Also known as: comity · comity of courts · judicial comity doctrine
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The respect a court of one state or jurisdiction shows to another state or jurisdiction in giving effect to the other's laws and judicial decisions.
State prosecutors charge Jacob Jennings with a crime under a state statute. Jennings asks the federal district court to enjoin the ongoing prosecution on constitutional grounds. The federal court refuses the injunction because principles of comity require deference to the state proceeding absent extraordinary circumstances.
Atlas Auto sues Titan Motors in federal court on a federal antitrust claim with related state franchise claims. After the federal claim is dismissed at summary judgment, the court declines to retain the state claims out of comity so that state courts may interpret their own law.
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A Virginia state court initially refuses to honor a federal mandate concerning land title. On review the Supreme Court emphasizes that judicial comity requires state courts to respect federal judicial determinations on federal questions.
A state court faces a challenge to its own licensing law that overlaps with federal commerce regulation. The court applies judicial comity by construing its statute consistently with the federal scheme to avoid conflict.
A federal court considers whether to assert jurisdiction over a foreign corporation with minimal forum contacts. The court notes that comity among nations and states counsels restraint when another jurisdiction has stronger interests.
A Colorado resident sues an Arizona state agency in Colorado court for damages. The Colorado court dismisses the action, extending comity to Arizona's sovereign immunity even though the suit is brought in another state's courts.
A federal court may decline supplemental jurisdiction after dismissing all federal claims or when state claims raise novel issues or substantially predominate. Comity favors allowing state courts to resolve questions of their own law.
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 its own procedural and substantive rules.
Federal courts must generally abstain from enjoining ongoing state criminal proceedings out of comity and federalism unless the prosecution is brought in bad faith or the statute is flagrantly unconstitutional.
When a supplemental state claim involves an untested state statute, comity and federalism support declining jurisdiction so that state courts may interpret their own law in the first instance.
…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…