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ph14

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:10 pm

ilovesf wrote:
crossarmant wrote:
ph14 wrote:
crossarmant wrote: Now how does this work if such an assertion is a compulsory counterclaim? Fed courts have exclusive JDX over FQ issues, wouldn't that allow for removal?
Fed courts have exclusive jurisdiction over certain special actions (patents, etc.). Federal and state courts have concurrent subject matter jurisdiction over a federal question case.

So I think (correct me if i'm wrong), what you are asking is how would this would if a plaintiff sued a defendant for a state law claim, and the defendant asserted a compulsory counterclaim with a cause of action under which federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

I have no idea how that would work out. My only thought really is that under the Grable 3 part test to see if a state law claim can have federal question jurisdiction, then you would probably have federal jurisdiction under that test if the counterclaim is compulsory.
PH, god of CivPro, yeah, Grabel case. I had forgotten about this one.

Edit: Wait, going over it now it doesn't seem quite right. The Fed issue in Grabel is in the cause of action, as well as a defense. What if a suit is based on a mere breach of contract, but say someone counterclaims with a federal question as a matter of law, can they remove to federal court? I didn't think that state court has concurrent JDX over FQ issues... maybe I'm wrong, CivPro is my shaky class.
Look at my link - you can't.
Okay I was talking about 2 different things. Just to be a little clearer:

You can't remove unless the plaintiff could have brought the claim there originally, looking only to the plaintiff's well-pleaded complaint. So if a P sued a D on a state cause of action and the D counterclaims with a federal question defense, that couldn't have been brought there originally so it can't be removed.

But:

According to Grable, a state law claim can have federal question jurisdiction (rarely), if it satisfies the 3 part test. What I was hypothesizing was that, if the defendant could have properly asserted a compulsory counterclaim based on an exclusive federal jurisdiction (patent, copyright) then perhaps the plaintiff's claim would satisfy that test, meaning that it could have been brought there originally and thus removed. Anyways, not sure if that is right, and I have no idea how it plays out with exclusive federal question jurisdiction. So anyways, ignore all discussion regarding an exclusive federal compulsory counterclaim. I don't think it would be likely to come up on an exam.

But I am pretty sure you could do something like this:

Plaintiff sued Defendant on a state law cause of action. Defendant counterclaims with a federal question defense. If this is the rare case where the Grable 3 part test, you can get federal question jurisdiction over the plaintiff's state law claim, and therefore it could have been brought in federal court originally, and thus it could be removed there. So I think there is a small number of situations where a plaintiff pleads a state law claim but you can still remove.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by crossarmant » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:18 pm

ph14 wrote:Okay I was talking about 2 different things. Just to be a little clearer:

You can't remove unless the plaintiff could have brought the claim there originally, looking only to the plaintiff's well-pleaded complaint. So if a P sued a D on a state cause of action and the D counterclaims with a federal question defense, that couldn't have been brought there originally so it can't be removed.

But:

According to Grable, a state law claim can have federal question jurisdiction (rarely), if it satisfies the 3 part test. What I was hypothesizing was that, if the defendant could have properly asserted a compulsory counterclaim based on an exclusive federal jurisdiction (patent, copyright) then perhaps the plaintiff's claim would satisfy that test, meaning that it could have been brought there originally and thus removed. Anyways, not sure if that is right, and I have no idea how it plays out with exclusive federal question jurisdiction. So anyways, ignore all discussion regarding an exclusive federal compulsory counterclaim. I don't think it would be likely to come up on an exam.

But I am pretty sure you could do something like this:

Plaintiff sued Defendant on a state law cause of action. Defendant counterclaims with a federal question defense. If this is the rare case where the Grable 3 part test, you can get federal question jurisdiction over the plaintiff's state law claim, and therefore it could have been brought in federal court originally, and thus it could be removed there. So I think there is a small number of situations where a plaintiff pleads a state law claim but you can still remove.
Thanks... God, I'm out of it... I've been busting my ass at CivPro for 8 hours straight and I think I'm starting to crack. I should go home and rest, I've got a BarBri Torts lecture at 10 on the other side of town...

