Civil Procedure Class Notes 1

Civil Procedure Class Notes 1 (September 23, 2001) Professor Krieger Civil Disputes in Context (I): The Structure of the American Civil Justice System and the Anatomy of a Civil Lawsuit I. The Basic Structure of the American Legal System A. In working our way through this, it makes sense to use a scenario with which you are all familiar – the events leading eventually to the Eighth Circuit’s 1921 decision in Meints v. Huntington. So, what’s the story here? (Put up the first slide, Meints Map, and point out where things are:) During the 16 or 17 years preceding the summer of 1928, John Meints was a resident of the State of Minnesota., living in the town of Luverne, which is located in the Southwestern corner of Minnesota, quite close to that state’s boarders with Iowa and South Dakota. Mr. Meints, like many Americans, particularly those located on the left of the American political spectrum, was evidently an opponent of American involvement in World War I. He was apparently – or at least he was believed by many to be – supportive of an anti-war newspaper run by an organization known as the ―Non-Partisan League.‖ Rumor had it that Meints had provided financial and other support to that newspaper, that he had opposed the War Effort, and – in the eyes of many – had been disloyal to the United States in his opposition to the war. For this, he was, to put it mildly, unpopular with his fellow townspeople. In the Summer of 1918, in the dead of night, he was pulled out of his bed by a gang of men, driven across the Iowa state line, and dumped there with an admonition not to return. C. So, what did Meints do then? B. 1 (Went to Justice Dept. in St. Paul. ) What did he want or expect them to do? (Prosecute for assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, and other crimes) Points to Make: Criminal vs. Civil Law Differences to Point Out: -Who is the ―plaintiff‖ (Gov’t vs. private party) Can always tell a criminal case, because it’s ―People vs. X‖ or ―State vs. X‖ or ―United States vs. X,‖ (although federal civil cases can also be ―United States vs. X‖.) A criminal case, at least at the trial level, is never ―Joe Blow vs. United States,‖ or ―Joe Blow vs. the People of the State of California.‖ What ―consequences‖ (Incarceration; other criminal sanctions (i.e. felon status, which results in civil disabilities) vs. monetary damages, injunctive relief, but no change in political status and no possibility of imprisonment. What ―remedy‖ to the victim? (Money damages under civil law; no remedy to victim under criminal law. Note punitive damages.) Many other differences, as you will see, i.e., right to counsel, higher standards in other respects for what constitutes procedural due process, etc... -- – – What did the D.O.J. do? (Nothing.) Points out another key difference: Private power over the decision whether or not to proceed. (Civil case, victim can take action on his or her own; Criminal case, government alone decides. Victim has no formal power to direct prosecution decisionmaking or strategy. Note contrast with other criminal legal systems, i.e. India, where victim has power to appeal acquittals in the trial court). 2 Take home point: There are two parallel justice systems in the United States – the criminal justice system and the civil justice system. Among other things, different rules of Procedure: Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and state equivalents) And Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure So, when you read a case, the first thing to ask yourself for a while in here is “is it a civil case or a criminal case?” D. On to another point... Meints went to the Department of Justice, a federal agency, to urge the federal government to initiate, a criminal prosecution. Where else might he have gone in his efforts to get some government official to initiate a criminal prosecution? (District attorney’s office; local prosecutor.) Make point about state criminal legal system and federal criminal legal system, using Meints Map of U.S. Take home point: Each state has its own legal system, including its own set of criminal and civil laws. Sitting on top of, or in a sense beside those state legal systems, there is a federal legal system, that exists and operates completely independently of the states’ respective legal systems. A number of important points flow from this: 1. The substantive laws of one state governing a particular kind of situation may be quite different than the 3 equivalent laws in another state. 2. Federal laws pertaining to a particular problem or situation may also be different than the laws of a particular state. So, for example, California law makes it illegal for a private employer to discriminate against its employees or applicants on the basis of sexual orientation. Most states do not provide any protection for sexual orientation discrimination in private employment. Nor does federal law. So, the same claim for the same injury may be legally remediable, what we call legally cognizable , in one state, but not another, or in state court but not federal court. On the other hand, there is no state law barring race discrimination in employment in Arkansas. But there is a federal law prohibiting race discrimination in employment in the United States, of which Arkansas is a part (at least, last time I checked). So, an African American job applicant in Arkansas, who believes that he was denied a job because of his race, can sue in a Federal Court in Arkansas under federal law, but he can’t sue under State law, because there is no state law to sue under. E. (Staying with the US Meintx Map), Make the Following Points: 1. Each state has its own state legal system, with a civil and a criminal component. Each state has at least one federal district court. The district courts are the trial level court in the federal system. More on the difference between trial courts and appellate courts in a minute 2. 