Subject Matter Jurisdiction

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. 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. As a doctrine allocating power, subject matter jurisdiction sits squarely in the path of Critical Legal Theory, which asks whether and how law subordinates outsiders, as well as how we might address that subordination. Critical theory supplies tools to interrogate both the superiority premises and related value judgments for their roles in oppression or empowerment. Viewed with a critical lens, the evolution of diversity jurisdiction and federal question jurisdiction reveals the abiding interests of powerful commercial parties in the federal courts and the federal courts’ duality as both protectors and frustrators of subordinated groups’ rights.