Using TLB to Teach Civil Procedure (2024 Update)

If you are teaching civil procedure this fall, TLB can help. This post gathers materials that can complement a standard civil procedure course, whether by providing concise overviews of doctrines, helping to track Supreme Court developments, or suggesting recent cases that can spark discussions of perennial procedural issues.

Personal Jurisdiction

TLB has a new primer on personal jurisdiction that can provide a useful summary for 1Ls or serve as a refresher for upper level courses.

TLB also has multiple posts related to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway (2023). If you aren’t planning to assign the Court’s opinion in Mallory, you can assign the TLB summary instead. If you are planning to assign Mallory, Maggie’s Throwback Thursday post on Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites (1982) provides helpful context for Justice Jackson’s concurrence. More materials are available here.

This fall, TLB is watching the recently filed cert petition in Fuld v. PLO, which raises many of the questions left open by Mallory. The Second Circuit held that Congress’s attempt to legislate personal jurisdiction over the PLO and the PA violate the Fifth Amendment, and then it denied rehearing en banc over a vigorous dissent. In addition to asking how far consent-by-statute can go, the case tees up questions about the original meaning of the due process clause and whether there is a difference between personal jurisdiction under the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendment.

If you teach Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, consider assigning John’s Primer on Forum Selection Clauses and his post on using forum selection clauses to assert personal jurisdiction over non-signatories.

TLB’s recent case coverage also provides fertile ground for classroom hypotheticals and discussions:

• How do you establish personal jurisdiction over foreign website operators?
• Is an airline subject to personal jurisdiction at the plaintiff’s place of destination regarding conduct that occurred at the plaintiff’s point of departure?
• Is the “principal place of business” test for general jurisdiction the same as the nerve center test for subject matter jurisdiction? (or as Maggie likes to say, don’t Hertz the Daimler test!)
• How do you apply Rule 4(k)(2)?
• After Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District (2021), can U.S. consumers still sue foreign car manufacturers?

Forum Non Conveniens

If you don’t have time to teach Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno (1981)—or even if you do—consider assigning our Primer on Forum Non Conveniens as a concise summary of the doctrine that also touches on its history and how the federal doctrine differs from state doctrines. This post goes into greater detail about state doctrines of forum non conveniens, which sets up an interesting Erie debate: should state doctrines of forum non conveniens apply in diversity cases? To illustrate the stakes of that question, consider assigning this post as well, which discusses an example of what Zach calls “catch and kill jurisdiction”: Boeing first used snap removal to remove a tort case to federal court despite the forum defendant rule and then got the case dismissed from its home jurisdiction using the federal doctrine of forum non conveniens when the state doctrine likely would not have allowed it to do so.

We also recommend this post on Gore v. U.S. Steel Corp. (1954), the New Jersey Supreme Court case that was the first to allow forum non conveniens dismissals of cases brought against local defendants. The racial context of Gore provides a helpful counterpoint to the Supreme Court’s dismissive characterization of foreign plaintiffs’ claims in Piper.

Choice of Law (Erie)

Speaking of Erie, choice of law is an important building block for 1Ls, yet one that civil procedure professors can’t cover in depth. The TLB Primer on Choice of Law provides a concise introduction to the topic, including an introduction to the major methodologies used by different states. Most casebooks squib Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1941) despite its significance. To explore a bit more the import of Klaxon’s solution—as well as what possible alternatives there might be—consider assigning John Parry’s post on Federal Law and Choice-of-Law Reform.

Other student-friendly posts:

• Further Thoughts About Missouri’s COVID Suit Against China
• Ninth Circuit Decides Cassirer in Favor of Spain
• For more on the Cassirer case, see here and here (noting the California Supreme Court’s refusal to accept a certified question of state law on remand)

Service of Process and Discovery

Service of process and discovery are both good topics for flagging the existence of—and challenges presented by—transnational litigation. Our Primer on Transnational Discovery is an excellent tool in this regard: it concisely introduces readers to the challenges of cross-border discovery and the variety of tools that have developed to address it. You might also assign our Primer on Service of Process, which focuses on the question of how to serve foreign defendants.

Other discussion starters include:

• What are the implications of China’s new data secrecy law for U.S. discovery?
• Is service by email permitted under the Hague Service Convention and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)?
• How should U.S. courts handle Russia’s refusal to fulfill its obligations under the Hague Service Convention?