State court

“ In addition, a judicial exception to the longstanding policy evidenced by the statute has been made where a person about to be prosecuted in a state court can show that he will, if the proceeding in the state court is not enjoined, suffer irreparable damages. ”

“ May a state court enjoin resident state-court suitors from prosecuting in the federal courts vexatious, duplicative litigation which has the effect of thwarting a state-court judgment already rendered against them? ”

“ To permit a federal trial court to enter a judgment in a case removed without right from a state court where the federal court could not have original jurisdiction of the suit even in the posture it had at the time of judgment, would by the act of the parties work a wrongful extension of federal jurisdiction and give district courts power the Congress has denied them. ”

“ We stand to let federal courts lose their command over critical litigation by what we do today. The Court holds that, though the litigant goes to the state court involuntarily, he loses his right to return to the federal court if he submits the local law question and the constitutional questions to the state tribunal without reserving his right to return to the federal forum for a final adjudication. It will often be necessary to submit the local law question in light of the constitutional questions. ”

“ We can no more review a legislative court's decision of a case which is not among those enumerated in Art. III than we can hear a case from a state court involving purely state law questions. But a question under the Constitution and laws of the United States, whether arising in a constitutional court, a state court, or a legislative court may, under the Constitution, be a subject of this Court's appellate jurisdiction. ”

“ Where a federal court's jurisdiction is properly invoked, and the relevant state constitutional and statutory provisions are plain and unambiguous, there is no necessity for the federal court to abstain pending determination of the state law questions in a state court. ”

“ It is well settled by a long series of adjudications that, to give this court jurisdiction by writ of error to a state court, it must appear affirmatively, not only that a federal question was presented for decision to the highest court of the state having jurisdiction, but that its decision was necessary to the determination of the case, and that it was actually decided, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given without deciding it. ”

“ For, if the concurrent jurisdiction of the State courts do not become exclusive, upon a prosecution being commenced and carried on to conviction and punishment, it follows that neither a prosecution nor conviction in a State court can be a bar to a prosecution under the act of Congress in the federal courts ”

“ So also, States have varying systems of pleading and practice. One State may cherish formalities more than another, one State may be more responsive than another to procedural reforms. If a litigant chooses to enforce a Federal right in a State court, he cannot be heard to object if he is treated exactly as are plaintiffs who press like claims arising under State law with regard to the form in which the claim must be stated-the particularity, for instance, with which a cause of action must be described. ”

“ It is elementary that where the judgment of a state court which is under review by this court rests upon two or more grounds, one or more of which are Federal and others of which are not Federal, because resting solely upon state grounds independent of Federal rights, and which state grounds are therefore completely adequate to sustain the judgment under consideration, no jurisdiction obtains to review. ”

“ I agree that state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over civil RICO actions and join the opinion and judgment of the Court. I add a few words only because this Court has rarely considered contentions that civil actions based on federal criminal statutes must be heard by the federal courts. ”

“ By the settled construction of these provisions of the constitution and statutes of the United States, a judgment of a state court, in a cause within its jurisdiction, and against a defendant lawfully summoned, or against lawfully attached property of an absent defendant, is entitled to as much force and effect against the person summoned or the property attached, when the question is presented for decision in a court of another state, as it has in the state in which it was rendered. ”

“ The rule is firmly established, and has been frequently reiterated, that the jurisdiction of this court to re-examine the final judgment of a state court, under the 3d division of § 709, cannot arise from mere inference, but only from averments so distinct and positive as to place it beyond question that the party bringing the case here from such court intended to assert a Federal right. ”

“ But it is apparent that the statute requires a judicial proceeding in a competent court. What is a competent court is not specifically stated, but it undoubtedly means a court of general jurisdiction, whether it be a state court or a federal court ”

“ Where the complaint in an action for declaratory judgment seeks, in essence to assert a defense to an impending or threatened state court action, it is the character of the threatened action, and not of the defense, which will determine whether there is federal-question jurisdiction in the District Court. ”

“ If the state court had acquired jurisdiction over the property by the proceedings for the appointment of its receiver, and had not lost the same by the subsequent proceedings, then, upon well-settled principles, often recognized and enforced in this court, there should be no interference with the action of the state courts while thus exercising its authorized jurisdiction. ”

“ An intermediate state court in declaring and applying the state law is acting as an organ of the State and its determination, in the absence of more convincing evidence of what the state law is, should be followed by a federal court in deciding a state question. ”

“ State law cannot define the remedies which a federal court must give simply because a federal court in diversity jurisdiction is available as an alternative tribunal to the State's courts. [3] Contrariwise, a federal court may afford an equitable remedy for a substantive right recognized by a State even though a State court cannot give it. ”

“ In ruling on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a federal court is not to overturn a factual conclusion of a state court, including a state appellate court, unless the conclusion is not "fairly supported by the record." ”

“ Congress may avail itself of state courts for the enforcement of federal rights, but it must take the state courts as it finds them, subject to all the conditions for litigation in the state courts that the State has decreed for every other litigant who seeks access to its courts. ”

“ But the courts so empowered are creatures of the States, with such structures and functions as the States are free to devise and define. Congress has not imposed jurisdiction on State courts for claims under the Act 'as against an otherwise valid excuse.' Douglas v. ”

“ As it frequently happens that cases come before state courts in which questions of Federal law arise, a provision has been made whereby due respect for the latter is secured by giving the party to a suit who relies upon Federal law, and whose contention is overruled by a state court, the right of having the suit removed to a Federal court. ”

“ In reviewing the judgment of a state court, this Court will not pass upon any federal question not shown by the record to have been raised in the state court or considered there, whether it be one arising under a different or the same clause in the constitution with respect to which other questions are properly presented. ”

“ State courts construe their statutes according to their understanding of state policy and apply them to such situations as their interpretation of the statutory language requires. In so adjudging, they are the final judicial authority upon the meaning of their state law. ”

“ It is not to be presumed that Congress, with a full knowledge of the history and traditions of the court, intended to confer jurisdiction over the State tribunals upon any question where their decisions had been theretofore regarded as conclusive-a jurisdiction demanded by no public necessity, and productive of no good results. ”

“ But there is nothing in the language of the statute from which it can be inferred that it was the intention that the jurisdiction of state courts of competent and concurrent jurisdiction, first obtained, should be interfered with by restraining orders issued by federal courts on the application of such an agent. ”