Supreme Court Won’t Consider Dispute Over Assuming Jurisdiction

The US Supreme Court won’t consider whether federal courts overreach when they merely assume they have the authority to hear a case in order to nix an appeal.

The question around jurisdiction the justices refused on Monday to hear goes to the heart of what courts must do before considering the merits of a case.

Three justices dissented from the court’s decision not to take up the case. “Because the doctrine of hypothetical jurisdiction is the subject of an entrenched Circuit split and raises fundamental questions of constitutional law,” Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should have decided the issue. He was joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

Questions of jurisdiction often come down to whether the case is one a court has the power to resolve. But in the newest dispute, the justices were asked to consider “hypothetical jurisdiction.” That’s when a court assumes—without first evaluating and then deciding jurisdiction—that it can hear a dispute so it can dismiss it on other grounds.

A federal bankruptcy court found it could decide non-bankruptcy related claims under so-called “arising in” jurisdiction, which allows judges to consider claims related to the bankruptcy they otherwise wouldn’t be authorized to do.

When one party challenged bankruptcy court jurisdiction, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit admitted that it was a “difficult one.” But it sidestepped the issue by assuming there was jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal on grounds it was time-barred, or filed too late.

“‘Hypothetical jurisdiction’ is a dangerous exercise because it pushes the federal courts beyond the bounds of their authorized jurisdiction and threatens the separation of powers,” the petitioner Stanley Waleski told the justices in urging them to take up the case.

The case is Waleski v. Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP, U.S., No. 99-914.