Can a state make a law that deputizes individuals to sue individuals in other states? I've read briefly about the recently in-effect Texas anti-abortion law, and I'm perplexed at how it supposedly is difficult to challenge in court. If I understood correctly, it deputizes private Texan individuals to sue pretty much everybody involved in a post-heartbeat abortion except the patient, and will reimburse their court costs up to $10,000. This approach seems absurd to me because it seems so easy to be a &quot;slippery slope&quot;. Let's suppose the Supreme Court allows the Texas law to stand when it finally does make a decision, and then that all the states with anti-abortion legislatures pass laws like Texas'. Is there any extra legal barrier that would prevent states with pro-choice legislatures from passing laws designed to counter the anti-abortion deputies? For example, California could pass a law that deputizes private California individuals to sue people who sue abortion providers, and could reimburse their court costs up to $10,000. This hypothetical law seems equally absurd to me as the Texas one. (Of course there's a common sense barrier as to why California would want to pay for that, but let's ignore that because I expect there are states where strongly pro-choice people are actually willing to pay for it even without reimbursement. They just need the &quot;deputization&quot; giving them a green light. As an aside, I'm kind of surprised that some billionaire hasn't come forward and offered to pay court costs for any provider sued under Texas' crazy law. Maybe it hasn't happened yet because they're waiting to see if the Supreme Court will strike it down.)
Can a state make a law that deputizes individuals to sue individuals in other states? This question (apart from the question below that implicates federalism concerns about a sister state court process in the secondary question below) would be resolved by the constitutional limitations on personal jurisdiction and choice of law. A state can have a law that authorizes a lawsuit for non-judicial system conduct against a non-resident of the state if it meets the requirements of &quot;long arm jurisdiction.&quot; The most succinct description of this requirement is that the person being sued &quot;personally availed themselves&quot; of the laws of the state whose law authorizes the lawsuit, in a manner that would reasonably be understood to subject that person to the state's legal authority. This could involve a lawsuit against someone outside the state arising from an incident that took place in the state. It could also involve a lawsuit against someone who took tortious action directed at a state or people in a state that caused harm, or a lawsuit arising from a business transaction that could reasonably be considered doing business in the state imposing that law. Constitutional law requirements on &quot;choice of law&quot; require that the state or foreign jurisdiction whose law is applied to a question in a dispute must have some meaningful connection to the disputed issue (subject to the backdrop rule that the law of a jurisdiction other than the forum where a case is litigated is presumed to be identical to that of the law of the state where the case is being litigated if no party provides any evidence or legal authorities to the contrary). Case law on state level qui tam litigation (which involve statutes that empower private individuals to sue someone who has wronged the government on its behalf for a share of the amount recovered for the government), the case law regarding private criminal prosecutions that are available in a handful of U.S. states, and some California consumer protection laws (which authorize suits without personal showing of actual damages in some cases when there are fraudulent advertisements) might also be relevant. So would the authority granted to bail bondsmen that is similar to law enforcement authority but limited to people authorized a person posting a bail bond for a criminal defendant who is subject to that authority. Concretely, if the constitutionality of the Texas law was upheld&lt;1&gt;, Texas probably can authorize a lawsuit against a California resident who would be involved in an abortion that took place in Texas that was illegal under Texas law. And, a judgment from a Texas court in a case like that would probably be entitled to full faith and credit in California. But, Texas probably couldn't constitutionally authorize a lawsuit against a California resident in connection with an abortion that took place in California. There would be, of course, many edge cases with no close past precedents, where the application of constitutional jurisdiction and choice of law limitations would be far less clear. &lt;1&gt; The majority opinion by five conservative justices other than the Chief Justice deciding not to stay enforcement of the law specifically limits itself to whether the proper parties were joined to the request to enjoin the statute and states &quot;this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.&quot; A decision that has not been resolved on the merits. The Courts have merely declined to stay enforcement of the law pending the current litigation over the law's validity. Upholding the law on the merits would require courts to overturn existing precedents related to abortion restrictions and other legal issues. Is there any extra legal barrier that would prevent states with pro-choice legislatures from passing laws designed to counter the anti-abortion deputies? For example, California could pass a law that deputizes private California individuals to sue people who sue abortion providers, and could reimburse their court costs up to $10,000. This seems to be a separate question from the question in the title. A law of this character would probably not be upheld. Basically, it would make a state authorized legal process in one state's courts, actionable as illegal in another state. Generally speaking, interference in another state's legal process would either violate the &quot;dormant commerce clause&quot;, or the &quot;full faith and credit clause&quot;, or constitutional limits on jurisdiction and choice of law, or constitutional standing limitations (even though they don't apply in the same way in state courts as in federal courts, or the &quot;due process clause&quot; of the 5th or 14th Amendments, or the &quot;privileges and immunities clause.