Civil Procedure - Professor Dallan Flake Flashcards
(121 cards)
Pleadings
The four corners of the page.
Pleadings are the documents setting forth our claims and defenses.
Plausibility Standard
The Twombly / Iqbal pleading standards not only specify that a complaint must be plausible on its face, but it must bring forth sufficient factual allegations that nudge a claim across the line from conceivable to plausible. The alleged facts must be reasonable and likely to occur.
Terry Test
7th Amendment
The standard for determining whether jury or not.
1st prong - equitable or legal
equitable - injunction, specific performance, and rescission.
2nd prong - is the type of issue that a jury should be deciding? If yes - then jury. If no - then no jury.
Hoffman Rule
You can only transfer a lawsuit to a district that is a proper venue and has personal jurisdiction.
Rule - if when a lawsuit is commenced, plaintiff has a right to sue in that district, independently of the wishes of the defendant, it is a district “where that action might have been brought.”
Rules Enabling Act
An act passed by Congress that gave the SC the power to make rules of procedure and evidence for federal courts as long as they did not “abridge, enlarge, or modify any substantive right.”
The Rules Enabling Act says that federal rules are valid if they do not modify substantive rights.
Collateral Order Rule
A doctrine allowing appeals from interlocutory rulings (i.e. preceding final judgment) so long as those rulings conclusively decide an issue separate from the merits of the case and would be effectively unreviewable after final judgment.
Relevant Contact
Two components
- Purposeful availment - defendant must reach out to the forum.
- Forseeability - forseeable that the defendant can be sued in that state.
Appeal of Interlocutory Orders
An appeal that occurs before the trial court’s final ruling on the entire case.
Some interlocutory appeals involve legal points necessary to the determination of the case, while others involve collateral orders that are wholly separate from the merits of the action.
Interlocutory Appeals Act; Final Judge Rule
Interlocutory
Interlocutory refers to any order that is not a final judgment. So, everything that is not a final judgment is an interlocutory order.
Permissive Counterclaim
Is a counterclaim (usually the defendant countersuing the plaintiff) that does not arise out of the same transaction or occurrence as the original claim filed. A permissive counterclaim can only be heard if it independently satisfies diversity jurisdiction.
Final Judgment Rule
The principle that a party may appeal only from a district court’s final decision that ends the litigation on the merits.
Under this rule, a party must raise all claims of error in a single appeal.
Also termed Final Decision Rule
Interlocutory Review
An order that is not a final judgment.
Grouped into categories.
Statute
- Injunction
- DC & CC agree - difference of opinion
FRCP
- Class action
- Multiple claims or multiple parties
Collateral Order Doctrine
A doctrine allowing appeal from an interlocutory order that conclusively determines an issue wholly separate from the merits of the action and effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.
Also termed Cohen Doctrine
Preliminary Injunction - Two types
There are two types of preliminary injunctions.
- Prohibitory injunction - prohibits or restrains a party from engaging in a specified behavior.
- Mandatory injunction - requires the defendant to engage in an affirmative act.
Claim and Issue Preclusion
Preclusion Doctrine
Older terms
- Res judicata
- Collateral estoppel
Now this is about the effect of a judgment that is entered by a trial court.
We have a judgment in a case, and now there is another case pending and the question under preclusion doctrine is whether the judgment in case #1 from case #2.
Preclusion Doctrine
The question under preclusion doctrine is whether the judgment in case one, precludes us, or stops us, from litigating anything in case two. It may do that with claim preclusion, or issue preclusion, but it may narrow the scope of the litigation in the second case.
Personal Jurisdiction
General & Specific
The court’s power over the parties.
The court must have personal jurisdiction over the defendant.
Notice
Must give the defendant notice and an opportunity to be heard.
Service of process important regarding notice.
Subject Matter Jurisdiction
We are talking about the court’s power over the case and not over the parties.
Does the court have the authority to hear this kind of case?
Federal courts have limited SMJ.
Erie Doctrine
If we are in a federal court under diversity jurisdiction, does the federal judge have to apply state law, or is she free to ignore state law?
Joinder
Related to pleadings.
Joinder figures out how big that lawsuit will become.
Tells us how many claims and how many parties can be packaged into a single case.
There are rules like counterclaims and crossclaims and impleader and class action.
Discovery
Discovery allows the parties to find out what the other parties know about the case and discover relevant material.
Adjudication
The court decides who wins the case on the merits.
Maybe it’s done without trial as in summary judgment.
Maybe its done with trial. Big issue - jury trial.
Appellate Review
We’ve gone through the litigation stream in the trial court, now we’ve come to a judgment, can we get review of that judgment by a higher court?