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ilovesf » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:20 pm

Ohh ok, we didn't study the Grable? case and didn't talk about this, I'm in the clear.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:22 pm

ilovesf wrote:Ohh ok, we didn't study the Grable? case and didn't talk about this, I'm in the clear.
Yeah, don't worry about it then.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by sknight323 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:25 pm

Oh, fellow 1Ls: wearing ear plugs during the exam was a huge help for me. I took them out for a second and heard everybody else furiously typing away and flipping papers. Man I would have gone nuts if I hadn't had them. Maybe just a pet peeve of mine, but if you're like me and like quiet, I would seriously consider them.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:25 pm

sknight323 wrote:Oh, fellow 1Ls: wearing ear plugs during the exam was a huge help for me. I took them out for a second and heard everybody else furiously typing away and flipping papers. Man I would have gone nuts if I hadn't had them. Maybe just a pet peeve of mine, but if you're like me and like quiet, I would seriously consider them.
Thanks for the tip.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by TheFutureLawyer » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:34 pm

I feel so unprepared that I feel a bit nauseous.

Then again, I've also had a bit of the runs and a sore throat... so I might just be a bit sick. Which would suck, because I'm also extremely unprepared (though I still have about 30 hrs of study time for each exam).

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by Extension_Cord » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:51 pm

I had my torts exam today, it was shocker. Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long, it was a beast considering we only had 3 hours to work on it. Everyone gasped when they saw the test laid out infront of them. I just read through it and started typing for a full 2 hours and fifteen minutes without stop. Overall I felt like I covered the issues, but because of the time limitations Im worried my professor will think I got lazy because I didn't give the entire run down on torts if I had already discussed them. I kind of just said, "This negligence claim is similar to A v. B claim above, but is different in the causation because..." Like I didn't discuss duty and breach because it was the same. Pretty concerned over what kind of impact it will have on my score. After the test everyone said they felt good which makes me uneasy because so did I. However most of them said they only have 2 issues, with only a handful having more than 3. The call of the question was something like "discuss all tort claims A might have, and also the claims C might have." From what I can tell people focused on two torts (a negligence and a IIED claim), but I had 3 negligence, and 3 intentional tort claims. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not because some of them were stretches but I just discussed all potential claims. I know I missed one issue, but I ran out of time, kind of beating myself up about it. This exam was not like the hypos my professor recommended to us, which had like 50 torts in them, I think this threw us all off. It really only had 1 obvious tort claims in the 10 pages, really bizarre. Because of this I had to really nit pick at the facts and discuss possible claims that will fail. I had between 4,500 and 5,000 words typed.

Completely in the dark on how this will be graded.
Last edited by Extension_Cord on Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by 071816 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:53 pm

Extension_Cord wrote:Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long
:shock:

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by AlexanderSupertramp » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:55 pm

Extension- That is fucking crazy,dude! That's not a fact pattern, it's a novella!I think you're probably good with what you did. I know on my midterm (yeah, different school, diff. prof) I wrote stuff like "battery was defined above" and "intent was defined above" and that was fine for where I'd already discussed that particular tort.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:55 pm

chimp wrote:
Extension_Cord wrote:Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long
:shock:

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ilovesf » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:56 pm

Extension_Cord wrote:I had my torts exam today, it was shocker. Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long, it was a beast considering we only had 3 hours to work on it. Everyone gasped when they saw the test laid out infront of them. I just read through it and started typing for a full 2 hours and fifteen minutes without stop. Overall I felt like I covered the issues, but because of the time limitations Im worried my professor will think I got lazy because I didn't give the entire run down on torts if I had already discussed them. I kind of just said, "This negligence claim is similar to A v. B claim above, but is different in the causation because..." Like I didn't discuss duty and breach because it was the same. Pretty concerned over what kind of impact it will have on my score. After the test everyone said they felt good which makes me uneasy because so did I. However most of them said they only have 2 issues, with only a handful having more than 3. The call of the question was something like "discuss all tort claims A might have, and also the claims C might have." From what I can tell people focused on two torts (a negligence and a IIED claim), but I had 3 negligence, and 3 intentional tort claims. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not because some of them were stretches but I just discussed all potential claims. I know I missed one issue, but I ran out of time, kind of beating myself up about it. This exam was not like the hypos my professor recommended to us, which had like 50 torts in them, I think this threw us all off. It really only had 1 obvious tort claims in the 10 pages, really bizarre. Because of this I had to really nit pick at the facts and discuss possible claims that will fail. I had between 4,500 and 5,000 words typed.

Completely in the dark on how this will be graded.
That sucks, sorry. I'm pretty sure though that if your friends only found 2 torts claims in 10 pages, they're probably doing something wrong.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by crossarmant » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:05 am

chimp wrote:
Extension_Cord wrote:Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long
:shock:
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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by Extension_Cord » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:06 am

It was her first time teaching, maybe thats the reason for it.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by TheFutureLawyer » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:14 am

crossarmant wrote:
chimp wrote:
Extension_Cord wrote:Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long
:shock:
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+1.

