Circles

Judge Henry Friendly: “Our principal task, in this diversity of citizenship case, is to determine what the New York courts would think the California courts would think on an issue about which neither has thought.”

In Civil Procedure, we are learning about what laws get applied in what circumstances. A case can be brought in federal court only under very specific instances. The biggest one we have focused on has been diversity. Basically no plaintiff and no defendant can be from the same place and the amount in controversy has to be more than $75,000. Seems simple, eh? But of course it is not. You have to jump through fifty hoops to figure out where plaintiffs and defendants are from and then you have to apply all this wacky stuff to figure out whether the amount in controversy can actually be more than $75,000 (Can you add plaintiff’s claims together? What if there is a liquidated damages clause, limiting the damages, etc). Well, if you finally figure out that the case belongs in federal diversity court, the question of choice of law comes up.

Basically laws are different from state to state, and federal laws are different from all of them. Basically, laws can arise from the US constitution (federal law), federal statutes (federal law) or federal court decisions (again, you guessed it. . . federal law). Or laws can arise from state constitutions, (state laws), state statutes (state laws), or state court decisions (yes, Virginia, those are, in fact state laws as well). So, and hold on because you might find this fascinating. Different states may have laws that conflict with one and other and different state laws may conflict with federal laws. Now, there are some complex rules about which laws trump other laws within states, and a few about that pesky US constitution trumping all. But, there are times, when the contradiction between the applicable laws is very real and courts have to be very clear about whose laws they are applying. “Choice of law” is a bit of a misnomer, because it really isn’t a choice most of the time.

We now return to our diversity claim. So we have a case that is being heard in federal court, but it got there because everybody is from different places and there is a LOT of money at stake, not because the claim has anything to do with federal law. So whose law applies? Federal or state? Well of course they’ve spent just about forever trying to figure that out, and the supreme court seems to weigh in fairly regularly with various opinions, which at times actually conflict with what they said several years ago on the same decision. This change is probably due in part to the changing judges on the Supreme Court. (This is the oh shit not Harriet Miers moment of the blog).

All right, so let’s suppose in this particular instance, the federal court must implement state law. So they have to interpret how that state would implement that state law. However, there are some strange instances where one state actually has to implement another state’s law. Let’s suppose now that that gets removed to federal court. Now the federal court has to interpret how the first state would interpret the law of the second state. And if neither state has ruled on the issue. . . well, that brings us full circle to the quote at the beginning of this blog. Which made me laugh out loud. Which made me decide to share. Which made me realize that you might not laugh out loud without all the pertinent boiled down background I have just provided. Which means that if you go back and read it now you might laugh out loud. Or you might not have a good sense of humor. Either way, isn’t your head hurting now?