This title offers practical guidance and comprehensive coverage on all aspects of federal court jurisdiction and litigation procedure, as well as the relationship between the state and federal courts. Text reviews the federal judicial system; judicial power of the United States; diversity of citizenship; venue; law applied in federal courts; pleadings, trials, and judgments; and appellate court and Supreme Court jurisdiction.


Imprint: West Academic Publishing
Series: Hornbooks
Publication Date: 11/23/2016

Charles Alan Wright

Mary Kay Kane, UC College of the Law, San Francisco

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Since the 7th Edition in 2011, numerous significant developments have occurred in the field of federal court jurisdiction and procedure. The aim of this new edition is to capture all of these developments, as well as many smaller ones, while preserving the rich discussion of history and policy choices. Among the many changes incorporated into this Edition:

  • The Supreme Court issued several important standing decisions refining standards, as well as a decision further delineating the scope of the bankruptcy courts’ jurisdiction. It also issued two important personal jurisdiction decisions involving the treatment of parent and subsidiary corporations and advancing a new “at home” standard, limiting the scope of general jurisdiction over corporations and businesses. The Court also rendered important opinions announcing special rules to govern the transfer of cases involving forum selection clauses, as well as the standard to be applied to determine the appealability of the dismissal of some of the claims in cases consolidated for pretrial purposes under the multidistrict transfer statute. Additional decisions on class action procedure were rendered, further restricting the use of class arbitration, preventing class plaintiffs from avoiding removal jurisdiction by seeking less than the required amount in controversy, and raising a question about how the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) is to be satisfied when damages must be proved individually.
  • Congress made major changes in the jurisdiction and venue statutes with the enactment of the Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011. Among the more significant changes were those eliminating the resident alien provision and clarifying the treatment of corporations incorporated abroad or with their principal place of business there in the diversity statute. The removal statute was amended to require severance and remand for unrelated state-law claims in federal –question cases, as well as changing the standards and procedures for removal in important ways. Finally, the legislature effectively rewrote the general venue statute to resolve several open questions that had been plaguing the courts.
  • As is true of past editions, even on aspects that have not changed significantly since 2011, later cases have been noted and later scholarly commentary cited.

Learn more about this series.