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Civil Procedure

Scott Dodson

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction And Venue Transfer, Scott Dodson Dec 2018

Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction And Venue Transfer, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

Personal jurisdiction usually focuses on the rights of the defendant. That is because a plaintiff implicitly consents to personal jurisdiction in the court where the plaintiff chooses to file. But what if the defendant seeks to transfer venue to a court in a state in which the plaintiff has no contacts and never consented to personal jurisdiction? Lower courts operate on the assumption that, in both ordinary venue-transfer cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) and multidistrict-litigation cases under § 1407(a), personal-jurisdiction concerns for plaintiffs simply do not apply. I contest that assumption. Neither statute expands the statutory authorization of federal-court …

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Beyond Bias In Diversity Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson Dec 2018

Beyond Bias In Diversity Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

The long-running debate over the propriety and proper scope of diversity jurisdiction has always centered on the traditional justification for diversity jurisdiction: the need to avoid actual or perceived state-court bias against out-of-state parties. Supporters of diversity jurisdiction assert that such bias continues to justify diversity jurisdiction, while opponents argue that it does not. In my view, both sides have it wrong. Supporters are wrong that out-of-state bias and its perception are sufficient to justify diversity jurisdiction today. Yet opponents are wrong that the lack of bias supports the abolition or extreme restriction of diversity jurisdiction. The problem is the …

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Jurisdiction In The Trump Era, Scott Dodson Dec 2017

Jurisdiction In The Trump Era, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

The next four years—and perhaps beyond—are likely to solidify two recent trends in jurisdictional doctrine favoring defense interests. First, the narrowing of personal jurisdiction has given defendants more opportunities to secure home-state advantage and, as an ancillary matter, hinder plaintiff-friendly aggregation. This narrowing is likely to continue in light of President Trump’s judicial appointments and the disinclination of Congress and rulemakers to expand personal jurisdiction in federal court. Second, recent expansions of diversity jurisdiction allow defendants to invoke favorable federal procedures and interstate venue transfer. Despite longstanding calls to reduce the scope of diversity jurisdiction, Congress is trending in the …

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Personal Jurisdiction And Aliens, Scott Dodson, William Dodge Dec 2017

Personal Jurisdiction And Aliens, Scott Dodson, William Dodge

Scott Dodson

The increasing prevalence of noncitizens in U.S. civil litigation raises a fundamental question for the doctrine of personal jurisdiction: how should the alienage status of a defendant affect personal jurisdiction? This fundamental question comes at a time of increasing Supreme Court focus on personal jurisdiction, in cases like Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, Daimler AG v. Bauman, and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro. We aim to answer that question by offering a theory of alienage personal jurisdiction. Under this theory, alienage status broadens the geographic range for minimum contacts from a single state to the whole …

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Personal Jurisdiction And Aggregation, Scott Dodson Dec 2017

Personal Jurisdiction And Aggregation, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

Aggregation—the ability to join parties or claims in a federal civil lawsuit—has usually been governed by subject-matter jurisdiction, claim and issue preclusion, and the joinder rules. These doctrines have tended to favor aggregation because of its efficiency, consistency, and predictability. Yet aggregation is suddenly under attack from a new threat, one that has little to do with aggregation directly: personal jurisdiction. In this Article, I chronicle how a recent restrictive turn to personal jurisdiction—especially though modern cases narrowing general jurisdiction and last Term’s blockbuster case Bristol-Myers Squibb—threatens the salutary benefits of aggregation across a number of areas, including simple …

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Joint And Several Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson, Philip Pucillo Dec 2015

Joint And Several Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson, Philip Pucillo

Scott Dodson

Is federal diversity jurisdiction case-specific or claim-specific? Consider a state-law case in federal court between a Texas plaintiff and two defendants—one from California and the other from Texas. The complete-diversity rule taught to every first-year law student makes clear that, when the diversity defect is noted, the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the action as a whole. The court cannot, therefore, proceed with either claim as long as the nondiverse claim remains. But does the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction nevertheless extend to the diverse claim, such that the case can continue if the spoiler is dismissed? This question is both pervasive …

