Seven weeks left in the semester. It's all about those exams on December 12, 14, 17, and 20 -- not that I'm counting the days. Because law school grades are exclusively derived from those blind, bell-curved exam scores, the pressure is only going to increase from here until December.
My law school is on "fall break" all week, which allows 2Ls and 3Ls some time to travel for interviews, and for 1Ls to exhale for the first time, or to start studying for those final exams, hoping to be one of the lucky (talented?) 10% who can receive As. After taking the weekend to deal with a lot of personal financial affairs that had been pushed to the back burner by the first eight weeks of law school, today I'm beginning the systematic review of my four main classes. (There's no exam for my "Lawyering" class, but as discussed previously on this blog, the other four are formally identical.)
Civil Procedure began with the study of jurisdiction... and eight weeks later, we're still on jurisdiction. Civ Pro Prof is in his first year of teaching, and I wonder how much of the semester is going according to plans. This is the only class that meets only twice a week -- though its two 75-minute classes and Con Law's three 50-minute periods are the same length overall -- and we've met far less frequently than the others. The count: Contracts = 22 meetings; Torts = 23; Con Law = 22; Civ Pro = 12. So I wonder whether or not we are behind most other Civ Pro classes, or whether the study of jurisdiction is an endless loop.
We've studied two main types of jurisdiction so far: Personal Jurisdiction and Subject Matter Jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction concerns questions about whether a person can be responsible for defending a lawsuit in a given state. There are three types of personal jurisdiction: in personam, or jurisdiction over one person in his/her bodily form; in rem, or jurisdiction over a specific thing -- real estate or other personal property; and quasi in rem, which is a category between in personam and in rem.
Examples of these three categories:
1) A, a resident of Arizona, lends money to C, a resident of California. C fails to repay the money according to the contract and so A wants to sue C. If C is a California homebody who just sits around and surfs in San Diego 365 days a year, then C is only subject to jurisdiction in California -- A couldn't claim that C would have to adhere to judgments of the state of Arizona. A would have to go to California and sue C in California courts; C is only subject to in personam jurisdiction there.
But if C leaves California and goes to pick up a new wet suit on First Avenue in Tucson, and A finds out that C is in town, A can serve C with papers for a suit in Arizona. If you go to a state willingly, then you're submitting yourself to in personam jurisdiction there (you have a bodily presence in the forum state). Even if C flies on a plane from San Diego to Houston, if A could somehow serve C in the airspace above Arizona, that would count as C's presence in Arizona. (But not if, say, C wipes out while surfing, breaks his neck, and is taken to a trauma center in Phoenix while he's unconscious. Presence has to be voluntary.)
2) To illustrate the difference between in personam and in rem, assume that C is still a California surfer who never leaves San Diego, but that he also owns a yacht docked on the Tucson River. C sells the yacht to A, but the contract is disputed and C refuses to deliver the keys to the ship to A. A wants to sue C to get the ship.
This is where in res comes in. Although C is still not subject to personal jurisdiction in Arizona, the object of the dispute is in Arizona, and so A can sue C in Arizona courts. Technically, the basis of the suit would be the yacht -- not necessarily A himself -- and under in res rules, the "thing" itself is subject to Arizona jurisdiction.
3) Quasi in rem jurisdiction applies if the suit isn't related to the object in question. Say that C is the same surfer who never leaves California. C owns a run-down tugboat docked on the Tucson River. But this time the dispute has nothing to do with the boat -- A lends $500,000 to C, C doesn't honor the contract, and A wants to sue to recover the $500,000. A is allowed to sue C in Arizona court because C owns property in Arizona. But the suit can only recover the Arizona property itself. Let's say that C doesn't show up, or is represented at trial but he loses. The state of Arizona could seize the tugboat and give it or the proceeds to A. But if the tugboat is only worth $20,000, then A only gets $20,000 -- A would not get the tugboat PLUS an enforceable judgment for C to pay A the remaining $480,000 difference under quasi in rem jurisdiction.
The next topic has is primarily about products liability cases: how does jurisdiction apply to corporations that sell products in many states? K, a Kansas resident, buys a pair of Nike sneakers at Foot Locker in Lawrence. During his first jog the soles fall off and he falls and breaks his wrist. Clearly Nike has made some defective shoes, but K bought them at an independent retailer in Kansas (and we'll assume that Nike doesn't have any factories or retail locations in Kansas -- assume it's just an Oregon company that ships its products from Oregon to out-of-state retailers). But it would be extremely impractical for K to sue in Oregon -- he wants to sue in Kansas. Can he? Let's say that K hacks Nike's computer system and distributes intellectual property about Nike's sneaker tests on K's blog (hosted by a server and ISP in Lawrence). Could Nike sue K in Oregon?
The key term of art for making these legal determinations is known as "minimum contacts." A plaintiff has to establish that the defendant has made minimum contacts with the forum state. Because we all know that Nike advertises everywhere, has a huge percentage of the national market share for sneakers, sponsors KU basketball, and so on, it does have the minimum contacts necessary to submit it to Kansas jurisdiction on an injury that happens in Kansas. But where's the limit to minimum contacts? For companies smaller than Nike, it could be a real problem if they had to defend themselves against suits anywhere that their products may end up. The minimum contacts test is probably getting more outdated as the country and the world become more closely integrated, but in a country as big as the US, it still makes a difference for smaller businesses or individuals, when the expenses of travel and accommodation in a distant state might be prohibitively expensive.
We read one real case involving an airplane crash in Scotland. Everyone on board was Scottish, the crew were all Scottish, the airline was Scottish, but the plane itself was made by a Pennsylvania company and sold to Thistle Airways. Because American tort laws are more inclusive (more plaintiff-friendly) than in Scotland, the estates of the deceased wanted to sue in American courts. Though there may be minimum contacts connecting the American manufacturer to Scotland -- it sells airplanes to clients there -- courts send jurisdiction to the forum that it finds to be most appropriate. In this case, the attempt to litigate in the US was clearly not as appropriate as the place containing all the evidence, and the home of the main corporation and all the decedents.
Now we're studying jurisdiction over subject matter, which involves questions about state issues that may get bumped up to federal court for various reasons. The first such reason would be diversity -- i.e., when there are multiple defendants from different states in the same case. M, from Maryland, buys a defective guitar. The guitar's body was manufacturer by a N, a New Jersey company; the neck and strings were assembled by I, an Illinois company. The constitution allows for federal courts to decide the case -- even if the case is not about a federal rule -- due to the diversity of the parties.
I'm looking forward to studying the more minute details of these concepts during the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow: contracts.