Also; At GMU Law, puppies ease the stress of law school finals

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by $peppercorn » Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:17 am

ph14 wrote:
chimp wrote:
Extension_Cord wrote:Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long
:shock:
+1.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by jarv1506 » Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:53 am

Extension_Cord wrote:I had my torts exam today, it was shocker. Our fact pattern turned out to be 10 full single spaced pages long, it was a beast considering we only had 3 hours to work on it. Everyone gasped when they saw the test laid out infront of them. I just read through it and started typing for a full 2 hours and fifteen minutes without stop. Overall I felt like I covered the issues, but because of the time limitations Im worried my professor will think I got lazy because I didn't give the entire run down on torts if I had already discussed them. I kind of just said, "This negligence claim is similar to A v. B claim above, but is different in the causation because..." Like I didn't discuss duty and breach because it was the same. Pretty concerned over what kind of impact it will have on my score. After the test everyone said they felt good which makes me uneasy because so did I. However most of them said they only have 2 issues, with only a handful having more than 3. The call of the question was something like "discuss all tort claims A might have, and also the claims C might have." From what I can tell people focused on two torts (a negligence and a IIED claim), but I had 3 negligence, and 3 intentional tort claims. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing or not because some of them were stretches but I just discussed all potential claims. I know I missed one issue, but I ran out of time, kind of beating myself up about it. This exam was not like the hypos my professor recommended to us, which had like 50 torts in them, I think this threw us all off. It really only had 1 obvious tort claims in the 10 pages, really bizarre. Because of this I had to really nit pick at the facts and discuss possible claims that will fail. I had between 4,500 and 5,000 words typed.

Completely in the dark on how this will be graded.
:shock: dude, 10 pages is a wee bit excessive. i wouldn't stress too much though. I think most of us have a tendency to finish an exam talk to 1 or 2 people and immediately feel like we blew it. you took it, it's over, and you can't change it now. You should also take into account that few 1L's will publicly state that they felt bad about their exam. Finally, it appears that scoring well on exams has as much to do with how well you write and know the law as it does with what the professor ate for breakfast that morning. Bottom line: I'm going to say, without any evidence or reasoning whatsoever, that you probably rocked the shit out of that exam, your professor will probably read your answer to all her dorky professor friends, and then pleasure herself to the very idea of such a brilliant student answer. I just find it easier to be a delusional optimist. In january when grades come out, we can all be realists.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by beachbum » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:08 am

Guys. Noise-cancelling headphones are the greatest things ever. I had no idea what I was missing.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by lisjjen » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:18 am

I feel like my brain is turning to paste when I study for CivPro. The good news is our test is multiple choice. The bad news is that 18/40 was the A+ last year.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by r6_philly » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:41 am

lisjjen wrote:I feel like my brain is turning to paste when I study for CivPro. The good news is our test is multiple choice. The bad news is that 18/40 was the A+ last year.
I would actually take that as the good news as well.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ilovesf » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:58 am

r6_philly wrote:
lisjjen wrote:I feel like my brain is turning to paste when I study for CivPro. The good news is our test is multiple choice. The bad news is that 18/40 was the A+ last year.
I would actually take that as the good news as well.
Yeah, I would be stoked by that! My civpro test is half multiple choice, half essay.. I kind of wish it were all multiple choice.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:10 pm

Clarification question: I thought amount in controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction was calculated exclusive of interest and costs. In acing it says that you can aggregate principal and interest owed on a debt to reach the amount in controversy requirement. So is that just an exception to the general rule that AIC is calculated exclusive of interest and costs?

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by thegrayman » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:24 pm

ph14 wrote:Clarification question: I thought amount in controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction was calculated exclusive of interest and costs. In acing it says that you can aggregate principal and interest owed on a debt to reach the amount in controversy requirement. So is that just an exception to the general rule that AIC is calculated exclusive of interest and costs?
that is my understanding. courts are allowed to play loose with the rules as well.

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by thegrayman » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:25 pm

Res Judicata question

for a judgment "on the merits," are there hard rules for what is and is not a judgment on the merits?

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Re: 1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread

Post by ph14 » Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:26 pm

thegrayman wrote:
ph14 wrote:Clarification question: I thought amount in controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction was calculated exclusive of interest and costs. In acing it says that you can aggregate principal and interest owed on a debt to reach the amount in controversy requirement. So is that just an exception to the general rule that AIC is calculated exclusive of interest and costs?
that is my understanding. courts are allowed to play loose with the rules as well.
Do you have a source you can cite?

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