Also known as: comity · comity of courts · judicial comity doctrine
Written by attorneys — see sources 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.
Paul Gibbs was hired in the summer of 1960 by Grundy Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company, to serve as mine superintendent for a new mine at Gray's Creek and to haul the coal produced there under a separate contract. This arrangement occurred amid ongoing rivalry between the United Mine Workers of America and the Southern Labor Union for representation of coal miners in the southern Appalachian fields. On August 15 and 16, 1960, armed members of UMW Local 5881 prevented the mine from opening through threats and violence, including beating an organizer for the rival union, after learning that jobs they believed had been promised to them were going to others. George Gilbert, the UMW field representative for the area, was attending an Executive Board meeting in Middlesboro, Kentucky, when the violence occurred and did not return until late on August 16. Upon his return he received instructions from international union superiors to establish a limited picket line, prevent any further violence, and ensure the strike did not spread. No further violence took place at the mine site, a picket line was maintained for nine months, and no further attempts were made to open the mine during that period. Gibbs lost his superintendent position and never performed the haulage contract. He claimed to have lost other trucking contracts and mine leases in nearby areas as a result of a concerted union plan against him. He filed suit against the international UMW only, not against Local 5881 or its members, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Jurisdiction over the federal claim rested on alleged secondary boycotts under section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act. Jurisdiction over the state law claim for unlawful conspiracy and boycott was premised on the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. At trial the district court refused to submit claims of pressure on mining firms other than Grundy to cease doing business with Gibbs. The jury returned a verdict finding violations of both section 303 and state law and awarded $60,000 in damages under the employment contract, $14,500 under the haulage contract, and $100,000 in punitive damages. On post-trial motion the court set aside the haulage contract award for lack of proof of damages and sustained a remitted award on the state law claim alone. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA 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.
In April 1791 an action of ejectment was commenced in a Virginia district court held at Winchester for recovery of land within the Northern Neck tract. Denny Fairfax, a British subject holding under the devise of Thomas Lord Fairfax, was admitted to defend upon the usual terms of confessing lease, entry and ouster. The facts were reduced to a case agreed and treated as a special verdict. On 24 April 1794 the district court entered judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the highest court of law in the state. At its April term in 1810 that court reversed the district court judgment and entered judgment for the plaintiff. The case was then removed into the Supreme Court of the United States. At February term 1813 the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals judgment and issued a mandate directing that its judgment be carried into execution. The Court of Appeals unanimously declined to obey the mandate. It entered judgment declaring that the Supreme Court's appellate power did not extend to it under the Constitution, that section 25 of the Judiciary Act was not in pursuance of the Constitution, that the writ of error had been improvidently allowed, and that proceedings in the Supreme Court were coram non judice. A second writ of error was brought to the Supreme Court. The underlying facts agreed by the parties show that Lord Fairfax, a citizen and inhabitant of Virginia, died in December 1781 seized of approximately 300,000 acres in the Northern Neck. By his will he devised the lands in fee to his nephew Denny Martin, later Denny Fairfax, a native-born British subject who resided in England until his death between 1796 and 1803 and who never became a citizen of the United States. In 1789 the Governor of Virginia issued a patent granting a portion of the land, described as waste and ungranted and never escheated, to David Hunter, a Virginia citizen, pursuant to a treasury warrant dated 23 January 1788. The case agreed also incorporates the definitive treaty of peace of 1783, the treaty of amity of 1794, and the several Virginia statutes concerning land grants and escheats.
View caseA 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.
