Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: lawsuit

Federal courts may have jurisdiction of civil cases under either 'federal question' or 'diversity' jurisdiction.

Federal question jurisdiction arises only if the controversy requires deciding a question of federal law such as the validity of a patent or whether a railroad was charging more on interstate shipments than its filed tariffs allowed. There is usually no significant federal question in routine breach of contract, real estate, probate or family law matters, or for that matter, most cases involving simple negligence. Such cases generally raise only state-law issues.

Diversity jurisdiction arises when all the defendants have different state citizenships from all the plaintiffs. If any plaintiff has the same state of residence as any defendant, there cannot be diversity jurisdiction. The citizenship of corporations is that of their state of incorporation AND the state where they have their "center of mass" of operations (most employees, most factories, etc, for example) so a corporation can have two "citizenships" in many cases. In addition, diversity jurisdiction cases must involve an "amount in controversy" exceeding $75,000.

With some federal question cases, the plaintiff has the choice of filing in either federal or state court; in others, federal jurisdiction in wxclusive.

I believe that any diversity jurisdiction case can be brought in state court as well as federal court at the plaintiff's option.

Re: lawsuit

If the lawsuit involves a federal question, or if the plaintiff and defendant are citizens of different states -and- the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.