&quot; The exact legal theory isn't clear because there is really not history of litigation over this kind of legislation and you'd need to resort to vaguely analogous cases. The effort of Texas to litigate Pennsylvania election law administration following the 2020 election was recently dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of standing and that is suggestive of how this case might be resolved, even though it isn't strictly analogous. It is also informed by the long standing common law rule, that could conceivably have constitutional dimensions, that litigants participating in a court process in good faith are immune from collateral litigation in another lawsuit over their conduct in the original lawsuit. There isn't a lot of precedent one way or the other with laws having this kind of purpose, and none on a law exactly in this form. Indeed, a dissenting opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday by the Chief Justice and two of the liberal justices (with which the third liberal justice states he agrees without formally joining that opinion) stated that: The statutory scheme before the Court is not only unusual, but unprecedented. The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The last time there was significant litigation of laws with a similar purpose that were adjudicated was in the pre-U.S. Civil War period in abolition of slavery oriented legislation. But, the post-Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution and subsequent development of constitutional case law would render most precedents from that time period infirm.
Probably not. There is an unenumerated constitutional &quot;right to travel&quot; (which has been recognized in case law, and has not yet been judicially overruled) and there is also a concept called the &quot;dormant commerce clause&quot; which prohibits legislation by a state that interferes with the ability of people to engage in interstate commerce even if Congress has passed no relevant legislation. There could also be a privileges and immunities clause argument arising under the original 1789 constitution and not the 14th Amendment to that document privileges and immunities clause, which affords people from outside a state the same rights as people in a state. Also, citizens of a state are defined as its residents, so a state only has jurisdiction over someone as a citizen for so long as they reside there. I was born in Georgia, for example, but haven't lived there since I was six years old, so I am not a citizen of Georgia. The proposed Texas law bears some similarity to the Mann Act of 1910 which prohibits transporting people across state lines for the purposes of prostitution (to slightly oversimplify). But the Mann Act is a federal law, not a state law. The proposed Texas law also bears some similarity to the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which required free states to respect the slave status of people treated as slaves in a slave state under the slave state's law by returning fugitive slaves to their out of state masters, when the slave escaped across state lines. But, this was also a federal law and reflect the greater extraterritorial force of contracts and property rights created under state law compared to the extraterritorial force of the police powers of a state government. There are constitutional provisions requiring states to honor each other's rulings as well, most notably the requirement to extradite felons, and the full faith and credit clause that requires states to honor the court judgments and government determinations of status (e.g. marriage certificates) of other states in most circumstances. But, I don't think that you get there in a case regulating the conduct of a state resident outside the state, or in a case where you want to criminalize assisting someone in the state to leave the state for a particular purpose. Neither of these examples, however, involve state laws. Generally, penalties for doing something across state lines need to be established by federal, rather than state, laws. This said, the issue has not been litigated in this particular context yet, and the legal theories implicated and structure of those lines in fine particulars could matter. States have only rarely tried to regulate the conduct of their residents outside their own states and have even less frequently been successful in doing so.
The liability shield is the big one, and it can't be achieved with a contract. Just because the contract says you're not liable, that doesn't make it true. If I sign a contract with my friend that says "Nate Eldredge is hereby the King of France", that won't make me the king, nor will it force anyone except maybe my friend to acknowledge me as the king. By its nature, a contract can only bind the parties to the contract, and has no effect on the rights of anyone else. Suppose, then, that Alice and Bob agree to start a pizza delivery business, using a contract like you suggest. Their delivery car crashes, injuring Carol, a bystander, who incurs medical bills that exceed the assets of the business. Carol decides to sue Alice and Bob personally. Sure, Alice and Bob have a contract, and maybe it prevents them from suing each other, but it certainly doesn't prevent Carol from suing them; Carol never signed it. So Carol can still go after Alice and Bob's personal assets. Thus contract law cannot give them a liability shield. However, the government can, since it makes the laws about who can sue whom under what circumstances. And it has made laws saying that Alice and Bob can be protected from such suits, but only if they form a company according to the process that the law sets forth. So that's what they have to do.
