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Law Outlines Conflict of Laws Outline - Kay, Kramer & Roosevelt Outlines

Conflicts Outline 2015 04 24 Outline

Updated Conflicts Outline 2015 04 24 Notes

Conflict of Laws Outline - Kay, Kramer & Roosevelt Outlines

Conflict of Laws Outline - Kay, Kramer & Roosevelt

Approximately 37 pages

Extremely detailed outlined made for Conflict of Laws. Based off the book by Kay, Kramer & Roosevelt, but covers all of the topics covered in any Conflict of Laws or Choice of Law class. Specifically targets the forks in the issues, and provides ways to argue both sides of a particular issue. Maximize your exam points!...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Conflict of Laws Outline - Kay, Kramer & Roosevelt Outlines. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Conflicts Outline

Spring 2015, Collins

Contents

Introduction 3

Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments (Full Faith and Credit) 3

Constitutional Obligation of Sister States to Enforce Judgments 3

Exceptions to Full Faith and Credit 4

Judicial Choice of Law Methods 6

Traditional Choice of Law Methodology (First Restatement) 6

Choice of Law and Marriage (DOMA) 7

Wrinkles Within Traditional Theory (Escape Devices) 7

Characterization 7

Applying the Procedural Rules of the Forum State 8

Door Closing Rules 9

Renvoi 10

Governmental Interest Analysis 11

False Conflicts 12

The Neumeir Rules 13

True Conflicts 14

Tie Goes to the Forum 15

Party Expectations 15

Comparative Impairment 16

“The Unprovided For Case” 17

The Second Restatement 17

Second Restatement Analysis Example [Tooker v. Lopez] 20

Bad Applications of the Second Restatement 21

Possible Statutory Solutions to Choice of Law Questions 22

Choice of Law Provisions 23

Second Restatement: Choice of Law Clauses in Contracts 24

Applying the Second Restatement to Choice of Law Clauses in Contracts 25

Choice of Forum Clauses 25

State and Federal Court Coordination 26

Substantive/Procedural Distinctions in Federal Courts for Erie (Klaxon Rule) 26

Mass Tort Multi District Litigation 28

Constitutional Limits on Choice of Law 29

Historical Due Process Limitation 29

Early Full Faith and Credit 30

Modern Convergence of a Single DP/FFC Standard 31

(Constitutional?) Limitations on Door Closing Rules and Forum Exclusivity 33

Article 4’s Privileges and Immunities Clause 35

The Special Problem of Divorce 36

Introduction

If federal law applies in some fashion, that law is going to apply (as a matter of the Supremacy Clause), there is no choice of law to consider.

  • So, this class surrounds instances in which federal law has not stepped into the picture to preempt state law

    • Also, sometimes there is a federal law which says which state’s law applies to a particular transaction, which would also make our life easy

    • However, most choice of law rules are STATE choice of law rules (CL rules usually that say which state law applies when brought before a court in this state

  • Four Components of Conflict of Laws:

    • (1) Personal Jurisdiction (not doing this)

    • (2) Choice of Law

    • (3) Constitutional Limitations on Choice of Law

    • (4) Constitutional obligation of sister states to enforce judgments [this is our starting point]

Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments (Full Faith and Credit)

§1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts [laws of sister states], Records and judicial proceedings [judgments] of every other State. And Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceeds shall be proved, and the Effect thereof [Congress has the legislative power to decree the interstate effects of one state’s laws, records and judgments]

Constitutional Obligation of Sister States to Enforce Judgments

FFC requires states to give the same credit to sister state judgments that the state rendering would give it (if it would give it no credit, then no credit need to be given), EVEN IF the judgment was made on a clear misapplication of sister-state law. There is NO public policy objection to enforcing sister state judgments [Fauntleroy v. Lum]

  • A PP objection CAN be raised, however, to foreign COUNTRY judgments sought to be enforced in a US court

  • If you are in a Missouri court and you think they misapplied Mississippi law (like in Fanutleroy), you can apply up the ladder through the Missouri courts and argue that the lower court misapplied Mississippi law.

    • If you apply up through the Missouri courts and still no avail , very little opportunity to get SCOTUS jurisdiction – available only if “the misconstruction contradicted the law of the other state that is CLEARLY ESTABLISHED” [Wester Life v. Rupp] (but a state court decision has NEVER been overturned on this ground]

      • This does mean that there may be limited opportunity for SCOTUS to police for egregious error in a state court w/r/t to state law, but there is still NO POSSIBILITY for an enforcing court to raise an “egregious error of law” defense

  • Note that this only applies to cases in which a judgment has already been entered. A state CAN CLOSE ITS DOORS by virtue of a public policy objection “in the first instance” and just refuse to hear the case.

Process to get your judgment recognized by a sister-state court:

  • (1) File a suit to have the judgment recognized

  • (2) Ask the court to enforce the judgment

**some states have Revised Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Act – essentially short-circuits the above process and allows a litigant with a judgment to skip step (1) and go straight to enforcement in the sister state.

Exceptions to Full Faith and Credit

1.) Jurisdictionally Defective Judgments
  • Forum state is allowed to determine if SMJ or PJ was valid in judgment-rendering state whose judgment is sought to be enforced if the issue was NOT LITIGATED in the judgment-rendering state [Adam v Saenger]

    • If SMJ or PJ jurisdiction is actually litigated in F1, even if the ultimate jurisdictional decision was wrong, that will ordinarily be preclusive to the question in F2 [Durfee v. Duke]

      • ***UNLESS F1 law says such is NOT preclusive, b/c F2 is only required to give F1 the same credit F1 would give it, and if it would not give it any credit, then F2 does not have to

    • IF PJ was NOT litigated, but the MERITS were, most states would consider that to be a waiver of the PJ defense and thus perclusive

    • IF SMJ was NOT litigated, but the MERITS were, you have different views FORK:

      • (1) Going to be tough to collaterally attack a federal court that heard the merits but did not litigate SMJ

      • (2) But w/r/t states, if SMJ not litigated in round one, some states allow relitigation even if merits were heard, others do not

  • If the jurisdictional question is litigated in F1, but F2 says screw it and re-litigates the jurisdictional...

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