Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U.S. 238 (1933), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a significant federal question raised by a suit can give pendent jurisdiction to federal courts. If the federal question is rejected on the merits, the federal court still has jurisdiction to decide the local question on the merits.
This case was the first to recognize pendent jurisdiction. The court said that plaintiffs do not need to establish subject matter jurisdiction in the pre-existing ways because the two claims were the same cause of action. The court said that a state cause of action is the same as a federal cause when they "result from the same acts which constitute the [federal claim] and are inseparable therefrom."David Lawyer, Tightening the Reigns on Pendant and Ancillary Jurisdiction, 9 Univ. Puget Sound L. Rev. 207 (1985).
The case being discussed was a copyright infringement suit.
In United States v. United States Gypsum Co., the Court's majority opinion referred to Hurn v. Oursler in passing. Justice Felix Frankfurter expanded this and recounted the case's background in his concurrence as a key point in his argument.
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