Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: the court�s jurisdiction

State court is the rule. Federal the exception. To file in federal you must have a federal jurisdictional predicate.

Re: the court�s jurisdiction

This is not a question that can be answered in one sentence, nor even one paragraph. I can give you a few general guidelines, however:

First of all, a court needs two kinds of jurisdiction to hear a case: subject-matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction. Here, we're talking subject-matter jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction is obtained by a showing that it is just and reasonable under due-process rules to bring these particular parties under the authority of that particular court.

State courts are courts of general jurisdiction, and almost any type of case can be brought in the courts of the appropriate state. The few exceptions are where the case involves Federal statutes that give exclusive jurisdiction to the Federal courts, such as most patent issues.

Many cases based on Federal law can be heard in either Federal or state court, for example, matters under the Federal Employer Liability Act (FELA).

There are two ways to get a matter into Federal court jurisdiction. The first and most obvious way is the "Federal question jurisdiction" - where the case involves application or interpretation of a Federal law in a major way, or perhaps there was a crime committed on Federal property. The second way is through so-called "diversity jurisdiction," where each plaintiff is from a different state than each defendant. When the parties are corporations, the rules for identifying state citizenship get a little complex. If the diversity of citizenship test is met, the case must also pass the amount at stake test - currently the Federal courts will not hear diversity cases unless the demand is for more than $75,000.

Finally, Federal courts do not hear family law, probate or real estate cases unless some Federal law is prominently part of the issues, which is rare. Real estate cases almost always belong in the courts of the state where the property is situated.