In which United States District Court should a permanent resident file a lawsuit against the USCIS? A US permanent resident has recently moved to western VA. VA has two United States District Courts: Western and Eastern. The permanent resident would like to file a lawsuit against the USCIS. One of the defendants is the head of the USCIS Field Office at Norfolk, VA, which is now responsible for the permanent resident's case, based on his zip code. So, the permanent resident resides in one district (the Western district), but his rights were violated by the USCIS field office which is in another district (the Eastern district). The permanent resident wants to file a lawsuit according to 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b): (b) Request for hearing before district court If there is a failure to make a determination under section 1446 of this title before the end of the 120-day period after the date on which the examination is conducted under such section, the applicant may apply to the United States district court for the district in which the applicant resides for a hearing on the matter. Such court has jurisdiction over the matter and may either determine the matter or remand the matter, with appropriate instructions, to the Service to determine the matter. So, the law specifies that the permanent resident should file his lawsuit in the United States district court for the district in which the applicant resides, i.e. the Western District. However, it would be reasonable to say that the actions or inactions that violated the permanent resident's rights occurred in the USCIS Norfolk Field Office, which is in the Eastern District. A quote from the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia's PRO SE HANDBOOK: 3. VENUE: Is the Western District of Virginia the appropriate federal court in which to file my lawsuit? If you decide that there is jurisdiction to bring your claim in a federal court, you must then determine in which federal court to file. In order to decide a case, a court must have some logical relationship either to the litigants or to the subject matter of the dispute; this is called venue. There are two United States District Courts in Virginia: the Eastern District and the Western District. Generally, you may only file an action in the Western District of Virginia if the actions or inactions that you believe violated your rights occurred within the boundaries of this District. According to the above resource, the permanent resident should file his lawsuit in the United States district court for the district in which his rights were violated, i.e. the Eastern District. In which district should the permanent resident file his lawsuit then?
Generally, you may only file an action in the Western District of Virginia if the actions or inactions that you believe violated your rights occurred within the boundaries of this District. When a lawyer uses the word &quot;generally,&quot; it typically signals the existence of exceptions. The specific statutory provision of 8 USC 1447(b) supersedes the general rule expressed in the handbook. I am not a lawyer, so I hope that the lawyers on this site will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that this provision establishes &quot;subject matter jurisdiction,&quot; and the statute explicitly grants that jurisdiction to the court for the district in which the permanent resident resides. The &quot;application for a hearing&quot; should be submitted to the court for the western district. If I were you, I would try to find out whether &quot;applying for a hearing&quot; is in fact the same as filling a suit; it sounds to me like they may be different. In the latter case, you submit a &quot;complaint,&quot; which makes you a &quot;plaintiff.&quot; The use of &quot;apply&quot; and &quot;hearing&quot; suggests that different procedural rules may be relevant. If that is the case, it supports the conclusion that the general rule expressed in the handbook does not apply, since the talk of rights violation also implies a complaint and a potential trial rather than an application and a hearing. After writing the previous paragraph, I found a few discussions online that make it clear that &quot;apply for a hearing&quot; does mean &quot;file a suit,&quot; but it's still not clear to me who the defendant would be. Another open question is when the 120-day period begins. It seems that different courts have different opinions on the matter.
It depends on the state. In some states the Secretary of State holds the records for business entities and in others, such as Arizona, it's an organization known as the Arizona Corporation Commission. Regardless of the state's organization that keeps the information, one of the pieces of information you will find when you look at a company's records is the "registered agent", "resident agent" or "statutory agent." The agent, whether a person or a representative corporation, must be located within the state where business is conducted. That agent is who or what gets served with papers for a lawsuit. Here's a good explanation at legalzoom. A personal example that may help: I am an owner in a business that does business in Louisiana and Arizona. Our LLC is registered in Louisiana and is registered as a "foreign corporation" in Arizona. However, we are required to have a registered agent in each state. We pay a company to act as our registered agent in each state and the registered agent has a physical address in each state in which we are registered. If someone wants to sue my company then they can look up the name of my company in either state and will find my registered agent along with the registered agent's physical address. Service to the registered agent counts as service to my company. The agent will forward to me any service which is made to them. EDIT: if you don't known the name of the entity, i.e., the name on the door of the business does not represent the name of the company, then you need to find the "doing business as," or DBA record of the company. I don't know what state you're in but all the states in which I've done business maintain a "Doing Business As" system that can be searched. I guess it's possible that you're in a state that doesn't maintain DBA filings or require them. Typically, you can search either way - search by owner or search by the DBA name. Some states, such as Arizona, record DBA names at the county level. I've seen some states allow searching by address also.
