HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In law, the venue is the location where a case is heard.


United States


Criminal venue

The perceived abuse of English criminal venue law was one of the enumerated grievances in the
United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ( ...
, which accused George III of the United Kingdom of "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses." U.S. Declaration of Independence. Article Three of the United States Constitution provides: "Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed." The "where the said Crimes shall have been committed" language refers to the locus delicti, and a single crime may often give rise to several constitutionally permissible venues. " e ''locus delicti'' must be determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it." Thus, venue may be constitutionally permissible even if an individual defendant was never personally present in the relevant state. For example,
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...
may be prosecuted wherever the agreement occurred or wherever any overt act was committed. For the purposes of constitutional venue, the boundaries of the states are questions of law to be determined by the judge, but the location of the crime is a question of fact to be determined by the jury. The venue provision of Article III (regulating the location of the trial) is distinct from the
Vicinage Clause The Vicinage Clause is a provision in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution regulating the vicinity from which a jury pool may be selected. The clause says that the accused shall be entitled to an ''"impartial jury of the State ...
of the Sixth Amendment (regulating the geography from which the jury pool is selected). The unit of the former is the state; the unit of the later is the state and judicial district. Unlike judicial districts under the Vicinage Clause, consistent with Article III, Congress may "provide a place of trial where none was provided when the offense was committed, or change the place of trial after the commission of the offense."


Civil venue

Venue is either a county (for cases in state court) or a district or division (for cases in federal court). Venue deals with locality of a lawsuit—that is, in which locale a lawsuit may be filed or commenced. It involves a decision of which district (federal court) or county (state court) is appropriate, based typically on where a matter occurred or where the defendant resides. A
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
can be brought only in a certain venue. For instance, in federal diversity cases, the venue can be only (1) the district where any defendant resides if all defendants reside in the same state (although
corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
s reside in any district that may exercise personal jurisdiction over them, according to (b), (2) the district where a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim occurred, or (3) the district in which any defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction if there is no district in which the claim can otherwise be brought (). Venue under
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
law is a concept distinct from
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...
, which focuses on the ''authority'' of a court to hear a particular case. Venue is concerned with the geographical location of the court where a lawsuit is commenced. However, unlike personal jurisdiction, there is no constitutional requirement for proper venue in order to have a valid judgment. The general venue statute for United States federal courts is with special rules listed in §§ 1392-1413. Venue can be transferred from one federal district to another (). A case can also be removed from a state court to a federal court. Finally, a case may be dismissed because its venue is harshly "unfair" to one or more parties under a doctrine called '' forum non conveniens'', often used in cases where the events took place in a foreign country. Defendants can waive venue at the time of trial ('' Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.'', ). Plaintiffs can waive venue at the time of trial. Plaintiffs may also waive their right to sue in certain venues through a contract that contains a valid and reasonable forum selection clause or venue selection clause. Forum selection clauses, establishing venue convenient to the offeror, are near universal in form contracts offered by a party that does business in many places. The proper recourse for challenging venue is a motion to dismiss for improper venue. Fed. R. Civ. P 12(b)(3). This is one of the waivable defenses, meaning that this must be made in the initial response to the complaint or it will be waived.


See also

*
Court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
*
Jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...


References

{{reflist