In 1798 the New York Legislature granted Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right for twenty years to navigate the waters within the jurisdiction of the state with boats moved by fire or steam, a privilege later renewed and extended in 1803 and 1807. The right was assigned first to John R. Livingston and then to Aaron Ogden, who thereby claimed authority to operate steamboats between Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and New York City. Thomas Gibbons, meanwhile, took possession of two steamboats, the Stoudinger and the Bellona, which he employed in the same waters while holding a license issued under the federal Act of February 18, 1793, for enrolling and licensing vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries. Gibbons filed a bill in the Court of Chancery of New York against Ogden seeking an injunction to restrain Ogden from navigating those waters with steamboats. The bill recited the state grants and the assignment to Ogden, alleged that Ogden was violating the exclusive privilege, and prayed for injunctive relief. Gibbons answered that his vessels were duly enrolled and licensed under the 1793 federal statute and insisted on his right to navigate between Elizabethtown and New York notwithstanding the state legislation. The Chancellor awarded the injunction and, after hearing, perpetuated it on the ground that the New York acts were valid. The Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors, the highest court of the state to which the cause could be carried, affirmed the decree. Gibbons then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
View caseA 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.
In 2004, twenty-two residents of Argentina filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against DaimlerChrysler Aktiengesellschaft, a German public stock company headquartered in Stuttgart that manufactures Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Germany. The complaint alleged that Daimler's Argentinian subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz Argentina, collaborated with state security forces during Argentina's 1976–1983 Dirty War to kidnap, detain, torture, and kill MB Argentina workers, including plaintiffs or persons closely related to them. The complaint asserted claims under the Alien Tort Statute, the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, and California and Argentina law. Jurisdiction over Daimler was predicated on the California contacts of Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, another Daimler subsidiary incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in New Jersey. MBUSA serves as Daimler's exclusive importer and distributor in the United States, purchasing vehicles from Daimler in Germany and distributing them to independent dealerships throughout the nation, including California. MBUSA maintains a regional office in Costa Mesa, a Vehicle Preparation Center in Carson, and a Classic Center in Irvine. MBUSA's California sales accounted for 2.4 percent of Daimler's worldwide sales. A General Distributor Agreement between Daimler and MBUSA established MBUSA as an independent contractor that buys and sells vehicles for its own account and has no authority to make binding obligations for Daimler. Daimler moved to dismiss the action for lack of personal jurisdiction. After allowing jurisdictional discovery on the agency allegations, the District Court granted the motion in November 2005 and reaffirmed the dismissal in February 2007, concluding that Daimler's own contacts with California were too sporadic and that MBUSA's contacts could not be attributed to Daimler. The Ninth Circuit initially affirmed but, on rehearing, reversed in 2011, holding that MBUSA was Daimler's agent for jurisdictional purposes and that its California contacts supported the exercise of general jurisdiction over Daimler. Daimler petitioned for rehearing and rehearing en banc, which the Ninth Circuit denied over the dissent of eight judges. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2013 to decide whether Daimler is amenable to suit in California for claims arising from events occurring entirely outside the United States and unrelated to any activity in California.
View caseA 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.
In 1967 Congress enacted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which initially applied only to private employers. In 1974 Congress amended the Act through the Fair Labor Standards Amendments to extend its substantive requirements to the States. Congress redefined the term employer to include a State or political subdivision of a State and any agency or instrumentality of a State or a political subdivision of a State. The same legislation also amended the incorporated Fair Labor Standards Act enforcement provision to authorize suits against any employer including a public agency in federal or state court. In December 1994 Roderick MacPherson and Marvin Narz, associate professors ages 57 and 58 at the University of Montevallo in Alabama, filed suit alleging age discrimination, retaliation for filing charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and disparate impact from an evaluation system. In April 1995 J. Daniel Kimel, Jr., and other current and former faculty and librarians over age 40 at Florida State University and Florida International University filed suit against the Florida Board of Regents alleging that the failure to allocate previously agreed market-adjustment salary funds had a disparate impact on employees with longer service records. In May 1996 Wellington Dickson filed suit against the Florida Department of Corrections alleging failure to promote him because of his age and in retaliation for grievances concerning age discrimination. The District Court in the MacPherson case granted the university's motion to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment grounds. The District Courts in the Kimel and Dickson cases denied the state defendants' motions to dismiss. The United States intervened in all three cases. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit consolidated the appeals and held that the ADEA does not abrogate the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals.
View caseA 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…