Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0314253297, Hardcover)

The basic plan of this book is first to introduce readers to the nature of the judicial power itself and to basic issues of Congress's power over the jurisdiction, and then to follow the litigant's more or less in order through the federal courts. Chapter 2 and 3 spell out the basic contours of district - court jurisdiction in federal - question, admiralty, and diversity cases, with notes on venue and on the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Chapter 4 tells the student something about the applicable law governing federal proceedings, including remedies against government officers. Chapter 5 and 6 deal with limitations on the exercise of jurisdiction that cuts across the various jurisdictional categories: sovereign and official immunities a variety of statutory and judicial abstention doctrines. Chapter 7 follows the litigant into situations in which a federal court is asked to pass upon what another tribunal has already done.