Cause of Action - Civil Procedure - Lecture Slides, Slides of Civil procedure

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what is the procedural power of a court entertaining another sovereign’s cause of action?

e.g. state court entertaining sister state action federal court entertaining state action

P and D (both Pennsylvanians) get into a car accident in Pennsylvania P sues D in state court in Virginia under Pennsylvania law Can the Virginia court use Virginia’s: rule on D’s duty of care? service rule? pleading standard? statute of limitations? rule on who has the burden of proof for contributory negligence?

two possibilities

1. forum must use other sovereign’s law

2. forum has discretion to use its law or not

Borrowing statutes:

The forum state’s statute of limitations incorporates the time period of the state that provides the cause of action to keep plaintiffs from forum shopping

P sues D in diversity in federal court in New York under Pennsylvania state law

• federal constitutional law (5th Amendment, 7 th^ Amendment)
• applies, period

P sues D in diversity in federal court in New York under Pennsylvania state law

• federal statutes
  • 28 U.S.C. 1391 (venue)
• applies if within Congress’s power to regulate the procedure of the federal courts

P sues D in diversity in federal court in New York under Pennsylvania state law

• federal common law procedure
  • claim preclusion, issue preclusion
  • matters not covered by any enacted federal law
• applies if within federal courts’ regulatory power over their own procedure
• and not contrary to any limits Congress might have put upon federal courts Docsity.com

Cities Service Oil Co. v. Dunlap

Can a federal court in Texas entertaining a Texas cause of action come up with its own rule concerning the burden of proof for the Texas action (ignoring the Texas rule)?

Hanna v. Plumer (U.S. 1965)

“When a situation is covered by one of the Federal Rules, the question facing the court is a far cry from the typical, relatively unguided Erie choice: the court has been instructed to apply the Federal Rule, and can refuse to do so only if the Advisory Committee, this Court, and Congress erred in their prima facie judgment that the Rule in question transgresses neither the terms of the Enabling Act nor constitutional restrictions.”

• Congress passes a uniform statute of limitations applicable for all actions in federal court.
• Can the statute be applied in diversity cases?

• Pursuant to the order of a Florida state court (that was ultimately affirmed by the Florida Supreme Court), Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed
• the US SCt denied cert.
• In response, Congress passed Public Law 109-3, “An Act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo.”
• This act allowed Ms. Schiavo's parents to bring an action in federal district court concerning whether their daughter's federal constitutional or statutory rights had been violated as a result of the Florida courts' orders
• constitutional?

“Under the cases construing the scope of the Enabling Act, Rule [4(e)] clearly passes muster. Prescribing the manner in which a defendant is to be notified that a suit has been instituted against him, it relates to the ‘practice and procedure of the district courts.’

‘The test must be whether a rule really regulates procedure,-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.’ Sibbach v. Wilson & Co.”

Could a Fed. R. Civ. P. establish limitations periods for actions?