compared with “pendent jurisdiction” developed by the federal courts in the United States. The object of this article is to analyse the meaning of the term “associated matters” and to consider the bearing it has upon the future relationship between the Federal Court and the various State courts.

War Is Justiciable, Until It Isn’t

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Jasmine Farrier
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
The Political ◽  
War Powers ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter demonstrates that courts were once comfortable entering into the fray when they have clear congressional guidelines about war authorization (private lawsuits) and when members of Congress press their claims through political as well as legal channels (Cambodia cases). It also shows that federal courts can have a place in war powers conflicts—and they did up through the mid-twentieth century, but only in individual plaintiff cases. Although no federal court has ever ordered a president to stop a war, there was once more comfort in judicial engagement in war-related constitutional questions, at least from the founding generation through the Civil War and beyond; the Cold War changed all three branches' orientations. Member litigation began during the Vietnam War out of frustration with imbalance of power that took permanent root in the Cold War and then remained in the political culture under new international pressures in the 1990s and after 9/11. The chapter then details the first two member cases surrounding the Vietnam War's expansion.

Nuclear Fallout: Investigating the Effect of Senate Procedural Reform on Judicial Nominations

The Forum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Boyd ◽  
Michael S. Lynch ◽  
Anthony J. Madonna
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Nuclear Fallout ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Procedural Reform ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOn November 21, 2013, U.S. Senate Democrats utilized the long threatened “nuclear option,” thereby allowing a simple-majority of the chamber to end debate on lower federal court judicial nominations. Formal theory predicts that this change should permit the president to nominate more ideologically extreme nominees. By comparing President Obama’s nominees before and after the Senate’s change to the confirmation process, we are able to provide the first comprehensive examination of how the nuclear option is likely to impact the ideological makeup of the lower federal courts. We additionally examine the impact of the nuclear option on time to confirmation and nominee success. Our results indicate, while post-nuclear option nominees are not significantly more liberal, they are being confirmed more often and more quickly, allowing Obama and Senate Democrats to more efficiently fill the federal judiciary with Democratic-leaning judges.

scholarly journals Non-Capital Habeas Cases after Appellate Review: An Empirical Analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. King
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Law School ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Federal District Courts ◽  
Vanderbilt University

In 2007, researchers from the National Center for State Courts and Vanderbilt University Law School reported the findings from a study of litigation in 2384 randomly selected, non-capital habeas cases, approximately 6.5% of the non-capital habeas cases commenced in federal district courts in 2003 and 2004 by state prisoners. In this article, I update that report, including the cases that were pending when the 2007 report was prepared, following the study cases into the federal courts of appeals, and back into the state courts. Even after appellate review of denials and dismissals, the percentage of non-capital petitioners receiving federal habeas relief remains less than the 1% rate reported prior to AEDPA. Descriptive findings include appeals and requests to file successive petitions by circuit, and rulings on certificates of appealability by circuit. Detailed information regarding each case receiving relief in federal court is also included.

scholarly journals Affirmative Power to Strip State Courts of Jurisdiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Laws ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional System

The very substantial literature on the scope of congressional power to strip courts of jurisdiction contains a gap: it does not discuss the source of the affirmative power of Congress to strip state courts of their jurisdiction. Laws granting exclusive federal court jurisdiction over some category of cases are necessary and proper to the exercise of the power to ordain and establish lower federal courts, but what power does Congress exercise when it strips both state and federal courts of jurisdiction? The answer depends on the nature of the case. In stripping all courts of the power to hear federal statutory claims and challenges to federal statutes, Congress exercises whatever affirmative power authorizes the substantive statute. However, Congress lacks affirmative power to strip all courts of the power to hear constitutional challenges to state laws. That conclusion is important in its own right but also complements views—such as Henry Hart’s contention that the Supreme Court must have such jurisdiction as necessary to play its “essential role” in our constitutional system—about the scope and limits of congressional power under the Exceptions Clause of Article III. The limit on affirmative congressional power to strip state courts of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to state laws ensures that there will be cases over which the Supreme Court can exercise its appellate jurisdiction in order to play its essential role.

scholarly journals Unintended Consequences, Loopholes, and Gibberish

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-185
Author(s):  
Brian Elzweig
Keyword(s):  
Federal Court ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Class Action ◽  
State Courts ◽  
State Law ◽  
Securities Litigation ◽  
Class Actions ◽  
National Importance ◽  
Beaver County

This Article examines Congress’s decades-long attempt to ensure that securities class action lawsuits of national importance are litigated in federal courts. The intent is limiting strike suits. Congress attempted to curtail strike suits through the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (“PSLRA”). The PSLRA required heightened pleading requirements to ensure the validity of federal securities class actions. Instead of solving the dilemma, plaintiffs circumvented the PSLRA by bringing fraud cases as state law claims. To combat the circumvention of the PSLRA, Congress enacted the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (“SLUSA”). SLUSA federally preempted state law claims based on alleged misrepresentations, untrue statements, or omissions of material facts, requiring them to be brought in federal court. However, SLUSA did not address the concurrent jurisdiction provision of the Securities Act of 1933. This created an anomaly whereby many federal claims under the 1933 Act were brought in state courts, while state fraud claims were required to be brought in federal court. Congress could have addressed this enigma when it enacted the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”). Instead, CAFA, which reformed class actions generally, exempted most securities class actions from its rules. In 2018, the Supreme Court decided Cyan v. Beaver County and allowed 1933 Act claims covered by SLUSA to continue to be brought in state courts. The Court was silent on non-covered securities. This Article recommends how Congress can accomplish its goal of forcing important securities class actions into federal courts.

From Rogers to Rivers: The Rights of the Mentally Ill to Refuse Medication

1987 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-52
Author(s):  
Ellen Wright Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Psychotropic Drugs ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Patients Rights ◽  
Treatment Refusals

AbstractMany individuals with mental illness wish to avoid psychotropic drugs, a type of treatment that may relieve their symptoms only at the risk of unpleasant, even permanent, side effects. In marked contrast to the widely-held view that most patients may refuse any treatment and that even patients with mental illness may reject other psychoactive interventions such as electroconvulsive therapy and psychosurgery, the courts and legislatures have been slow to recognize any right to refuse psychotropic drugs. This Article demonstrates that many of the justifications offered for forcing patients to take unwanted medications are inadequate and that unless treatment refusals are reviewed outside mental institutions, patients’ rights will rarely receive appropriate deference. The author analyzes the federal and state litigation to determine whether the courts have fashioned meaningful relief for the mentally ill. The Article concludes that two recent United States Supreme Court decisions have made it impossible for the federal courts to provide adequate protection. By contrast, several state courts have responded to the needs and rights of patients with mental illness.

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