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: Supplemental Jurisdiction
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this—”devoted and obedient.” This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)
“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)
“... if, as women, we accept a philosophy of history that asserts that women are by definition assimilated into the male universal, that we can understand our past through a male lens—if we are unaware that women even have a history—we live our lives similarly unanchored, drifting in response to a veering wind of myth and bias.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)