Civil Procedure Flashcards
The issue is whether the court has subject-matter jurisdiction over the defendant such that it should deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
In order to present a claim in federal court, a plaintiff must establish both subject-matter jurisdiction over the controversy and personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
Federal courts may obtain subject-matter jurisdiction through diversity or federal question jurisdiction. If the claim is not based on a question of federal law or a federal statute giving rise to a cause of action, then the court may only obtain jurisdiction through diversity.
Diversity jurisdiction requires complete diversity of citizenship of the parties and an amount in controversy over $75,000. Citizenship of a corporation is in the state in which it is incorporated, and the state from which it controls its business (the “nerve center”). Thus, a corporation may be a citizen of more than one state. An individual is a citizen of the state in which they are domiciled. Generally, a person’s domicile is decided by factors such as where they currently live, where they intend to remain indefinitely, where they vote, and where they consider their residence. A person may only be a citizen of one state. Citizenship is determined at the time the claim is filed. If complete diversity of citizenship of the parties is met, the amount in controversy must also be over $75,000. Generally, the court accepts the plaintiff’s claim of damages unless they are directly contradicted by statute or other incontrovertible evidence.
The issue is whether the court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant such that it should deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
In order to present a claim in federal court, a plaintiff must establish both subject-matter jurisdiction over the controversy and personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
To obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant, a federal court must satisfy both the personal jurisdiction rules of the state in which it sits as well as the constitutional requirements of the 14th Amendment. Because State B’s long-arm statutes permits personal jurisdiction to the maximum extent of the Constitution, only a constitutional analysis is necessary.
A federal court can obtain personal jurisdiction under the Constitution by consent, residency, personal service, or minimum contacts analysis. [Specific Jurix] Minimum contacts requires the defendant have sufficient purposeful minimum contacts with the forum state that some sort of liability is foreseeable, and that those minimum contacts give rise to the claim at hand, and that asserting personal jurisdiction would not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. If the court cannot find that the contacts with the forum state give rise to the claim, the court can also look to determine whether the defendant had substantial business with the forum state such that it should be subject to general jurisdiction in the state. This requires a strong finding that the business is “essentially at home” in the forum state.
[General Jurix] Assuming minimum contacts fails, the court could look at whether the airline could be considered essentially at home in State B, and therefore subject to personal jurisdiction even for a claim that did not arise in State B. A company is at home in the state where it is incorporated or has its principal place of business.
The issue is whether the court should dismiss the man’s class action claim based on the defendant’s motion ground that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.
Federal courts are courts of limited (subject matter) jurisdiction. The main ways to obtain subject-matter jurisdiction in federal court are through federal question jurisdiction or diversity jurisdiction. In federal question jurisdiction, a question involving federal law must arise from the face of the plaintiff’s complaint. In diversity jurisdiction, the ordinary rule requires complete diversity, where no plaintiff is a citizen of the same state as any defendant. Diversity jurisdiction also has an amount in controversy requirement of $75,000.
For class actions, the diversity requirement generally is that all named plaintiffs must be diverse from all defendants. A corporation is considered a citizen of anywhere it is incorporated and the place where it has its principal place of business.
However, the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) permits certain class action lawsuits to be brought in federal court so long as there is diversity between the defendant and any plaintiff, and the amount in controversy exceeds $5,000,000. [Diversity in a class aciotn brought pursuant to Rule 23 will generally be determined by the citizenship of the named members of the class bringing the lawsuit. However, for class actions in which the amount at issue totals more than $5,000,000, diversity will be met if any member of the plaintiff class is diverse with any defendant.]
[Also, the State X Privacy Protection Act allows for minimum statutory damages of $500 for individuals who have had their medical information breacahed. The lawsuit is brought as a class action on behalf of the 30,000 individuals who suffered the invasion of privacy. Aggregating these claims together alleges total damages of $15,000,000, which is far above the required $5,000,000 for class actions.]
The issue is whether the motion to dismiss should be granted for the man’s failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because of the state law barring class actions to recover statutory damages.
When an action is commenced in U.S. district court, the court must determine the substantive law and rules of procedure that will govern the action. In a diversity action, the district court is required to apply state substantive law, if there is no federal law on point. With regard to procedure in a diversity action, if a procedural issue is addressed by a valid federal law, such as a statute, then the federal law will be applied, even if a state rule or statute is in conflict.