They aren't "imposing tax laws at the state level", and the states are still perfectly free to award whatever credits they like. There's a more complete explanation here. Before 2017, if you paid, say, $30,000 in state taxes, you could take a $30,000 deduction from your federal taxable income, thus reducing your federal income taxes by some fraction of $30,000 (depending on your tax bracket). The 2017 tax bill placed a $10,000 limit on this deduction. Some states responded by creating a provision where you could donate $30,000 to the state and receive a $30,000 credit against your state taxes owed - so you end up paying the same amount to the state, but now you characterize it as a charitable donation, which is still deductible from your federal taxable income. The new IRS regulation says that such a "donation" will no longer be deductible from your federal taxable income; that's all. Your state can still issue you a tax credit for such a donation if they want - the federal government has no control over that - but any such credit will reduce the amount you are allowed to deduct on your federal return, making the whole exercise pointless. The federal government certainly has the power to determine how you should compute your income for the purposes of your federal income taxes, including what you may or may not deduct. That's the power they're using here.
In the specific example you have given, Florida law could not be applied. A state has jurisdiction over a crime under constitutional due process limits on the scope of a state's criminal jurisdiction if the crime is either committed within the state (regardless of where the harm occurs) or is directed at or impacts the state (the classic example is a gunshot fired from the Ohio side of the state line killing someone located in Indiana, which could be prosecuted in either state, or in both states as it doesn't violate double jeopardy to be prosecuted for the same offense by more than one sovereign). Sometimes these issues are framed not as "jurisdictional" per se, but as "conflict of law" questions limited by the constitution. The proof that a crime was committed in the territory where it is applicable is called proof of locus delecti and depends upon the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it. To determine where a crime is committed depends on what acts constitute the crime, something that leaves considerable room for flexible interpretation and a careful reading of the exact wording of the relevant criminal statute. The most important limitation on the territorial jurisdiction of a U.S. state is the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This applies directly in the case of federal criminal prosecutions in the federal courts, and applies in state courts because it is incorporated to apply in state court cases through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States under 20th century case law applying the "Selective Incorporation doctrine." The Sixth Amendment mandates that criminal trials be conducted “by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” If a suspect is not present in a state to be criminally prosecuted, then the options available to a state are (1) to toll the running of the statute of limitations while the suspect is outside the state to the extent permitted by the relevant state statute and the U.S. Constitution, (2) to bring a civil lawsuit against the suspect instead of a criminal prosecution, or (3) to seek extradition of the suspect, which must be granted under certain circumstances under the United State Constitution and reads as follows in the pertinent part: Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2: A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. (Note that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to civil lawsuits. Civil lawsuit trials can be conducted in a state other than the state where the breach of contract or tort giving rise to the lawsuit took place for jurisdictional purposes and not infrequently is brought in another state, although constitutional choice of law rules limit the circumstances under which a particular state's laws can be applied to a particular set of circumstances in a lawsuit.) The Sixth Amendment, on its face, prohibits Florida from prosecuting a case in the example given in the question involving a crime that was committed solely in Washington State. Of course, the exact definition of the crime might determine where it was committed. In traditional "common law" "blue collar" crimes there is usually no ambiguity over where it is committed except in the most extraordinary circumstances, but in prosecutions of conspiracies and crimes involving economic activity (such as owning or mailing something), the question of where a crime is committed can grow much fuzzier. For example, one could imagine a differently defined crime prohibiting providing funds to finance a purchase of marijuana in excess of 20 grams being committed both in Washington State and Florida at the same time (e.g. perhaps a purchase of marijuana in Washington State was financed by a Florida bank by delivering cash to a courier in Florida who is bound for Washington State knowing that the cash would be used to finance a marijuana purchase). Similar ideas apply in international circumstances where the Sixth Amendment and Extradition Clause do not apply. But, in those cases, the more