In Vaden v. Discover Bank, 556 U.S. 49 (2009), the Supreme Court held: A federal court may “look through” a §4 petition to determine whether it is predicated on a controversy that “arises under” federal law; in keeping with the well-pleaded complaint rule as amplified in Holmes Group [535 U.S. 826], however, a federal court may not entertain a §4 petition based on the contents of a counterclaim when the whole controversy between the parties does not qualify for federal-court adjudication. Discover sued Vaden to recover a credit card debt in state court. Vaden filed a counter-claim challenging the charges under state usury laws. Discover filed a claim in federal court seeking to compel arbitration under 9 U.S.C. §4, which provides: A party aggrieved by the alleged failure … of another to arbitrate under a written agreement for arbitration may petition any United States district court which, save for such agreement, would have jurisdiction … of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties, for an order directing that such arbitration proceed … &quot;Look through&quot; analysis gives effect to the bolded words. A dispute about arbitrability itself is not sufficient to attract federal jurisdiction. But the petition does not need to be based on an existing claim in federal court, either – the court can &quot;look through&quot; the petition for a claim that would attract federal jurisdiction. Although Discover's debt recovery claim was based solely on state law, Discover asserted that the court would have had federal question jurisdiction because §27(a) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act preempted the state laws supporting Vaden's counterclaim. The Supreme Court agreed that the district court should &quot;look through&quot; the §4 petition and consider the possible existence of federal jurisdiction, but reversed the court of appeals' finding that Discover's claim &quot;arose under&quot; federal law for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. §1331. The Supreme Court applied the &quot;well-pleaded complaint rule&quot; to Discover's §1331 claim, which required the court to focus on Discover's original (state law) claim, not its response to Vaden's counterclaim. To answer your question, &quot;look through&quot; analysis does not require the court to consider the &quot;merits&quot; of a federal claim before compelling arbitration. However, it is not sufficient that the dispute &quot;seems to be of federal nature&quot;; the court must conclude that (but for the arbitration agreement) it would have jurisdiction. The disagreement between the Supreme Court and the court of appeals in Vaden, which related to the scope of federal jurisdiction rather than the application of &quot;look through&quot; analysis, demonstrates that disputes about whether jurisdiction would have existed can become very complex. Thus, in general, a federal court should not decline to compel arbitration of a federal claim because &quot;the case would have been dismissed summarily had the court been asked to rule on it.&quot; However, the court must dismiss the petition if the federal claim is so insubstantial that federal jurisdiction is not attracted at all. As the Supreme Court held in Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528 (1974): Over the years, this Court has repeatedly held that the federal courts are without power to entertain claims otherwise within their jurisdiction if they are &quot;so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit,&quot; &quot;wholly insubstantial,&quot; &quot;obviously frivolous,&quot; &quot;plainly unsubstantial,&quot; or &quot;no longer open to discussion.&quot;
There's been recent publicity about an American diplomat in Britain responsible for a car accident that killed someone. She claimed diplomatic immunity and left the country. Could the victim's family sue her in an American court? They could sue, but the case would probably be summarily dismissed, often one of the following two grounds: (1) related to diplomatic immunity, but not specifically covered by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, such as common law sovereign immunity which bars suits against individuals or their employers for actions taken in an official capacity on behalf of a federal government employer (the scope of which is interpreted broadly in the case of diplomatic personnel abroad, much as it is in the case of what conduct of the President of the United States constitutes an action taken in an official capacity), unless waived. Cf. Cruikshank v. U.S., 431 F.Supp. 1355 (D. Hawaii 1977) ("Alleged activities of agents of Central Intelligence Agency in opening and photographing sealed, first-class letters mailed by plaintiff to colleagues in the Soviet Union fell within purview of general waiver of sovereign immunity statute, despite claim that Central Intelligence Agency agents involved could not have been legally authorized to carry out such activities and consequently, as matter of law, were not “acting within the scope of their office or employment,” as that phrase is used in this section.") If a diplomat is acting in an official capacity, lawsuits can be filed against the U.S. government, but not against the individual, and can't only be brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and only then if an exception to it does not apply. The FTCA is the "exclusive means by which a party may sue the United States for money damages ... in tort" (28 USC § 2679. Exclusiveness of remedy). Accordingly, an FTCA action "can be brought only in a United States District Court" (28 USC § 1346(b)). Regarding the timing of filing, FTCA's § 2401(b) states that the action must be brought "within two years after the claim