Also known as: comity · comities · international comity · judicial comity
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A principle of deference by which one court or sovereign refrains from exercising jurisdiction in favor of another with concurrent authority. The principle promotes harmony between judicial systems and respects the legitimate interests of foreign or state tribunals.
Dominic Drake faces state criminal charges for organizing a protest at a power plant. He files a federal suit seeking to halt the prosecution on First Amendment grounds. The federal court refuses the injunction because the state proceeding is already underway and no bad-faith harassment appears in the record.
Diamond Manufacturing sues a supplier in federal court on a federal antitrust claim arising from a single construction contract. After the federal claim is dismissed, the court declines to retain the remaining state-law breach claims so that a state tribunal can resolve them.
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Dover Bank alleges that foreign reinsurance companies conspired with domestic insurers to fix rates. The court weighs the strong U.S. interest in enforcement against the foreign nations' regulatory interests before deciding whether to apply American antitrust law.
Deborah Dunn obtains a foreign judgment quieting title to land located abroad. A U.S. court considers whether to give effect to that judgment under principles that respect the territorial sovereignty of the rendering state.
Damian Decker sues a foreign parent corporation in a U.S. district court for injuries occurring overseas. The court examines whether exercising jurisdiction would unduly interfere with the foreign nation's sovereign interests in regulating its own companies.
Dominion Capital sues the State of Maine in federal court for damages arising from a contract dispute. The court declines to hear the case, citing the need to respect the state's sovereign dignity and the comity owed between federal and state governments.
A federal court must abstain unless the prosecution is brought in bad faith, involves harassment, or rests on a statute that is flagrantly unconstitutional with no valid applications. This rule protects state courts' primary role in enforcing criminal law.
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A state tribunal may recognize and enforce a foreign support order on the basis of comity even when the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act does not directly apply. The tribunal may then use the Act's procedural and substantive provisions for enforcement.
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The statute gives the court discretion to decline supplemental jurisdiction once every claim supporting original jurisdiction has been dismissed. Courts often exercise that discretion to avoid deciding novel or complex questions of state law and to respect state courts' primary role.
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A court will ordinarily recognize a marriage valid where celebrated unless the marriage is repugnant to the forum's public policy or expressly prohibited by statute. Public policy is drawn from the forum's constitution, statutes, and judicial decisions.
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…an elementary principle, that the laws of one State have no operation outside of its territory, except so far as is allowed by comity; and that no tribunal established by it can extend its process beyond that territory so as to subject either persons or property to its decisions. "Any exertion of authority of this sort…