Class actions can be maintained in federal court, despite a state law barring class actions to enforce statutory damages claims, if the action is authorized by Rule 23. Rule 23(a) establishes four requirements for representative members of a class to sue or be sued on behalf of all members of the class: (i) the class must be so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable (numerosity); (ii) there must be questions of law or fact that are common to the class (commonality); (iii) the claims or defenses of the representatives must be typical of the class (typicality); and (iv) the representatives must fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class (adequacy).
The fact that State X has a statute barring the award of statutory damages in a class action does not mean that there is no claim for relief to be granted. Here, the class is numerous with potentially 30,000 plaintiffs, there are common questions of law or fact, and the claims appear typical of the class. Finally, it appears that the man adequately and fairly protects the interest of the class and is represented by an attorney with significant experience in similar class actions. Thus, the action is authorized by Rule 23 and therefore it can be maintained in federal court, regardless of State X’s procedural limitations in its own courts. As a result, the motion to dismiss should be denied.
The issue is whether a state providing a statutory damages provision can provide an injury in fact for Article III purposes.
A federal court cannot decide a case unless the plaintiff has standing to bring it. To have standing, a plaintiff bears the burden of establishing three elements: (i) injury in fact; (ii) the injury was fairly traceable to the challenged action (causation); and (iii) the relief requested must prevent or redress the injury. Standing requires a concrete and particularized injury, even in the context of a statutory violation. The injury need not be physical or economic. An injury such as the invasion of privacy may be a sufficiently concrete injury in even when extensive damages cannot be proved.
The issue is whether the engineer’s report was prepared in anticipation of litigation and is therefore discoverable.
Discovery is generally permitted with regard to any non-privileged matter relevant to any party’s claim or defense in the action. Information within the scope of discovery need not be admissible evidence at trial to be discoverable. Instead, the test is whether the information sought is relevant to any party’s claim or defense. In general, a party may not discover documents and tangible things that are prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative. Such materials will be subject to discovery, however, if the party shows that it has substantial need for the materials to prepare its case and cannot, without undue hardship, obtain their substantial equivalent by other means.
In addition, if an expert is retained by another party in anticipation of litigation or to prepare for trial but is not expected to be called as a witness, then discovery is permitted only on a showing of exceptional circumstances.
The issue is whether the destruction of the emails is excused when litigation was being contemplated by the builder.
A party may request the other party to produce and permit the inspection of any discoverable documents or electronically stored information. Spoliation of evidence is the negligent or intentional destruction or significant alteration of evidence required for discovery. When litigation is reasonably anticipated, even if it has not yet commenced, potential litigants in possession of potentially relevant evidence have a duty to preserve such evidence. Once a duty to preserve evidence is triggered, the party in possession of the evidence must take reasonable measures to preserve it. If a party has a policy in place that results in routine operations that may destroy evidence, such as electronically stored information, that party must affirmatively act to prevent the destruction or alteration of such evidence, even if the destruction would typically occur in the regular course of business.
The issue is whether sanctions can be imposed against the builder for permanently deleting the emails.
A party may be subject to sanctions for failing to take reasonable steps to preserve evidence that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation. Sanctions are authorized for spoliation of evidence only if the information cannot be restored or replaced by additional discovery. In determining sanctions, the court should consider the prejudice to another party and the intent of the party that failed to preserve the evidence.
When retrieval of the information is possible, even if typically considered inaccessible due to the cost of retrieval, a court may order it and assign the costs to the party who destroyed the evidence; no further sanctions may be imposed. If a party failed to preserve electronically stored information that should have been preserved and it cannot be restored or replaced, the court may order alternate sanctions against the wrongful party, limited to the court’s discretion of those necessary to cure any prejudice to the other party.
If the court finds that the sanctioned party acted with the purpose of depriving the other party of the evidence’s use in litigation, then the available sanctions include (1) a presumption that the destroyed or lost information was unfavorable to the sanctioned party; (2) a jury instruction that it may or it must presume the information was unfavorable to the party; or (3) an entry of a default judgment against the party.
The issue is whether a federal court has removal jurisdiction when the parties to the state action are diverse, the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, and the defendant is not from the state where the action was originally filed.
Generally, the defendant in any civil action filed in state court has the right to remove it to the district court for the district and division in which the state court action was filed as long as the civil action is within the subject-matter jurisdiction of a U.S. district court. Federal courts may exercise diversity jurisdiction over actions when (1) the opposing parties to an action are citizens of different states and (2) the amount in controversy in the action exceeds $75,000. Generally, a plaintiff’s good-faith assertion in the complaint that the action satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement is sufficient, unless it appears to a legal certainty that the plaintiff cannot recover the amount alleged. Additionally, if removal is sought solely based on diversity jurisdiction, then the claim may be removed only if no defendant is a citizen of the state in which the action was filed.