accrues," or "within six months after ... notice of final denial of the claim by the agency". In addition, under the FTCA, "Liability is determinable in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred" (§1346(b)(1)). More fully, 28 USC § 1346(b)(1) states: Subject to the provisions of chapter 171 of this title, the district courts, together with the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone and the District Court of the Virgin Islands, shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. But, 28 U.S.C. 2680(k) expressly precludes the exercise of jurisdiction under the FTCA over "[a]ny claim arising in a foreign country." See, e.g., Smith v. United States, 507 U.S. 197 (1993) (FTCA does not apply to claims arising in Antarctica). "It is a longstanding principle of American law `that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.' " Foley Bros., Inc. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281, 285 (1949). Basically, sovereign immunity is absolute for torts committed abroad in an official capacity by a U.S. government official of any kind. So, if the official capacity conduct claim is barred by diplomatic immunity where it occurred, it is barred everywhere. or (2) in cases not arising from actions taken in the diplomat's official capacity, on the discretionary quasi-jurisdictional grounds of forum non conveniens, even thought American courts, as a general rule, have jurisdiction over all civil claims of private persons arising anywhere in the world against a person who is domiciled in the state where the state or federal court in question is located. For over a quarter century, federal judges have assumed that foreign injury cases, particularly those filed by foreign plaintiffs, are best litigated abroad. . . . Federal judges approach the forum non conveniens decision as if it were a species of choice of law, as opposed to a choice of forum question. Elizabeth T. Lear, "National Interests, Foreign Injuries, and Federal Forum Non Conveniens", 41(2) U.C.-Davis Law Review 559 (2007). One of the leading forum non conviens cases pertinent to this fact pattern is Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 235 (1981), involving an airplane crash in Scotland in which U.S. defendants were allegedly at fault. Potential loopholes in that decision have been closed by subsequent cases. Federal judges are all that matter in a lawsuit between a foreigner and a U.S. person involving claims in excess of $75,000 (which essentially all personal injury cases worth bringing internationally do), such as the one contemplated in this case, which fall within the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts and can be removed from a state court to a federal court. (And, state courts tend to defer to federal precedents in diversity cases in claims which are not removed from state court to federal court.) The Alien Tort Claim Act expressly authorizes certain lawsuits in U.S. Courts for violations of international law or treaties committed abroad (although whether the judicial power extends to cases where all of the defendants are non-U.S. persons is an issue of ongoing dispute), but not for simple common law torts like the negligence actions that are the basis of most automobile accident cases. There are also other specific statutes that might authorize lawsuits (e.g. civil rights statutes, patent laws, copyright laws, etc.), but none of them would ordinarily apply to a simple automobile accident allegedly causing a wrongful death. It is conceivable that an attorney could find some way to thread a needle through these two strong limitations on bringing suit against U.S. diplomats in U.S. courts for personal injuries caused by ordinary common law torts committed abroad which are barred by diplomatic immunity where they occurred, but it would take extraordinary facts that do not appear to be present in this relatively routine automobile accident allegedly wrongfully causing a death of a non-U.S. person. Could she be criminally prosecuted in America because of what she did in Britain? No. The Vienna Convention only directly limits criminal prosecutions of people with diplomatic immunity in jurisdictions where someone is a credentialed diplomat or head of state. But, usually criminal cases can only be prosecuted in the jurisdiction where they are committed or the jurisdiction to which the crime was directed if a crime is committed outside a prosecuting jurisdiction but directed at a victim or target in the prosecuting jurisdiction. There are federal statutes criminalizing conduct victimizing various U.S. government officials, but very few criminalizing conduct that would otherwise not be a crime subject to U.S. criminal prosecution if it is committed by a U.S. government official abroad (in some cases, a violation of civil rights claims might apply, but not in a car accident case like this one). Note that I am limiting this to a criminally culpable automobile accident against a non-U.S. person while diplomatic credentials were in force. There might be a U.S. prosecution of a diplomat, for example, for espionage in the form of revealing U.S. secrets, or as another example, for a rape of one U.S. person who has diplomatic immunity by some other U.S. person at the same embassy. The cases could arguably be directed at the U.S. or a U.S. person. The most negative U.S. consequence that could arise from criminal conduct that did not take place in the U.S. and was not directed at the U.S. or a U.S. person (for civilians not subject to the U.S. Code of Military Justice) would usually be termination of employment at the U.S. State Department and termination of diplomatic credentials, both of which would have prospective application only.
