Federal Question Jurisdiction - The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976
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Authors
Laverdure, Mary Fran
Issue Date
1984
Volume
17
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION|On May 23, 1983 Chief Justice Burger delivered a unanimous opinion for the United States Supreme Court in the case of Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria. In reversing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court held that Congress, in passing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), had not exceeded the bounds of article III of the United States Constitution by granting the federal courts subject matter jurisdiction over civil suits brought by foreign plaintiffs against foreign sovereigns. Although refusing to place exact limitations on the scope of article III jurisdiction, the Court stated that Congress' power to grant jurisdiction to the federal courts is broader under the "arising under" language of article III than it is under similar language used in the statutory grant of federal question jurisdiction of 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Determining that the grant of jurisdiction in the FSIA was constitutional, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Second Circuit for a determination of whether statutory subject matter jurisdiction was present under the act in this suit...
Description
Citation
17 Creighton L. Rev. 885 (1983-1984)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law