4 NEXT SLIDE – The federal district courts, Districts in California Some states have one federal district in them, some have more. For example, there are four federal districts in California: Northern District, Eastern District, Central District, Southern District. NEXT SLIDE – Central District of California Talk about divisions within districts. 3. There are also specialized federal trial level courts in the federal system. These include:     4. U.S. Bankruptcy Courts Federal Court of Claims Federal Trade Court U.S. Tax Court There are also specialized state trial level courts: juvenile courts, traffic courts, drug courts, some states are talking about creating special mental health courts. F. Let’s talk some about trial vs. appellate courts. The decision you read in Meints vs. Huntington, what Court issued that decision? NEXT SLIDE: FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURTS OF APPEAL (Eighth Circuit – Show where it is on the map, and what states it encompasses). The appellate courts in the federal system, that review the decisions of the district courts, are known as circuit courts. Review circuits on the map. Automatic review at the Circuit level – ―review as of right‖ (that is, so long as you are appealing from a final judgment, or have some other legal ground for interlocutory review, and you meet all the relevant 5 filing deadlines. Above the circuit level – what? (Supreme Court) In most contexts, there is no automatic right of review to the Supreme Court: Supreme Court has, in most contexts, discretion to determine what cases it will hear. Certain constitutional exceptions too complicated to get into at this time. ―Petition for Writ of Certiorari‖ – Asking the Court to review a circuit court decision. State court systems have same basic structure: Trial Courts — Court of Appeals — Supreme Court (Have different names in different states. Different systems for seeking judicial review by the highest level court of appeal.) NEXT SLIDE: CALIFORNIA APPELLATE DISTRICT MAP G. How this situation works in California -- Trial level courts 1. Superior Court of California: Hears certain civil and criminal cases. Re: criminal cases – jurisdiction limited to felonies. Re: civil cases, amount in controversy must exceed a certain amount, or case must request ―injunctive relief,‖ that is, relief that requires the defendant to do something other than just pay money. Superior Court broken up into units by county. So, the Superior Court covering disputes that are filed here would be called ―The Superior Court of the State of California, County of Alameda.‖ Superior Courts generally have different ―divisions,‖ incl’g: 2. 3. 6 a. b. c. d. e. 4. Criminal division Civil division Family court Probate court Etc… Municipal Court: a. b. c. Misdemeanors Civil cases not exceeding certain amount in controversy or requesting injunctive relief Different divisions: including traffic court, small claims court. H. First Tier Appellate Review (review as of right from a final judgment; discretionary review of certain ―interlocutory‖ rulings. NEXT SLIDE: CALIFORNIA APPELLATE DISTRICTS 1. California Court of Appeal – 6 appellate districts. I. CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT – Discretionary review. III. Back to the Situation in Meints v. Huntington... A. Additional facts... Meints does what the officials at the DOJ tell him to do...he moves back into Minnesota, he’s living with his sons, in a house located about 12 miles outside of the town of Luverne. We all know what happens next...The mob comes to his house, Meints’ daughters in law and his grandkids are screaming. The mob busts through the screen door... Meints goes up to the top of the stairs with the pitchfork and the gun...The mob guys get his son to convince him to come down....He gets in the car...They take him into Luverne and won’t let him talk to his wife...on the way toward Luverne, a couple of cars worth of guys peel off toward the South Dakota line. Then the mob guys, or what’s left of them, stuff Meints back into 7 Huntington’s car, drive him to the South Dakota line, and what a surprise, this bunch of guys in masks – where could they have come from – beat him up, tar and feather him, and tell him that if he ever steps back into Minnesota, they’ll hang him. B. So What Does Meintz do now? Points to make: 1. Files a civil case (he has control, not the government prosecutors). 2. To understand that case, from a procedural standpoint, need to be able to answer the following questions:     3. What court? What parties? What claims? What remedies sought? Answer to first two questions pretty simple to derive from case caption and information immediately below. What claims for relief? What causes of action? What legal claims is he raising? (We don’t really know for sure...but some inklings) ―Conspiracy‖ ―Assault and Battery?‖ ―False Imprisonment What do I mean when I use the term “cause of action?” 4. 3. 