Every state publishes the documents it accepts for a license application, in categories: identity and date of birth, a number or a declaration in place of one, address of principal residence, and where the state requires it, evidence of lawful presence. What the agency may demand is what the list says. Requests beyond it — a specific document when the list offers alternatives, a document for a category already satisfied, or an explanation of immigration history — are not part of the process.
Since the Supreme Court permitted states to require collection from remote sellers without a physical presence, states have enacted economic nexus statutes triggering a sales tax obligation once a seller exceeds a threshold of receipts or transactions in the state. The thresholds differ, the measurement periods differ, and the treatment of marketplace sales differs. Separately, states apply nexus concepts to income and franchise taxes, sometimes on thresholds of their own.
A hospital with an emergency department must provide a screening examination and stabilizing treatment to anyone who comes for it, regardless of ability to pay, insurance or immigration status. That is a duty on the hospital, not a payment mechanism. Payment is addressed separately: federal law excludes emergency medical assistance from the restrictions that otherwise apply, so a state program may pay for emergency treatment it could not otherwise cover.
A parent seeking enforcement of a custody determination in another state files a verified petition, and the court sets a hearing on the next judicial day where possible. At that hearing the court orders immediate delivery of the child unless the respondent establishes a short list of matters: that the issuing court lacked jurisdiction, that the order has been vacated, stayed or modified, or that notice was not given. The merits of custody are outside the hearing entirely.
Federal law makes most lawfully present non-citizens ineligible for certain federal means-tested public benefits for five years after obtaining qualified status. The bar does not reach every program: emergency medical assistance, immunizations, short-term disaster relief and several other categories are excluded by statute, and refugees, asylees, certain military families and others are exempt from the waiting period altogether.
Federal question jurisdiction exists where a civil action arises under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States, and the well-pleaded complaint rule determines when it does: the federal issue must appear on the face of a properly pleaded complaint. Anticipated federal defenses, including preemption raised as a defense, do not create jurisdiction. A narrow category of state law claims raising a substantial and disputed federal issue can qualify.
Where a court has jurisdiction but another forum would be substantially more appropriate, the case may be transferred or dismissed so it can be brought elsewhere. Within the federal system the mechanism is a venue transfer to another district; between the courts of different states it is a dismissal conditioned on the defendant accepting jurisdiction and waiving limitation defenses in the alternative forum.
Forum selection clauses are presumptively enforceable and are set aside only on a strong showing — fraud in the inclusion of the clause itself, a forum so inconvenient as to deprive a party of a day in court, or a conflict with a strong public policy. The recurring problems are not enforceability but drafting: whether the clause is exclusive or permissive, whether its scope reaches tort and statutory claims, and whether the named court can actually hear the dispute.
General jurisdiction permits a court to hear any claim against a defendant, however unconnected to the state, and requires affiliations so continuous and systematic as to render the defendant essentially at home there. For an individual that means domicile; for a corporation it means the place of incorporation and the principal place of business, with exceptional cases beyond those.
Service on a defendant outside the forum state is generally permitted by the methods the forum's rules allow, by the methods allowed where service is made, or by any method a court orders. Personal delivery remains the most secure. Service on a registered agent is reliable where one exists. Substituted service at a residence, service by mail with acknowledgment, and service on a state official as a substitute agent are each available under conditions that vary.
A removed case returns to state court on remand, and the grounds fall into two categories with very different timing. Procedural defects — a late notice, missing consent from a co-defendant, the forum defendant rule, waiver by conduct — must be raised within thirty days of the notice of removal or they are waived. A lack of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time and requires remand whenever it appears.
The uniform act governing interstate custody assigns initial jurisdiction to the child's home state, defined as the state where the child lived with a parent or person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the proceeding began. For a child under six months old, the home state is where the child has lived since birth. Temporary absences count as part of the period rather than breaking it.
