Civil Procedure Practice Mini Midterm

1. Borrower and Guarantor, two individuals domiciled in Rhode Island, sued Bank, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in New York, in federal court, asserting only State law claims. Borrower’s claim against Bank was for $100,000, and Guarantor’s claim against Bank was for $25,000. Both claims arose out of the same loan transaction. Which of the following best describes the status of the federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over these claims?

2. Condominium was built near a scenic patch of the Florida Everglades, with an attached fishing pier that extended far out into the water. When Condominium noticed that certain of the pier’s pilings had deteriorated, it hired workers to reset the pilings. Federal environmental officials ordered the repairs stopped, insisting that the replacement pilings violated recently enacted federal wetlands laws. Condominium hired Attorney to resist the federal stop-work order, but Attorney lost the case and the entire fishing pier had to be dismantled. Condominium later sued Attorney for legal malpractice (a State law claim), faulting the Attorney for failing to argue in the earlier wetlands litigation that federal law should have entitled Condominium to a “grandfathering” exemption from all newly enacted pier laws. Condominium brought its lawsuit in Florida federal court. Condominium invoked the court’s federal question jurisdiction authority. Upon testing its jurisdiction over the Condominium’s legal malpractice claim against Attorney, what is the court most likely to do?

5. The plaintiff, a New York citizen, brings an action in federal district court alleging that the defendant, also a New York citizen, agreed to purchase his home and subsequently refused to go forward with the deal. The defendant’s answer admits that he refused to buy the home but alleges that because the plaintiff had lied in certain representations about the home contained in a federally required disclosure form, the deal was unenforceable under the governing federal disclosure statute. Does the court have subject matter jurisdiction?

7. A Rhode Island plaintiff brings a $250,000 tort claim in federal court in Missouri against a Missouri defendant and a $170,000 tort claim against a Rhode Island defendant. The Rhode Island defendant responds by filing an unrelated $60,000 breach of contract claim against the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s father, a citizen of Missouri. The Rhode Island defendant files an unrelated $50,000 breach of contract claim against the Missouri defendant.

Does the court have subject matter jurisdiction over the Rhode Island defendant’s claim against the plaintiff’s father?

9. C is a carpenter who lives in Vermont and works out of his home there. In addition to his Vermont customers, he has some customers across the border in New York, and some in Massachusetts. Last year, he built a garage for a New York customer and put an addition on another New Yorker’s house. This was about five percent of his construction business for the year, which is about the average for his New York business each year. While driving to a job in Massachusetts, C has an accident, in Massachusetts, with M, from New York. M brings suit against C for his injuries in a New York state court.

10. C traveled to Paris, Texas, on vacation. While shopping at a local department store there (a “mom and pop” establishment that has never advertised outside of Texas), he was wrongfully detained and searched. Back home in Virginia, C filed suit against the store. Can a Virginia court constitutionally assert jurisdiction over C’s claim against the Texas store?