Can the subject actually sue me in England, or is it possible to sue only in the EU country I posted the article from, or in the US where the article is actually hosted? Yes. If the online encyclopedia is available in the UK, then you have libelled them in the UK and, indeed, in every country where it is available. They can choose to sue in and under the laws of any country where they were libelled. If the subject can and does sue in England, what happens exactly? This is laid out in the Civil Procedure Rules Am I correct in presuming that I will be notified of this by mail and asked to enter a defence? You will definitely need to be served with the Particulars of Claim, however, this may come by other methods than snail mail. If so, what happens if I ignore the matter? Will a default judgment against me necessarily be entered, or will the court duly consider the plaintiff's case, perform the bare minimum investigation/reasoning necessary to determine which arguments of theirs are (un)sound, and so possibly rule in my favour? A default judgement will be entered providing the Particulars of Claim show a cause of action on its face. The court will not examine any evidence or enquire into the veracity of the statements made on the Particulars of Claim. In short, unless the plaintiff has ballsed something up - you lose. If I do choose to respond, can I hire an England-based lawyer to handle everything remotely, or can I be compelled to physically attend the court in England? You are generally not required to attend court in a civil matter unless you need to testify. Even then, arrangements can be made for remote testimony. If the court rules for the plaintiff and awards damages, can this judgment be enforced in the EU, or would it apply only in the UK? It can be enforced in the EU. As a courtesy or by treaty, domestic jurisdictions will enforce foreign judgements in most cases. If the court rules in my favour, would I recoup my legal fees? You will probably recoup some but not all of your legal fees, say 50-60%. Costs orders are complicated - talk to your lawyer.
Collateral estoppel is inapplicable in both scenarios. The first scenario leaves no room for issues of collateral estoppel. Whether or not charges for "no-registration" proceed would strictly depend on whether the statute sanctions an offender's mere intent not to register his or her new address. If the elements of the claim require both (1) actual change of address, and (2) intent not to register it, the fact that the woman in your hypothetical scenario did not actually move precludes any claims about her failure to register what she [unavailingly] alleged to be her "new" address. In the alternative, where mere "intent not to register" meets all the prima facie elements for the new charges, her relocation (if any) as well as the prior judgment on grounds of the Fourth Amendment are irrelevant to these new charges. In the second hypothetical scenario, collateral estoppel is precluded from the standpoint that issues are not identical and therefore do not involve double jeopardy. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436,, 444, 448 (1970). HHS's prior failure to produce FOIA records did not involve litigation, does not negate, and is not essential to the fact, that the physician committed fraud. VanDEVENTER v. MNB, 172 Mich.App. 456, 463 (1988) ("Collateral estoppel conclusively bars only issues "actually litigated" in the first action."). Edited to add/correct reference (see comments) Beyond these hypothetical scenarios, it should be obvious that collateral estoppel may apply to criminal cases. This is reflected, for instance, in footnote 4 of Yeager v. U.S., 129 S.Ct. 2360; 557 U.S. 110 (2009): Although the doctrine of collateral estoppel had developed in civil litigation, we had already extended it to criminal proceedings when Ashe was decided. Another treaty of interest might be Kennelly, Precluding the Accused: Offensive Collateral Estoppel in Criminal Cases (cited here).
