Wednesday audio--Section A, Section B. Essay ## 9 and 10 due in class on Monday, April 21.
Couple points of clarification on Venue:
1) § 1391(b)(3) says "if there is no district in which an action may otherwise be brought as provided in this section, any judicial district in which any defendant is subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction with respect to such action." That does not mean you apply (b)(3) if (b)(1) and (b)(2) are not satisfied as to the current district. You turn to (b)(3) in the chosen district only if no other federal district satisfies (b)(1) or (b)(2). If another district satisfies either--even if it is not the district in which the plaintiff seeks to bring the action--then the first part of (b)(3) is not satisfied and cannot be used to establish venue in the current district.
2) Here is Fla. Code § 1.061, which codifies Forum Non Conveniens in Florida.
3) Here is § 1.060, which covers transfer between trial courts of Florida. Because it is within the same sovereign, it is transfer rather than FNC dismissal.
4) Review FN 6 from Atlantic Marine here. Your "rule" for transfer and FNC is both this and the language from Glannon (citing Gilbert).
We move to Erie, which I confess is my favorite part of the class. It also provides a nice way to review everything that we have covered this semester.
For tomorrow, prep Introduction and History, which will cover Erie itself, then Modern Approach, which will be all about Hanna and the analytical framework that comes from that case. The Glannon reading and problems (pp. 193-211 and 213-32) will be really helpful in preparing and understanding this. Read § 1652 and §§ 2072 and 2074 very carefully and understand what they are about, as well as the assigned constitutional provisions. Consider:
• What does the Rules of Decision Act say and mean?
• What was the issue in Erie and what were the different answers in federal court and state court under Swift? Who wins in Erie, given resolution of the choice-of-law issue?
• Erie overrules Swift in four steps--what are they? What is forum shopping and why is it problematic? What is the difference between "horizontal" forum shopping and "vertical" forum shopping?
• If a federal court must predict how the state supreme court would resolve an issue, what can it look to in deciding that?
• Under Hanna, what is the connection between the RDA and the Rules Enabling Act?
• What are the "twin aims of Erie?"
• What is procedure? What is substance? What are the 3 types of rules we might have under Hanna?
I hope to go through the two cases and the framework in tomorrow's extended class. Then we will spend Friday's double session and Monday's class working through a series of puzzles that show how this all works.
