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Jurisdiction and Venue

The three questions every lawsuit has to answer before its merits can be heard - whether the court has power over this kind of case (subject-matter jurisdiction), power over this defendant (personal jurisdiction), and whether this is the right place within the system to bring it (venue) - what each requires, how each is challenged, and why a judgment entered without jurisdiction is void.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

Subject-matter jurisdiction is a court's authority to hear a category of case. State courts of general jurisdiction can hear almost anything; specialised state courts (probate, family, small claims, tax) are limited to their subject and often by amount. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction: they can hear a case only if Congress has authorised it, principally cases arising under federal law and cases between citizens of different states (or a citizen and a foreign party) where the amount in controversy exceeds a threshold, with complete diversity required - no plaintiff may share a state of citizenship with any defendant. A defendant sued in state court on a claim the federal courts could hear may remove the case to federal court within a fixed period, subject to the rule that a diversity case cannot be removed if any defendant is a citizen of the forum state. Subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred by consent or waived; the court must raise it on its own, at any stage, and a judgment entered without it is void.

Personal jurisdiction is the court's power over the particular defendant, and it is a constitutional limit rooted in due process as well as a matter of each state's long-arm statute. A court has general jurisdiction over a defendant who is "at home" in the state - an individual domiciled there, a corporation incorporated or headquartered there - for any claim whatever. Otherwise it has specific jurisdiction only if the defendant purposefully directed activities at the state and the claim arises out of or relates to those activities, so that being sued there is fair: selling products into the state, contracting with a resident to perform there, committing a tort there, or maintaining an interactive commercial presence aimed at its residents. A defendant may also be subject to jurisdiction by consent, by a forum-selection clause, by registering to do business where the statute so provides, or by being served while physically present in the state. Unlike subject-matter jurisdiction, the personal-jurisdiction objection is waived if not raised in the defendant's first response.

Venue is the question of which court within a system is the proper place for the case - which county in a state, which district in the federal system - and is set by statute, usually the district where a defendant resides or where a substantial part of the events occurred, with special rules for real property, corporations and particular statutes. Improper venue is a waivable objection; even where venue is proper, a court may transfer the case to another district for the convenience of parties and witnesses, or dismiss it under forum non conveniens in favour of a court in another country. Forum-selection clauses in contracts are generally enforced and can make an otherwise proper venue improper as between the parties. A defendant who wants to contest jurisdiction may appear specially or, in federal court, simply raise the defence by motion without conceding anything; a defendant who ignores the suit entirely and lets a default judgment enter may attack it later for want of jurisdiction, but at the price of having no defence on the merits if the attack fails.

Where this comes from

Federal subject-matter jurisdiction is 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question), § 1332 (diversity, including the amount in controversy and the complete-diversity rule of Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806)), § 1367 (supplemental jurisdiction) and §§ 1441-1447 (removal and remand); its non-waivable character is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(3) and Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006). Personal jurisdiction rests on International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), with general jurisdiction defined in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915 (2011), and Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014), specific jurisdiction in Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985), Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277 (2014), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 582 U.S. 255 (2017), and Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, 592 U.S. 351 (2021); consent by registration in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023); and transient presence in Burnham v. Superior Court, 495 U.S. 604 (1990). Federal venue is 28 U.S.C. § 1391, transfer § 1404(a), and forum-selection clauses are enforced under Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. United States District Court, 571 U.S. 49 (2013). Each state's long-arm statute and venue rules govern its own courts. The amount-in-controversy threshold and the removal period are fixed by statute and are not stated here.

When people hire a lawyer for this

Jurisdiction and venue decide where a case will be fought, under which procedure and before which jury pool, and that often matters as much as the merits. A defendant sued far from home - an out-of-state business, a person whose only contact with the forum was a website or a single shipment - should have a lawyer evaluate a jurisdiction motion before doing anything that could waive it, including filing a general answer. Plaintiffs choosing between state and federal court, or between counties, are making a strategic decision about judges, timelines and remedies, and the choice is difficult to reverse. Anyone signing a commercial contract should read the forum-selection clause as the term that decides where they will have to sue or be sued.

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.