Eerie Review

1. Eerie Review

2. Before slide show • You may be feeling like this:

3. Eerie basics • Eerie problem only applies when federal court is sitting in diversity. • Eerie is about choice of law • Eerieconcerns a vertical choice of law issue – i.e., between state and federal. • This is different than horizontal choice of law issue – i.e., between state A and state B. • Horizontal choice of law issues are governed by states’ conflicts’ laws, which Klaxon holds fall within Eerie.

4. Purposes of Eerie • Federalism – respect states as sovereign systems. • Other policy rationales - (all ways of saying kind of the same thing): • Avoid forum shopping. • Avoid inequitable administration of laws. • Help ensure that result obtained in federal court would be pretty much the same as across the street.

5. Starting Place • Eerie is about conflict of laws – starting place is to focus on what on conflict is. • Four choices: • Between state substantive law and federal common law • Between state law and federal procedural statute • Between state law and federal Rule of Civil Procedure • Between state law and federal practice/common law

6. Situation 1 – Conflict between state substantive law and federal common law • This is Eerie (and easy!) • State law applies • No “general common law” – torts, contracts, property, etc. • But if federal statute on point, then we are in federal question jurisdiction; federal court can fill in blanks with common law.

7. Situation 2 – Conflict between state law and federal procedural statute • Does federal statute apply to situation? • Stewart – s. 1404 vs. state law disfavoring forum selection clauses; Court held s. 1404 applies. • If federal statute applies, is it constitutional? • If yes, APPLY!

8. Situation 3 – Conflict between state law and FRCP • Does FRCP apply to situation? • Semtek – Rule 41(a) did not apply to situation. • Is Federal Rule within Rules Enabling Act? • Test – is rule of “practice and procedure?” Hanna tells us this means “the judicial process for enforcing rights and duties recognized by substantive law and for justly administering remedy and redress for disregard or infraction of them.” • Is Rule constitutional? • If answer to both is yes, apply Rule • Court has never held that FRCP is not within the REBA or is unconstitutional. • Ex. - Hanna

9. Situation 4 – Conflict between state law and federal practice (common law) • This is hardest category. • Cases: • Guaranty Trust (state statute of limitations vs. federal common law statute of limitations) • Byrd v. Blue Ridge (state rule re trying element of workman’s comp case to judge vs. federal practice of trial by jury)

10. Situation 4 (cont.) • We get different tests from the cases. • Guaranty Trust – says “outcome determinative,” although perhaps carves out federal practice that “concerns merely the manner and the means by which a right to recover … is enforced.” • Cases post-Guaranty took “outcome determinative” fairly far.

11. Situation 4 (cont). • Byrd v. Blue Ridge – 3 questions • Is state practice “bound up with definition of the rights and obligations of the parties?” (If so, state law prevails) • Is outcome determinative? • Are there “affirmative countervailing” considerations of federal juridical administration present? • Last two are balancing test.

12. Situation 4 (cont.) • Hanna (dicta). Would applying federal practice: • Encourage forum shopping? (consider circumstances that, before law suit begins, seem like they might be significant enough to cause forum shopping); or • Result in “inequitable administration of laws?” (consider that regularly result in different applications of same state substantive law). • If not, federal practice should prevail even though not FRCP or statute on point.

13. Situation 4 (cont.) • What do I do on exam for Situation 4? • Start with Hanna (most recent) but (a) show that know other tests; and (b) discuss if would come out differently under either of other tests.

14. After slide show • You should be feeling like this: