Plaintiff files suit against defendant. One year later, plaintiff moves for dismissal for lack of federal jurisdiction. Defendant opposes the motion and cross-moves for summary judgment. Not a typical procedural setting facing the court in Ayenu v. Chevy Chase Bank, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56405 (D. MD. July 31, 2007). The issue: diversity jurisdiction. T ...

The plain error doctrine applies to rulings at trial. It may be invoked on appeal with respect to (1) evidentiary rulings under Federal Rule of Evidence 103(d) (‛ Nothing in this rule precludes taking notice of plain errors affecting substantial rights although they were not brought to the attention of the court“), and (2) jury instructions under Federal Rule o ...

The December 2006 electronic discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure added a safe harbor in Rule 37(f) (soon to be renumbered 37(e)), which reads: Absent exceptional circumstances, a court may not impose sanctions under these rules on a party for failing to provide electronically stored information lost as a result of the ro ...

Is it permissible to copy notes left by jurors in plain sight after they have been discharged? Plaintiffs lost a products liability trial against Ford, in Thomas v. Ford Motor Co., 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 18723 (4th Cir. Aug. 7, 2007). After the jury was discharged, the courtroom clerk asked counsel for both parties to assist in removing exhibits from the jury ...

Removal. Wife and Husband sue defendant in state court for injuries to wife and loss of consortium by husband. Time for removal expires. Husband then sues defendant in state court for injuries to himself arising out of the same events. State court consolidates the two actions. Defendant removes the consolidated action in a timely manner as to the second ...

Who owns the copyright for Superboy was the issue in Siegel v. Time Warner, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56910 (C.D. Cal. July 27, 2007), and the answer turned on the preclusive effect to be given to findings of fact and conclusions of law made in 1948 by a referee appointed by the New York State Supreme Court, Westchester County in a contractual dispute betw ...

The sanctioned lawyer in Reinhardt v. EIU Group, Inc., 489 F.3d 405 (1st Cir. 2007), did not file a paper articulating a frivolous position. On the contrary, the position he advocated was accepted by the district court. But the way he got there earned him a sanction of 10 hours of pro bono representation. The issue was a dispute over clarifying the record. ...

Specific personal jurisdiction is a claim-specific inquiry, and a ‛plaintiff bringing multiple claims that arise out of different forum contacts of the defendant must establish specific jurisdiction for each claim.“ Seiferth v. Helicopteros Atuneros, Inc., 472 F.3d 266, 274 (5th Cir. 2006). The question urged in Sutton v. Advance Aquaculture Sys., In ...

‛The courts are split whether production of documents to Congress waives the attorney-client privilege and work-product protection for those documents,“ District Judge James O. Browning writes in Anaya v CBS Broadcasting, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55164 (D. N.M. April 30, 2007). After citing numerous cases holding that production to Congress pursuant t ...

When Daubert was decided in 1993, it was initially perceived as liberalizing the admissibility of expert evidence — especially novel scientific evidence — because it rejected the strictures of the Frye test. In December 2000, when the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence codified Daubert in Rule 702, the Committee Note obser ...