The issue is whether a court can properly grant a change of venue motion based on a forum selection clause that is not enforceable under the law of the state where the case was originally filed.
For the convenience of the parties and in the interests of justice, a district court in which venue is proper may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought. Venue is proper in a judicial district in which (1) any defendant resides, if all defendants reside in the same state in which the district is located, (2) a substantial part of the events or omissions on which the claim is based occurred, or (3) a substantial part of the proeprty that is the subject of the action is located. Moreover, when transfer is sought on the basis of a forum selection clause in a contract, the clause is accorded respect. If the clause specifies a federal forum, most circuit courts treat the clause as prima facie valid, to be set aside only upon a strong showing that transfer would be unreasonable and unjust or that the clause was invalid for reasons such as fraud or overreaching. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held that a forum selection clause should be given “controlling weight in all but the most exceptional cases.”
The issue is whether change of venue to the federal court in State B would affect resolution of the rescission issue.
Generally, if the venue of an action is transferred when the original venue is proper, then the court to which the action is transferred must apply the law of the state of the transferor court, including that state’s rules regarding conflict of law. However, when venue is transferred based on a valid forum selection clause, the transferee court must apply the law, including the conflict-of-law rules, of the state in which it is located. The transferee court should not apply the law of the transferor court because the parties have contractually waived their right to the application of that law by agreeing to be subject to the laws of the transferee venue.
The issue is whether the judgment in Son v. Driver precludes Mother from suing Driver on a closely related claim when Mother and Son are in a family relationship.
The doctrine of claim preclusion (i.e., res judicata) provides that a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties from relitigating an identical claim in a subsequent action. For claim preclusion to apply, the claimant and the defendant must be the same (and in the same roles) in both the original action and the subsequently filed action. Because application of claim preclusion is limited to the parties (or their privies), a similar action by a different party would not be precluded.
The issue is whether the jury’s conclusion in Son v. Driver that Mother, a nonparty, negligently failed to maintain her brake lights precludes Mother from litigating it in Mother’s subsequent suit against Driver.
The doctrine of issue preclusion (i.e., collateral estoppel) precludes the relitigation of issues of fact or law that have already been necessarily determined by a judge or jury as part of an earlier claim. Unlike claim preclusion, issue preclusion does not require strict mutuality of parties, but only that the party against whom the issue is to be precluded (or one in privity with that party) was a party to the original action (i.e., offensive collateral estoppel). Other elements necessary for issue preclusion to apply are that: (1) the issue sought to be precluded must be the same as that involved in the prior action; (2) the issue must have been actually litigated in the prior action; (3) the issue must have been determined by a valid and binding final judgment; and (4) the determination of the issue must have been essential to the prior judgment.
The issue is whether the jury’s conclusion in Son v. Driver that Driver was negligent precludes Driver from relitigating that issue in the lawsuit brought by Mother, a nonparty to Son v. Driver.
As noted above, the basic elements of issue preclusion have been met: (1) Driver was a party to the first action, (2) Driver’s negligence is the same issue already actually litigated in the Son v. Driver action, and (3) nothing in the facts suggests that there was not a valid and binding final judgment there. Finally, the determination that Driver was negligent was the issue at the core of the action, and therefore, essential to the judgment. As a result, Mother’s offensive use of collateral estoppel would be applicable and Driver might be precluded from relitigating that issue.
However, trial courts have broad discretion to determine when issue preclusion should apply. If a plaintiff could easily have joined in the earlier action, a trial judge may not allow use of offensive collateral estoppel.
Here, Mother could easily have joined in the earlier action, as it was her son who was injured while driving her car. Both his claim for personal injury damages in excess of $75,000 and her claim for property damages to her luxury car in excess of $75,000 arose from the same transaction or occurrence and raised a common question of law or fact (Driver’s negligence). Mother and Son are both citizens of State A and Driver is a citizen of State B, so joinder of her claim would not have destroyed diversity. The federal district court would have diversity jurisdiction over these claims and their joinder in the first action would have promoted judicial efficiency and economy.
Accordingly, in its discretion, the court might choose to deny application of collateral estoppel here.
The issue is whether the FRCP require a plaintiff to file separate actions if the actions involve different legal questions.
There is no such limitation in the Federal Rules. A plaintiff has the discretion to assert claims against one or more defendants and it is proper to do so when (1) those claims arise from the same transaction or occurrence, and (2) they raise at least one common question of fact or law.