4. Causes of action as Lego patterns; Facts as Lego pieces. Basic job of the plaintiff’s civil lawyer is to take the messy mass of facts presented by the client and uncovered in initial 8 investigation, and figure out whether there’s some Lego template, some ―cognizable cause of action‖ which the lawyer can superimpose onto the facts to make a complete legal claim for relief. Think of a cognizable or valid civil cause of action as a complete Lego figure that’s in the Lego template manual. Basic job of the defense lawyer is two-fold. First, the defense lawyer tries to demonstrate that the plaintiff doesn’t have a ―complete‖ Lego figure (maybe it’s missing a leg, or a tail), or that the Lego figure the plaintiff is trying to construct isn’t really in the official Lego figures manual. The second aspect of the defense lawyer’s job is to look in the Lego manual and see if there are any figures that the defendant can construct – we’ll call them defender-Legos – that, once put together like the little booklet requires, can ―trump‖ the plaintiff’s case. In the language of the law, these are called “affirmative defenses.” If, as a defendant, you can put together one of these, just like it says in the manual, you can win the case even if plaintiff has put together a total valid cases, with all its pieces intact, just like the book says. The plaintiff, in turn, will try to show that there are flaws in the defendant’s ―defender Lego,‖ either that it’s missing a factual piece (like a Lego leg), or that the structure the defendant has built isn’t really in the Lego manual at all – it’s not, in other words, a ―legally cognizable defense.‖ C. So, let’s take another look at Meints, and figure out how this weird Legos thing maps onto the dispute in that case. What ―cause of action‖ – what Lego figure – was Meints trying to construct? – – Conspiracy False Imprisonment (Can’t be sure, there may have been others. We would have to see his 9 complaint to be sure, but we know for sure that he was trying to build a ―False Imprisonment Lego. Let’s focus on that one. Cause of Action / Claim for Relief = False Imprisonment What are the ―Essential Elements‖ of the Cause of Action, ―False Imprisonment?‖ 1. 2. 3. 4. Restraint on locomotion By force or threat (in other words, without consent) For an appreciable period of time; and Without justification (This is actually an affirmative defense). Is this a criminal cause of action or a civil cause of action? (Could be either. Many torts (civil causes of action for personal injury) are also crimes (indictable offenses). Where was the action in the Eighth Circuit’s analysis? 1. Second essential element – What constitutes, or does not constitute, ―consent?‖ Also some discussion of the third element, which is actually an affirmative defense – Perceived disloyalty in a war is not a legally cognizable justification for mob violence. 2. D. If you understand that every civil case, at its core, revolves around certain substantive causes of action or claims for relief, and if you know what the essential elements of those causes of action are, eventually everything will fall into place. When briefing cases in torts (or any substantive course for that matter), first thing to do, after figuring out who the parties are, and getting some sense of the underlying factual narrative – is to identify the causes of action on which the plaintiff was suing. Once you have these causes of action identified, the next thing to do is to figure out what the essential elements of each one is. You can generally find that information somewhere in the opinion. E. 10 Then, when you go about trying to articulate the issue in the case, figure out which essential element (or elements) was implicated in the appeal. Same thing in criminal law – Crimes have elements and affirmative defenses. Parse them out first, and use them to figure out what’s going on in the case. F. This explains why some facts are relevant to the court’s analysis and others are not. If the legal issue the appellate court is grappling with is about one element, than only facts that relate to that particular element are going to be relevant to the legal analysis. Other facts, no matter how horrible, no matter how much outrage they evoke in you, are not legally relevant to the issue the court is analyzing. Source of much emotional pain in law school. Trick is to learn how to channel the outrage in ways that are sound as a matter of legal analysis. F. Back to Meints... 1. Is Meints’ claim for relief (false imprisonment) a creature of state law, or a creature of federal law? (State law of tort) 2. How is it that he’s suing in federal court? (Diversity of citizenship) Federal courts are courts of ―limited jurisdiction.‖ Can’t take any old case into federal court. IV. Relating All This to Stages of a Civil Case A. Most of the opinions you will read in law school have been written by state of federal supreme courts. This gives you a view of the case from the ―top down.‖ Civil procedure, to a great extent, and civil litigation practice to an even greater extent, involves working with cases from the ―bottom up.‖ 11 B. So, to understand what's going on in civil procedure, not to mention in practice, it is helpful to have a conceptual sense of how a case proceeds through commencement to conclusion. You will have a better and better sense of this as we proceed through the course, but it will help you put things into context by having a broad overview of it now. NEXT SLIDE: THE STAGES OF A CIVIL LAWSUIT (Lecture done directly from slide) 12