A federal cause of action is the legal basis that lets someone sue in a United States federal court. Every claim filed there has to trace back to a specific source of law—a statute passed by Congress, a provision of the Constitution, or, in narrow situations, a remedy the courts themselves have recognized. The source matters: it determines who can sue, what has to be proved, what relief is available, and which procedural rules apply.
Where Federal Court Authority Comes From
Federal district courts have the power to hear “all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1331 – Federal Question That grant, known as federal question jurisdiction, is the doorway for almost every federal claim. The complaint has to show on its face that federal law creates the right being enforced. A state-law contract dispute doesn’t belong in federal court just because the parties live in different states.
Some statutes push further and make federal jurisdiction exclusive. Patent and copyright cases are the leading example: no state court can hear those claims at all.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1338 – Patents, Plant Variety Protection, Copyrights and Trademarks Trademark infringement, by contrast, can be filed in either federal or state court.
Standing Comes Before the Cause of Action
Holding a valid cause of action isn’t enough on its own. Before a federal court will look at the merits, the plaintiff has to show standing—a constitutional requirement rooted in Article III’s limit of federal courts to actual “cases” and “controversies.” The Supreme Court’s decision in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife set the three-part test that still controls.3Legal Information Institute. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992)
- Injury in fact: a concrete, particularized harm that is actual or imminent, not hypothetical.
- Causation: the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, not to some independent third party.
- Redressability: a favorable decision would likely fix or compensate the harm.
All three have to be present. Someone who objects to a federal regulation in the abstract, but can’t show personal injury from it, has no standing—even if the regulation is plainly illegal.
Causes of Action Created by Statute
The most common source of a federal cause of action is an express grant by Congress. When it passes a statute, Congress often includes a provision giving injured individuals the right to sue to enforce the law. These express private rights of action are the backbone of federal civil litigation.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Title VII bars employers from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.4U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Before filing suit, an employee has to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and give the agency a chance to investigate. If the EEOC dismisses the charge or can’t resolve it within 180 days, the employee gets a right-to-sue notice and has 90 days to file in federal court.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 2000e-5 – Enforcement Provisions Skip the administrative step and the court will dismiss the case no matter how strong the discrimination claim is.
The Copyright Act
The owner of a copyright can sue anyone who infringes the exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, perform, or make derivative works. Only the legal or beneficial owner can bring the claim.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 501 – Infringement of Copyright Because copyright jurisdiction is exclusively federal, state court isn’t an option.
Remedies include actual damages plus the infringer’s profits, or statutory damages from $750 to $30,000 per work, and up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits Courts can also enjoin further infringement.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 502 – Remedies for Infringement: Injunctions
The Fair Labor Standards Act
The FLSA creates a federal cause of action for employees denied minimum wage or overtime. Covered workers must be paid at least $7.25 an hour and overtime at one-and-a-half times their regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek.9U.S. Department of Labor. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act Unlike Title VII, no administrative charge is required first; employees can go straight to federal court.
Implied Causes of Action
Not every federal statute spells out a private right to sue. Some prohibit conduct or impose obligations without saying whether private citizens can enforce them. When courts read a statute to authorize private suits anyway, the result is an implied cause of action.
In Cort v. Ash, the Supreme Court laid out factors for deciding when to imply a private right of action, including whether the plaintiff belongs to the class the statute was designed to protect and whether Congress intended to create a private remedy.10Justia. Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66 (1975) Modern courts focus heavily on congressional intent and rarely imply new causes of action Congress didn’t expressly create.
The most important implied cause of action is the securities fraud claim under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and the SEC’s Rule 10b-5. Section 10(b) bars using “any manipulative or deceptive device” in connection with buying or selling securities,11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 78j – Manipulative and Deceptive Devices but the statute itself says nothing about private lawsuits. Courts have long recognized that investors can sue under this provision. A plaintiff has to prove a material misstatement or omission, made with intent to deceive, in connection with a securities transaction, that caused financial loss.
Constitutional Causes of Action
Some of the most consequential federal cases involve rights guaranteed by the Constitution itself. The Constitution doesn’t create a mechanism for private lawsuits directly. Congress and the courts have built two routes.
Section 1983 Claims Against State Officials
The main vehicle for suing state and local officials who violate constitutional rights is 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The statute makes any person who deprives someone of federal rights while acting under the authority of state law liable to the injured party.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights Acting “under color of” state law means using power granted by a government position: a police officer making an arrest, a school administrator enforcing a policy, a city official denying a permit.
Section 1983 is the source of most civil rights litigation in federal court. Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims, Fourteenth Amendment due-process challenges, and First Amendment retaliation cases typically proceed under it. The statute doesn’t create the underlying right. It provides the litigation vehicle; the Constitution supplies the right being enforced.
The biggest defense in Section 1983 cases is qualified immunity. Officials can’t be held personally liable for damages unless the right they violated was “clearly established” at the time, meaning existing case law put them on notice that their specific conduct was unconstitutional. Even plainly unreasonable conduct can escape liability if no prior decision addressed sufficiently similar facts.
Bivens Actions Against Federal Officials
Section 1983 reaches only state and local officials. For constitutional violations by federal employees, the Supreme Court recognized a separate damages remedy in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents in 1971, allowing suit against federal narcotics agents who conducted an unconstitutional search.13Justia. Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)
Bivens has been cut back sharply. The Supreme Court called extending it to new contexts a “disfavored” judicial activity,14Supreme Court of the United States. Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120 (2017) and in 2022 the Court held that if there is any rational reason to think Congress is better suited than the courts to decide whether a damages remedy should exist, no Bivens claim can proceed.15Supreme Court of the United States. Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022) As a practical matter, new Bivens claims are now nearly impossible to bring.
Suing the Federal Government Itself
The federal government cannot be sued without its consent, a principle called sovereign immunity. Bivens reaches individual federal officers; it does not reach the United States as a defendant. The Federal Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity in limited circumstances, allowing tort claims against the United States when a federal employee causes injury while acting within the scope of the job.
The FTCA imposes strict procedural steps. Before filing suit, you have to submit an administrative claim to the responsible federal agency. No court action can proceed until that step is done.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2675 – Disposition by Federal Agency as Prerequisite The agency has six months to respond. Denial or six months of silence lets you go to federal court.
The deadlines are unforgiving. The administrative claim must be filed within two years of the date the claim accrues, typically when you discover the injury and its cause. After denial, you have six months to file suit.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States Miss either and the claim is permanently barred.
The FTCA also excludes whole categories of claims. The most important exclusion is the discretionary function exception, which bars suits based on a federal employee’s exercise of judgment or discretion in carrying out a statute or regulation. Most intentional torts—fraud, defamation, interference with contracts—are excluded too, though assault, battery, false arrest, and similar torts by federal law enforcement officers can be brought.18Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2680 – Exceptions
Filing Deadlines
Every federal cause of action has a filing deadline, and finding the right one isn’t always obvious. Some statutes set their own limits: the FTCA’s two-year administrative window, the three-year period for copyright infringement, and the securities fraud rule requiring suit within two years of discovering the fraud and no more than five years after the violation.
Other federal statutes say nothing about deadlines. Section 1983 is the notable example. Federal courts fill the gap by borrowing the most analogous personal-injury limitations period from the state where the case arose.19Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1988 – Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights The result is that Section 1983 deadlines vary by state, running anywhere from one year to six. The borrowed-deadline rule applies to several other federal civil rights statutes as well, so the state where the events happened has to be checked.
The consequences of missing a federal filing deadline are the same across statutes: the court dismisses the case, and strong facts can’t save it. Courts enforce these limits strictly even when the delay seems minor.