Definition
By default, courts have supplemental jurisdiction over "all other claims that are so related . . . that they form part of the same case or controversy" (§ 1367(a)). The true test being that the new claim "arises from the same set of operative facts." This means a federal court hearing a federal claim can also hear substantially related state law claims, thereby encouraging efficiency by only having one trial at the federal level rather than one trial in federal court and another in state court. However, if the case is brought as a diversity action (i.e., the basis for federal jurisdiction is that each defendant comes from a state different than each plaintiff), there generally is no supplemental jurisdiction if such claims would destroy complete diversity. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc. Courts are also free to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction in specified or exceptional circumstances (§ 1367(c)).
Read more about this topic: Ancillary Jurisdiction
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“... we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are:MSpirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!—But the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the occasion to profane them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)