The full library in alphabetical order, across every area of law.
The fact that a website can be viewed in a state has consistently been held insufficient to create personal jurisdiction there. Courts distinguish passive sites that merely post information from interactive ones through which business is conducted, and within the interactive category they look at whether the seller targeted the state, how many transactions were completed with residents, and whether the seller arranged delivery there.
Federal law protects a service member from acquiring or losing a domicile solely because of military orders, and shields their pay and personal property from taxation by a state where they are present only under orders. Comparable protection extends to a military spouse, together with an election allowing a spouse to adopt the service member's state of legal residence for tax and voting purposes.
A defendant whose goods reach a state through a distribution chain rather than by direct sale presents the stream of commerce problem, on which the Supreme Court has divided repeatedly without producing a single controlling formulation. One approach treats awareness that goods will reach a state as sufficient; another requires conduct purposefully directed at that market, such as designing for it, advertising there, establishing channels for advice, or appointing a distributor.
Every state offers some abbreviated procedure for estates below a threshold: a small-estate affidavit allowing a successor to collect assets by sworn statement, a summary administration for modest estates, or a simplified process for a surviving spouse. Thresholds, waiting periods and the assets covered vary widely, and some states apply their small-estate procedures to real property while others do not.
A large majority of states have enacted immigration assistance statutes aimed at non-lawyer businesses that help people complete federal forms. The statutes cannot alter federal immigration law or federal representation rules, so they operate on the commercial transaction instead: who may hold themselves out, what they must register and bond, what the contract must say, what may not be promised, and what the client must be given.
Federal restrictions on public benefits attach to federal money and to the federal share of joint programs. A state remains free to appropriate its own funds and to set its own eligibility, subject to enacting an affirmative law where the restriction on state and local benefits applies. The programs built this way are separate schemes with separate names, applications and appropriations, most commonly covering children, pregnant women and people inside the federal five-year waiting period.
Roughly two dozen states extend the resident tuition rate to students who cannot document lawful immigration status, and they do it by substituting a different qualifying test rather than by waiving the existing one. The common structure asks for attendance at a school in the state for a stated number of years, graduation from a state high school or an equivalent credential, and a signed undertaking about future action. A smaller group also extends state financial aid.
In states that void employment non-competes by statute, the prohibition applies to covenants restraining a person from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business after employment ends. It usually preserves defined exceptions: covenants given in connection with the sale of a business or the dissolution of a partnership or limited liability company.
Many states apply a second, mechanical residency test alongside domicile: a person who maintains a permanent place of abode in the state and spends more than a set number of days there during the year is taxed as a resident on all income, whatever their domicile. The day count is generally based on physical presence for any part of a day, so partial days count in full, and travel days count at both ends.
Where a federal court has jurisdiction over a claim, it may also hear other claims so related that they form part of the same case or controversy, meaning they arise from a common nucleus of operative fact. The statute limits this in diversity cases to protect the complete diversity requirement. A court may decline where the state claim raises a novel or complex issue, substantially predominates, or where all claims within original jurisdiction have been dismissed.
States provide a range of short-term authorizations: temporary permits pending a licensure application, locum tenens provisions for covering an absent licensee, disaster and emergency provisions activated by declaration, and permissions for practitioners accompanying teams or events. Each is narrow, time-limited and conditional, and none of them authorizes practice generally.
Separation obligations follow the employee's work state and vary sharply. Final pay may be due immediately on discharge, within a set number of days, or on the next regular payday, with different rules for resignation. Accrued vacation is treated as earned wages in several states and must be paid out regardless of any policy to the contrary. Penalties for late final pay are frequently measured in days of continuing wages rather than in interest.