flexible and less well defined "law of nations" as interpreted by Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court and the President still does impose some territorial boundaries on prosecutions for actions which are not crimes in the country where they are committed under that country's domestic laws. But, those boundaries are not so hard and fast and the idea that a crime is committed in places where it has an impact allow for considerable flexibility in prosecuting crimes committed outside the United States. It has also been well settled since the earliest days of the United States that "The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another." The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66, 123 (U.S. Supreme Court 1825) and that this applies to states applying each other's penal laws as well. So, Florida cannot enforce a violation of the criminal laws of Washington State in its courts either. If you get in a bar fight in Seattle, you can't be prosecute for assault in a court in Orlando, even if both of the parties to the bar fight were Orlando residents and U.S. citizens. Some notable cases resolving the question of whether locus delecti is present in a particular case include the following: In Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347 (1912) although none of the defendants had entered the District of Columbia as part of their conspiracy to defraud the United States, they were convicted because one co-conspirator had committed overt acts in Columbia (225 U.S., at 363). So conspiracy is a continuing offense committed in all the districts where a co-conspirator acts on the agreement. Similarly, In re Palliser, 136 U.S. 257 (1890) the sending of letters from New York to postmasters in Connecticut in an attempt to gain postage on credit, made Connecticut, where the mail he addressed and dispatched was received, an appropriate venue (136 U.S., at 266—268). A typical state statute on the subject from Colorado's Revised Statutes (2016) is as follows: § 18-1-201. State jurisdiction (1) A person is subject to prosecution in this state for an offense which he commits, by his own conduct or that of another for which he is legally accountable, if: (a) The conduct constitutes an offense and is committed either wholly or partly within the state; or (b) The conduct outside the state constitutes an attempt, as defined by this code, to commit an offense within the state; or (c) The conduct outside the state constitutes a conspiracy to commit an offense within the state, and an act in furtherance of the conspiracy occurs in the state; or (d) The conduct within the state constitutes an attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit in another jurisdiction an offense prohibited under the laws of this state and such other jurisdiction. (2) An offense is committed partly within this state if conduct occurs in this state which is an element of an offense or if the result of conduct in this state is such an element. In homicide, the "result" is either the physical contact which causes death or the death itself; and if the body of a criminal homicide victim is found within the state, the death is presumed to have occurred within the state. (3) Whether an offender is in or outside of the state is immaterial to the commission of an offense based on an omission to perform a duty imposed by the law of this state. Case law under this statute sometimes describes the issue presented under this statute a question of "sovereign jurisdiction." See, e.g., People v. Cullen, 695 P.2d 750 (Colo. App. 1984).
I know of no laws at the federal or state level that explicitly extend their protection to poly relationships. However, any law that purports to outlaw a polyamorous relationship among consenting adults should be looked at very skeptically, as it would likely be found unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003): The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. While that case dealt with homosexual relationships, it seems unlikely that the courts would conclude that heterosexual couples, throuples, etc., are entitled to less protection. Adultery laws exist in many jurisdictions, and many of them have survived constitutional challenges. But as far as I know, all those challenges relied on legal principles and precedents -- in particular, Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) -- that Lawrence explicitly overruled. In this regard, I would not expect anyone in a polyamorous relationship to encourter meaningful legal jeopardy as a result of that relationship, assuming that the relationship(s) were otherwise legal and out in the open. If A is unaware of her spouse's relationship with C, for instance, that could cause problems in a divorce proceeding. I don't know of any legal options specifically designed for this sort of arrangement, but the more interconnected and interdependent these groups are, the more likely it becomes that some sort of written agreement would become worthwhile -- not as a response to legal danger arising from the polyamorous nature of the relationship, just to address the fact that someone is eventually going to fall short, potentially causing problems for the whole group. There are many lawyers who specialize in LGBT issues, and I'd imagine that some of them would be able to provide more detailed advice about how to deal with this type of situation.