The cited case (Ross [2012] UKPC 3) is not a Canadian case. It is from St Kitts and Nevis, an appeal from the Court of Appeal of that small Caribbean country to the Privy Council. The two barristers are from the same firm based in Canada (WeirFoulds LLP), a firm which also has a cross-jurisdictional practice encompassing several countries in the eastern Caribbean who share their appellate court system. Those nations also have a common pathway for onward appeals to the Privy Council, for essentially historical reasons dating from the era of the British Empire. Thus, counsels' appearance in this case is not because they are Canadian, but because of their separate entitlement to appear in Caribbean appeals. Frank Walwyn's biography (linked in the question) says he is &quot;He is licensed to practise law in Canada, and is also a member of the bars of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Dominica, Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis.&quot; (my emphasis). Membership in the St Kitts bar was enough for him to be able to also appear before the Court of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, and therefore the JCPC as well. Bryan Finlay's biography does not specify, but as senior partner in the same firm he may well have the same status. In any case, since &quot;duly qualified members of the Bar in countries from which appeals to the Queen in Council lie have a right of audience before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council&quot; (Halsbury's Laws of England, vol. 66, para 795, 2020 ed.) he could appear before the JCPC whether or not he was allowed to do so in lower courts. Regarding your Q2 (Why Canadians?): In this case, the appeal was from St Kitts, which is a very small country of about 50k people. This would give a small talent pool from which to draw, if only barristers from St Kitts were eligible to practise in appeals. That is why the shared Eastern Caribbean court system exists and why there is some added generosity about qualifications between the participating countries. While the appellant Ross might have had many choices, he himself is &quot;a Canadian lawyer who was at the time [= 1983] practising in Halifax, Nova Scotia&quot;, and could therefore have been drawn to a Canadian firm with a Caribbean practice. The appeal, moreover, does not appear to have turned on any local peculiarity of St Kitts' law. It was mainly about how certain commercial documents should be interpreted. The issues arising would be accessible to practitioners from many common-law countries. Canada is not especially at an advantage or disadvantage, and neither is England. There are several barristers in London who have Caribbean experience and qualifications and who are more commonly instructed to appear on Caribbean-related cases (London is a nexus for commercial litigation, and several Caribbean jurisdictions are commercially important in this way, such as the Cayman Islands). I have no data on your Q1 (How many Canadians?). I expect that there are not many, because the natural choice of counsel might be either a London-based barrister, or one from the jurisdiction of origin who has been handling the case so far, rather than from a third country with no recent history of JCPC appeals. You could gather your own data from case reports if you are so inclined; as far as I know there isn't a systematic pre-existing study available.
No. The original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court for disputes between states applies only to disputes between the state entities themselves, not suits on behalf of their citizens. Something like this was attempted, and failed, in the litigation following the 2020 election producing a ruling in December 2020: [In] Texas v. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan? Texas sought to overturn the presidential voting results in those four states. It urged the justices to prevent their presidential electors from meeting and to require state legislators to appoint a new slate of electors. Texas ran into two huge problems in seeking the Supreme Court’s review: standing and the Electors Clause. Standing is the key to the courthouse door under the court’s appellate or original jurisdiction. The Constitution mandates that federal courts exercise judicial power only over cases and controversies. Texas had to show it had suffered a concrete and particularized injury to a legally protected interest “that is fairly traceable to the challenged action (causation)” and that injury can be remedied by a favorable ruling. Texas argued that the four states it was suing had used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to “usurp” their legislatures’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their state election laws through executive action or friendly lawsuits. Texas claimed that the four states’ actions threatened Texas’s voting rights. Texas, it said, had standing to protect its citizens. But here was where Texas also ran into the Constitution’s Electors Clause. As Pennsylvania chief deputy attorney general told the justices, the text of the Electors Clause itself “makes clear, the injury caused by the alleged usurpation of the (Pennsylvania) General Assembly’s constitutional authority belongs to that institution.” The Electors Clause is found in Article II, Section 1, clauses 2 and 3: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States shall be appointed an Elector.” The justices also consider with the issue of standing a related question of whether the state suit involves a justiciable controversy, that is a controversy that can or needs to be addressed by the court. As Georgia argued in its response to the Texas complaint, Texas wanted to alter how the four states appoint their electors. But there is a “textually demonstrable constitutional commitment” to each state’s political branches for how the state appoints electors—once again the Electors Clause. Georgia added: “This Court has never allowed one state to co-opt the legislative authority of another state, and there are no limiting or manageable principles to cabin that kind of overreach.” Thus, there was no justiciable controversy, much like the Supreme Court found with excessive partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court, in an unsigned order, denied Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint. The court’s order said the motion was denied “for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.” Justice Samuel Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, included in the order a statement that said: “In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.” Justices Alito and Thomas believe the text of Article III, Section 2 establishes the court’s original jurisdiction in mandatory terms. They emphasize the word “shall” in that section and see no justification for their colleagues’ reading that word to mean “may.” They are presently the only justices who read the section as requiring the court to take original jurisdiction of all cases between two or more states. It’s important to remember that those two justices said they would allow Texas to file its bill of complaint, they also said they would not give Texas the remedy it was seeking—to invalidate the four states’ electors chosen by the votes of their citizens.