Chapter 31 - Regulating Access to the National Courts

Summary

Justiciability law deals with the who, when, and where of litigation. The Court addressed the “who” question when it raised questions about the expansive use of class actions in a case seeking to block sales of homes to African American buyers. Other cases dealt with the application of rules waiving any requirement that civil liberties cases in the federal courts have a minimum financial amount at stake and the propriety of federal courts staying their hands in civil rights cases to see what the state courts would do about state law questions bound up with the federal ones. The Court also elaborated on the defition of a “federal question” for purposes of federal jurisdiction. Overall the cases show how substantially Frankfurter’s vision about the limited scope of national judicial power had been accepted by the Court.