If you want to sue them, you should start with the US Constitution (as a model), in particular the Free Exercise clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The question is whether one could overturn homicide statutes on the grounds that an individual holds to traditional beliefs that a human sacrifice is required every few months. Or, is it an unconstitutional prohibition of the Mormon belief in polygamy to outlaw polygamy, see Reynolds v. US, 98 U.S. 145. The court held that the statute immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the United States have exclusive control. This being so, the only question which remains is whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship; would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Observe that a religious exception to the law would be unconstitutional, as establishing religion as a means of gaining extra rights. The reductio ad absurdum of the unfettered religious-belief excuse is: Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and, in effect, to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances. The "wall of separation" was modified more recently in the 60's and 70's. In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, the issue was compulsory education imposed on Amish children, where higher education was held to be antithetical to the Amish doctrine of a simple life. The court rules that The State's interest in universal education is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on other fundamental rights, such as those specifically protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the traditional interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children and especially it was incumbent on the State to show with more particularity how its admittedly strong interest in compulsory education would be adversely affected by granting an exemption to the Amish There were additional holdings pertaining to the legitimacy of the purported belief (that is, is there really such a doctrine – clearly yes). You might have better luck purporting to be a Rastafarian or Hindu, so I will set aside that complication. The core question will be whether the government has a "compelling interest" in the restriction, also whether the restriction is narrowly tailored. In the case of Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, Sherbert's employer required her to work 6 days a week (a change in policy during her time of employment), which she refused to do (as a member of SDA) and was fired. Sherbert was denied unemployment benefits because the firing was for cause. The court ruled that Disqualification of appellant for unemployment compensation benefits, solely because of her refusal to accept employment in which she would have to work on Saturday contrary to her religious belief, imposes an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of her religion. and There is no compelling state interest enforced in the eligibility provisions of the South Carolina statute which justifies the substantial infringement of appellant's right to religious freedom under the First Amendment. Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 brings us to the neighborhood that you are interested in living in. The relevant detail is that Smith (and Black) were fired for ingesting peyote in connection with a ceremony at a Native American church. The court ruled that The Free Exercise Clause permits the State to prohibit sacramental peyote use, and thus to deny unemployment benefits to persons discharged for such use To be more precise, Although a State would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" in violation of the Clause if it sought to ban the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts solely because of their religious motivation, the Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a law that incidentally forbids (or requires) the performance of an act that his religious belief requires (or forbids) if the law is not specifically directed to religious practice and is otherwise constitutional as applied to those who engage in the specified act for nonreligious reasons. We can contrast this with Lukumi v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520. The city of Hialeh passed an ordinance forbidding animal sacrifice, specifically to suppress the Santeria church. The Supreme Court said, no, you may not do that: Under the Free Exercise Clause, a law that burdens religious practice need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest if it is neutral and of general applicability. However, where such a law is not neutral or not of general application, it must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny: It must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to advance that interest. Neutrality and general applicability are interrelated, and failure to satisfy one requirement is a likely indication that the other has not been satisfied ... The ordinances' texts and operation demonstrate that they are not neutral, but have as their object the suppression of Santeria's central element, animal sacrifice. At least so far, restrictions on drug use have not been overruled as conflicting the the Free Exercise clause, although if e.g. Washington state were to prohibit Mormons from purchasing marijuana (where others can), that would surely be struck down as unconstitutional. There are a number of other relevant developments, for example Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, in reaction to Employment v. Smith, and that law statutorily mandating that strict scrutiny be applied to the question of whether a law violates the 1st: but this was ruled unconstitutional as applied to the states in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507. Then in Gonzales v. O Centro, 546 U.S. 418 (Schedule 1 tea for religious purposes), the court ruled that The courts below did not err in determining that the Government failed to demonstrate, at the preliminary injunction stage, a compelling interest in barring the UDV’s sacramental use of hoasca which is to say, we have a case where the federal government was prohibited from enforcing a drug prohibition involving religion. A challenge of the type which you have in mind will surely also involve the question of the legitimacy of the purported religion, where UDV was founded in 1961 whereas one might suspect that your claimed religion is a pretext to smoke pot (hence the Rastafarian suggestion). The WWII era conscious objector cases held that the CO exception to military service is not limited to governmentally-approved religions, but as a general rule, the courts have not ruled that you can simply claim to have a religious belief which is being infringed on and thereby be excempt from the law. The basic issue would be whether either the US government of the state of Kentucky have a compelling interest in preventing the use of marijuana. The Kentucky Supreme Court does indeed recognize the concept of "strict scrutiny", so the case is not doomed from the start.
I wouldn't be surprised to see other states and jurisdictions with similar statutes. Fortunately, in the United States, there is a safe harbor against demands for state income taxes: For every dollar of taxable income, you can only be taxed by one state. (This was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015 in Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne.) Therefore, if you show that the LLC (or its members if it's a pass-through) paid taxes to another state on the income in question (e.g., by sending a copy of the tax return), that's legally the end of the matter.