Civil Litigation-State Court vs. Federal Court
A federal court may have subject matter jurisdiction, but no personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
Lawyers frequently argue over the respective merits of bringing a civil claim in state court versus federal court. Some lawyers maintain that it is always to the advantage of the plaintiff to litigate a claim in federal court for the following reasons.
* The Federal Rules of Evidence typically are a bit more lenient, and therefore more favorable to a plaintiff than are the state rules of evidence.
* The federal courtrooms are much grander and larger than the typical state courtrooms, and therefore juries are likely to be more impressed with a case brought in federal court and more likely to return a verdict favorable to the plaintiff.
* Federal judges are sometimes considered higher caliber than state court judges.
Those reasons are very subjective and there are probably as many lawyers across the nation who feel that it is better for a plaintiff to file suit in state court than it is in federal court. In any event, since the plaintiff initiates the lawsuit, the plaintiff has the opportunity, to some extent, to choose the forum. Even though a suit may be initiated in state court, if the federal subject matter jurisdiction requirements have been met, then the defendant may remove that case from state court to federal court.
Once a case has been initiated in federal court, the process that is followed is much the same as what has been described previously in the state court system. The particular procedural rules that are followed in federal court may differ from what are followed in state court, but the basic procedure is much the same once the lawsuit has been initiated.
When hearing a diversity case, a federal court is, in essence, sitting as if it were a state court. The federal judge who is called upon to make rulings of law has to apply the pertinent state law that governs that transaction. If a citizen of Connecticut sues a citizen from Massachusetts in a federal court in Massachusetts for an automobile accident that occurred in the state of Connecticut, then the federal judge in Massachusetts is going to apply Connecticut law to that claim. Massachusetts law on the particular issues in questions may be markedly different than Connecticut law.
A federal judge, however, who hears a federal question case typically is going to apply federal law, since the claim itself arose under federal law.
Even though a federal judge may be called upon to apply state law in a diversity claim, he or she is still bound by the Federal Rules of Procedure, which govern the civil procedure in that court system. He or she is also bound by the Federal Rules of Evidence, which are the rules that govern the admissibility of evidence in the federal court system. As such, a federal judge, when sitting in a diversity claim, is called upon to apply a number of different types of law—both state law and federal law—to different aspects of the case.