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Atlantic Marine And The Future Of Party Preference, Scott Dodson Dec 2014

Atlantic Marine And The Future Of Party Preference, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

In Atlantic Marine, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a prelitigation forum-selection agreement does not make an otherwise proper venue improper. Prominent civil procedure scholars have questioned the wisdom and accuracy of this holding. This paper is derived from my presentation at the symposium on Atlantic Marine held at UC Hastings College of the Law on September 19, 2014. In this paper, I defend Atlantic Marine as essentially correct based on what I have elsewhere called the principle of party subordinance. I go further, however, to argue that the principle underlying Atlantic Marine could affect the widespread private market for …

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Pleading And The Litigation Marketplace, Scott Dodson Dec 2014

Pleading And The Litigation Marketplace, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

In this essay derived from a lecture delivered at the University of Genoa in 2013, I situate the New Pleading regime of Twombly and Iqbal in the American litigation marketplace. Courts and parties are undoubtedly affected by New Pleading. But, as rational actors, they also are responsive to it. Their responsive behaviors both mitigate the expected effects of New Pleading and cause unintended effects. Assessing New Pleading requires understanding and consideration of these market forces and reactive implications.

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Mapping Supreme Court Doctrine: Civil Pleading, Scott Dodson, Colin Starger Dec 2013

Mapping Supreme Court Doctrine: Civil Pleading, Scott Dodson, Colin Starger

Scott Dodson

This essay, adapted from the video presentation available at http://vimeo.com/89845875, graphically depicts the genealogy and evolution of federal civil pleading standards in U.S. Supreme Court opinions over time. We show that the standard narrative—of a decline in pleading liberality from Conley to Twombly to Iqbal—is complicated by both progenitors and progeny. We therefore offer a fuller picture of the doctrine of Rule 8 pleading that ought to be of use to judges and practitioners in federal court. We also hope to introduce a new visual format for academic scholarship that capitalizes on the virtues of narration, graphics, mapping, online accessibility, …

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Party Subordinance In Federal Litigation, Scott Dodson Dec 2013

Party Subordinance In Federal Litigation, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

American civil litigation in federal courts operates under a presumption of party dominance. Parties choose the lawsuit structure, factual predicates, and legal arguments, and the court accepts these choices. Further, parties enter ubiquitous ex ante agreements that purport to alter the law governing their dispute, along with a chorus of calls for even more party-driven customization of litigation. The assumption behind this model of party dominance is that parties substantially control both the law that will govern their dispute and the judges that oversee it. This Article challenges that assumption by offering a reoriented model of party subordinance. Under my …

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Amicus Brief In Support Of Neither Party In Sebelius V. Auburn Reg. Med. Ctr., No. 11-1231, Scott Dodson Aug 2012

Amicus Brief In Support Of Neither Party In Sebelius V. Auburn Reg. Med. Ctr., No. 11-1231, Scott Dodson

Scott Dodson

This amicus brief in support of neither party in the merits case of Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, No. 11-1231, urges the Supreme Court to decide the question presented (whether 42 U.S.C. § 1395oo(a)(3) permits equitable tolling) without resort to jurisdictional labels.

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Structuring Jurisdictional Rules And Standards, Scott Dodson, Elizabeth Mccuskey Dec 2011

Structuring Jurisdictional Rules And Standards, Scott Dodson, Elizabeth Mccuskey

Scott Dodson

This essay, for Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc, critically assesses Jonathan Remy Nash’s article, "On the Efficient Deployment of Rules and Standards to Define Federal Jurisdiction," which proposes to use rules to demarcate jurisdictional boundaries at the front end while "migrating" standards into a discretionary abstention phase at the back end. While we believe Nash's cause is worthy, and while we applaud his creativity, we think his proposal suffers from ambiguous definitions of “rules” and “standards” and assumes that clear and simple “rules” are actually attainable in jurisdictional doctrine. We also show that Nash's proposal works only with a broad …

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