Erie Doctrine Flashcards
28 U.S.C. § 2072?
Rules enabling act, governed the FRCP ( not RDA, so don’t need Erie & progeny) -Hanna v. plumer
Rules Enabling Act?
28 U.S.C. § 2072
28 U.S.C. § 1652
Rules of Decision Act (RDA)
Erie & progeny
In cases like Hanna v. Plumer ( mass servic of process or fed) would you even apply Erie at all?
No. Cuz REA APPLIES not RDA.
When state law, rule or practice conflicts w FRCP……
FRCP always apply as long as not contrary to _____&_____?
1) Constitution &
2)REA in that it “abridges, enlarges, or modifies” a substantive right.
(Hanna v. Plumer)
Has the FRCP ever been found to “abridge[ ], enlarges, or modifies” a substantive right?
Not once has any Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ever been found invalid or inapplicable on the grounds that it “abridges, enlarges, or modifies” a substantive right. (Hanna v. Plumer)
Is it a substantive law?
does it govern the actual rights and responsibilities of the parties vis-à-vis one another?
Is it a procedural law?
does it merely regulate procedure–that is, the means and modes through which the parties enforce their respective rights and responsibilities in court?
What about cases where the federal “rule” that conflicts with some state law was not a codified Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, but rather an un-codified federal judicial practice?
In these cases, Hanna indicates that we look to Erie, Byrd, and York to determine whether the federal judicial practice or the state law should apply. If you’ll recall our discussion of those cases, what they were essentially trying to do was to prevent the kinds of pre-Erie abuses that the Supreme Court cited in Erie—“forum shopping and the inequitable administration of the laws.” Compare Hanna. If application of the federal rule could give the plaintiff a meaningful incentive to sue in federal court (rather than state court), then the federal rule is “substantive,” which means Erie requires state law to apply in a case like this one where state substantive law controls the ultimate outcome on the merits. This could be the case where the plaintiff has reason to know before filing the complaint that the federal rule would permit him to get around some constraint on his ability to prevail under state law—like the statute-of-limitations issue in York. However, there are cases where there is some meaningful federal-specific interest that would justify applying the federal practice anyway—like the jury-trial and Seventh Amendment concerns identified in Byrd.
Shady Grove Orthopedic Assoc v. Allstate?
Shady Grove held that Federal Rule 23 and the New York statute did conflict. The New York statute would have prohibited the suit from being brought as a class action. Federal Rule 23 would have permitted the suit to be brought as a class action, provided its requirements were met. Accordingly, the statutes conflicted, because they both “answered the same question” differently–namely, whether Shady Grove’s lawsuit against the insurance company could be brought as a class action. See Shady Grove, 559 U.S. at 388-400. The insurer made all sorts of convoluted arguments that there was no conflict, but the Supreme Court rejected them all, continually returning to this one basic point.
First step in analysis?
is to determine whether or not the state law/rule actually conflicts with a FRCP?-that is, do they address the same subject matter, or answer the same question, albeit differently? The reason that we need analyze this issue is that, if the Federal Rule does not apply to the question at hand, then there is no need to analyze whether to apply the Federal Rule or a contrary state rule–if there is no conflict, and if no other federal law speaks to the issue, then under Erie the state law will apply, because “there can be no other law.” See Shady Grove Orthopedics Assoc’s, PA v. Allstate Ins. Co
Hanna v. Plumer
held that, where the choice is between some state law, rule or practice and a codified Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, we do not look to Erie and its progeny in order to figure out whether to apply the state rule or the Federal Rule. Rather, all we need to ask is whether the Federal Rule is constitutional, and whether it “abridges, enlarges, or modifies” any substantive right under the Rules Enabling Act.
What type of substantive law will inevitably apply in any federal-question case?
Federal.
Where the case is a federal-question case, in which federal law ultimately creates the cause of action or controls the parties’ rights and responsibilities, the question is a no-brainer: Apply the applicable federal substantive law. See 28 U.S.C. § 1652
Erie holding
held that, in any case where there was no governing federal statutory or constitutional law, the substantive law to be applied was the law of the state, regardless of whether it was expressed through statute or case law. Federal courts no longer have any authority to develop their own, competing body of case law on common-law matters.
Do Erie problems arise in state courts?
No! Only arise in federal courts and concern the choice between federal & state law
