Judicial tribunals established by each of the fifty states.
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Legislation enacted by the federal and various state governments to regulate trade and commerce by preventing unlawful restraints, price-fixing, and monopolies, to promote competition, and to encourage the production of quality goods and services at the lowest prices, with the primary goal of safeguarding public welfare by ensuring that consumer demands will be met by the manufacture and sale of goods at reasonable prices.
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The U.S. Constitution provides that "[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one [S]upreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish" (art. III, § 1). The federal court system is thus three tiered, with the Supreme Court at the top, the district trial courts at the base, and the circuit courts of appeals in the middle. States, likewise, have trial courts (district courts), courts of appeals, and supreme courts.
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In 1963, the Supreme Court banned the Lord's Prayer and Bible reading in public schools in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844. The decision came one year after the Court had struck down, in Engel v. Vitale, a state-authored prayer that was recited by public school students each morning (370 U.S. 421, 82 S. Ct. 1261, 8 L. Ed. 2d 601 [1962]). Engel had opened the floodgates; Schempp ensured that a steady flow of anti-prayer rulings would continue into the 1990s. Schempp was in many ways a repeat of Engel: the religious practices it concerned were nominally different, but the logic used to find them unconstitutional was the same. This time, the majority went one step further. Demolishing the arguments used to defend school prayer, it issued the first concrete test for determining violations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
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The concept under which a federal court exercises its discretion and equitable powers and declines to decide a legal action over which it has jurisdiction pursuant to the Constitution and statutes where the state judiciary is capable of rendering a definitive ruling in the matter.
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The Framers of the Constitution acknowledged the importance of the arts when they wrote that Congress shall have the power "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (Art. I, § 8). Despite this provision, or perhaps because of its very limited nature, the federal government offered little assistance to artists until the 1930s. Early unsuccessful attempts to aid the arts included an effort by President James Buchanan to establish the National Commission of Fine Arts, a project that failed within a year when Congress did not appropriate funds. President Theodore Roosevelt also encountered a reluctant Congress in 1909 when he proposed the Council of Fine Arts, but success came the next year when a new president, William Howard Taft, persuaded Congress to create the National Commission of Fine Arts.
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Behavior by an attorney that conflicts with established rules of professional conduct and is punishable by disciplinary measures.
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A field of law relating to, and arising from, the practice of the admiralty courts (tribunals that exercise jurisdiction over all contracts, torts, offenses, or injuries within maritime law) that regulates and settles special problems associated with sea navigation and commerce.
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The procedure that governs the authorization of attorneys to practice law before the state and federal courts.
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Pamphlets containing recently decided opinions of federal courts or state courts of a particular region.
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Procedures for settling disputes by means other than litigation; e.g., by arbitration, mediation, or minitrials. Such procedures, which are usually less costly and more expeditious than litigation, are increasingly being used in commercial and labor disputes, divorce actions, in resolving motor vehicle and medical malpractice tort claims, and in other disputes that would likely otherwise involve court litigation.
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An ambassador is the foreign diplomatic representative of a nation who is authorized to handle political negotiations between his or her country and the country where the ambassador has been assigned. A consul is the commercial agent of a nation, who is empowered only to engage in business transactions, and not political matters in the country where he or she is stationed.
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The value of the relief demanded or the amount of monetary damages claimed in a lawsuit.
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The presiding, most senior, or principal judge of a court.
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The care, control, and maintenance of a child, which a court may award to one of the parents following a divorce or separation proceeding.
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