My flowchart for personal jurisdiction and Erie doctrine. Forum

[Gamecubesupreme]

Please critique or comment this short flowchart that I made for my class.

This is how we're taught for the two topics, so I'm not sure if this might sound weird or not to you guys.

Personal Jurisdiction:

1. Does the long-arm statute of the state apply or not. Only continue if it applies.

2. Is this a general or specific jurisdiction? If General, use the systematic and continuous analysis. If Specific, use minimum contact analysis.

3. Minimum contact analysis include a) purposeful availment (O'Connor and Brennan disagree on their stream of commerce theory), b) whether the act give rise to the suit (this is actually a 9th Circuit criteria that really has to do with differentiating between general and specific jurisdiction) and c) assessing the convenience and reasonableness to hall the defendant into the forum state (includes states' interest, plaintiff's interest, burden on the defendant and judicial efficiency).

Erie Doctrine:

1. Is the source of the law a) federal judge common law, b) Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or c) Congress passed statutes (such as the United States Code) or the Constitution.

2. If a), then proceed with Byrd test (bound up question, twin policy aims or Erie and countervailing federal interests). This is due to the Judiciary Act of 1789.

If b), proceed with Hannah Part II and look to see if the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is pertinent (whether it conflicts with the state law) or valid (if it is arguably procedural and does not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right). This is due to the Rules Enabling Act.

If c), the Rules of Enabling Act won't apply, so only have to answer if the Congress passed statute or Constitution is arguably procedural. If yes, federal law automatically applies (Scalia and Stevens disagree on this).

[BarbellDreams]

Just a coupe of points.

For Personal Jurisdiction I have transient jurisdiction in there, not sure if you guys did Burham or not but if so throw that in there. Also I have purposeful direction directed at the forum state aka Calder Test from Pebble Beach in mine. Our prof heavily used Pebble Beach on his practice exam so I have a section devoted to it.

For Erie, Mine is basically like yours + cases. My first step to everything is if there is a conflict though. The way I see it, if there is no conflict you don't really need to go forward with any test and just apply state law (Walker). Most flowcharts only have the conflict in the federal rule/Hanna 2 analysis, but it seems to me like its relevant everywhere. I have a meeting with my prof about my Erie outline tomorrow to smooth it out. Final is Monday!

[Gamecubesupreme]

Just a coupe of points.

For Personal Jurisdiction I have transient jurisdiction in there, not sure if you guys did Burham or not but if so throw that in there. Also I have purposeful direction directed at the forum state aka Calder Test from Pebble Beach in mine. Our prof heavily used Pebble Beach on his practice exam so I have a section devoted to it.

For Erie, Mine is basically like yours + cases. My first step to everything is if there is a conflict though. The way I see it, if there is no conflict you don't really need to go forward with any test and just apply state law (Walker). Most flowcharts only have the conflict in the federal rule/Hanna 2 analysis, but it seems to me like its relevant everywhere. I have a meeting with my prof about my Erie outline tomorrow to smooth it out. Final is Monday!

Yeah, for transient jurisdiction, we talked about it but our prof told us we won't be tested on it.

As for the Erie doctrine, our professor said something along the lines of the federal judges could interpret the state law narrowly to avoid a conflict, but they will only do that if there is a reason for them to purposefully avoid the conflict. It also wouldn't make sense for him to give us a hypo where there is no conflict between the state and federal law. Otherwise none of the Erie doctrine would apply.

[beach_terror]

Just a sidebar to (c) - to my knowledge, there has never been a case beside Asahi were fairness outweighed MC. Presumably your final will be a domestic parties, in which it's doubtful (c) would ever be at issue because it's unlikely that unfairness would reach the unconstitutional level. So when I analyze PJ problems, I keep a keen eye out for little blurbs about why it would be fair to beef up analysis in that section.

Just from my experience, people gloss over the fairness analysis, but there are some free points to be had there. Freer lectured at my school about this kind of stuff, figured I'd pass it along.

[Gamecubesupreme]

Just from my experience, people gloss over the fairness analysis, but there are some free points to be had there. Freer lectured at my school about this kind of stuff, figured I'd pass it along.

Did he also use that hypo with the race horse and police officer attending the race getting injured?

[beach_terror]

Just from my experience, people gloss over the fairness analysis, but there are some free points to be had there. Freer lectured at my school about this kind of stuff, figured I'd pass it along.

Did he also use that hypo with the race horse and police officer attending the race getting injured?

LOL, yep. Circle police officer, prestigious, and him going to Europe!