Civil Procedure Outline
3 factors that determine what court you can sue in:
1. Personal jurisdiction
2. Subject matter jurisdiction
3. Venue
Personal Jurisdiction and Venue defenses are waived if D does not raise them at the appropriate time. If the only problem in a case is venue, some authority counts this as “harmless error” and D won’t be granted a new trial.
PERSONAL JURISDICTION = the circumstances under which a court (state or federal) has the authority to make binding judgments on particular parties. By filing a case, the P has consented to PJ.
· 2 requirements must be met before a court has jurisdiction over the parties: subtantive due process (the court must have the power to act) and procedural due process (notice and opportunity to be heard)
· Full Faith and Credit Clause (in Article IV of the Constitution) = each state must enforce the judgments of every other state à exception: where a court entered judgment without having personal jurisdiction
I. Traditional view of personal jurisdiction
a. Pennoyer v. Neff
i. Rule: A state court has jurisdiction ONLY over people and property physically located within the boundaries of that state.
ii. D must: appear in court (and consent), be found within the state, be a citizen of the f.s. or have property in the f.s. that is attached at the time of filing (for quasi in rem jurisdiction)
iii. The Pennoyer rule has been MUCH modified, if not eliminated, by subsequent cases.
iv. Facts: In underlying lawsuit, default judgment against Neff (CA resident) in OR. Neff owned property in OR, but the property was not related to the subject matter of the lawsuit. Neff was not personally served with process (service was made by publication in a local newspaper). Neff’s property was attached only after the invalid judgment was entered.
v. Since Neff was a non-resident, his property in the f.s. needed to be attached at the time of filing to give Q-I-R jurisdiction. Service would have been proper if it was in person or in-state.
vi. Rationale: the authority of a state is limited to its own territory; service of process is an exercise of the state’s authority and thus service can only be done in state (even if the non-resident owns property in the state).
vii. Burnham supports Pennoyer, but Shaffer overrules it.
b. Harris v. Balk
i. Court held that debt is attached to a person, so whoever you owe money has property wherever they are. So, jurisdiction can be proper with Q-I-R. Follows Pennoyer but this is intangible property.
c. Hess v. Pawloski
i. Juris
b. Hanson v. Deckla – there must be “purposeful availment” by the D to conduct activities in the forum state, unilateral activity by the P is not sufficient
c. WW VW v. Woodson – no purposeful availment of D even though it could reasonably foresee that its customers would drive their cars there; something more is required: specifically cultivating the OK market and consumers in some way
3. Continuous but limited activity can support specific jurisdiction
a. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz
4. If D’s contacts are “systematic and continuous”, general in personam jurisdiction can be proper (but the line is ambiguous)
a. Helicopteros Nacionales de Columbia v. Hall
III. Later developments
a. A D may have sufficient contacts with a f.s. to support minimum contacts jurisdiction even though she did not act WITHIN the state
i. Calder v. Jones – issue was personal jurisdiction over author and editor of defamatory article that had effects in CA; in this case the author and editor intentionally sought a connection to CA because they knew that the article’s impact would be felt in CA; the article concerned P’s CA activities and her reputation was in CA
