Immigration Law Commons^™

A New Look At The Original Meaning Of The Diversity Clause, Mark Moller

William & Mary Law Review

Must a federal court have obtained the power to bind a party before her citizenship becomes relevant to diversity jurisdiction? For a long time conventional wisdom has assumed the answer is “no”: Congress can authorize diversity jurisdiction based on the citizenship of persons who, although currently beyond the court’s power to bind, might later join the suit. Congress, in turn, has acted on this assumption. Key provisions of the most ambitious, and controversial, expansion of diversity jurisdiction in the last decade, the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), hinge diversity jurisdiction on the citizenship of persons conventionally believed beyond a …