Chapter 22: Subject Matter Jurisdiction: The Interests of Power and the Power of Interests
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2022
Editor(s)
Brooke Coleman, Suzette Malveaux, Portia Pedro, and Elizabeth Porter
ISBN
9781479805938
Publisher
NYU Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
Jurisdiction is power. Subject matter jurisdiction provides the source of courts’ power to adjudicate disputes and thereby establish precedent for posterity. In the United States, federal and state courts share this power unevenly. The limited nature of federal courts’ subject matter jurisdiction rests on theoretical assumptions about the superiority of the federal judiciary— namely, that federal courts offer a superior degree of neutrality, expertise, and uniformity than state courts do.1 This superiority premise often is invoked to justify the authorization or denial of federal subject matter jurisdiction, based on value judgments about which kinds of disputes deserve the option of adjudication in the superior system.
Recommended Citation
Elizabeth McCuskey,
Chapter 22: Subject Matter Jurisdiction: The Interests of Power and the Power of Interests
,
in
A Guide to Civil Procedure: Integrating Critical Legal Perspectives
210
(Brooke Coleman, Suzette Malveaux, Portia Pedro, and Elizabeth Porter ed.,
2022).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3922
