Civil Procedure Class Notes
Venue:
what is it?
Venue
specifies a specific court within a jurisdiction where parties can
litigate. For example, let’s say you
know you have jurisdiction in
We
will look at the federal venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391, as
a model for all venue statutes.
The
structure of the statute
Part
(a) deals with diversity-only claims.
Part (b) deals with not-diversity, or “federal question”-type
cases. Part (c) is a special provision
for corporate defendants. Part (d) is
all about aliens. Parts (e) and (f) are
all about governments.
The
defendant is in the Southern District of New York. The product was designed in
Depending
on the operative issue, we might be able to get venue in
There
is a rule that is not in the statute: “Venue for one is venue for all.” The exception is in the case that follows,
where even though the venue is appropriate for the foreign defendants, it may
not be appropriate for the domestic defendants.
Say
the plaintiff sues one defendant in the Southern District of New York, and
another who lives in
In
regard to corporations, § 1391(c) says that venue basically collapses into personal
jurisdiction.
How
about a Canadian suing a Californian over a car accident in
How
about the Californian suing the Canadian?
An alien can be sued in any district under § 1391(d). So okay, yay!
Is this unfair? Why won’t we try
to be fair to foreigners? Isn’t this
rule incompatible with our principles of personal jurisdiction? Where is the convenience test here?
The
answer is: just because the alien defendant can be sued in any district doesn’t
mean there will be personal jurisdiction over them in any district. This is analogous to the provision that collapses
venue and personal jurisdiction for corporations.
Dee-K Enterprises, Inc. v.
Heveafil Sdn. Bhd.
What
is this case about? It’s about bungee
cord! There is an allegation of an
international cartel jacking up the price of bungee cord thread. Yeazell leaves out a critical part of the
case, according to Fairman.
Two
American companies sue some Malaysian, Indonesian, and Thai corporations as
well as their American distributors. The
distributors are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the foreign corporations. There are lots and lots of people involved
here.
There
are challenges to both jurisdiction and venue.
Yeazell omits the jurisdictional argument, but we’ll consider it.
Jurisdiction
in Dee-K
In
a diversity action, we would use state law.
However, in this international anti-trust case, they look to the federal
statute, which is the Clayton Act.
We
can also look at FRCP Rule 4(k)(2),
which has a provision for defendants without contacts with any one state
sufficient to constitute jurisdiction.
How
was Bakrie served? Did it get proper
notice? Because
So
Bakrie’s service satisfied the “long-arm” statutes, such as they are. What about Due Process? Could we get general jurisdiction? We rarely can, and definitely cannot in this
case. It will be specific jurisdiction. We must do a contacts analysis.
What
test do we use for minimum contacts given that Bakrie is a manufacturer that
makes goods for the
Venue
in Dee-K
Where
will we have venue over the foreign defendants?
The Clayton Act said something, but so did § 1391. It turns out that the Supreme Court has ruled
that § 1391 trumps the Clayton Act. §
1391(d) gives you venue over aliens anywhere you’d like. Venue is easy for the aliens.
What
about for the
The
court says that Congress must not have intended the foreign defendants to “pull”
the domestic defendants into a particular venue. Therefore, the court “punts” the case back
down to a lower court to get more information.
Even
though there is a broad provision about aliens in the FRCP, courts make
you work through the domestic defendant analysis first, and you can’t use §
1391(d) as a trump card.
Tomorrow,
we will conclude venue and move on to forum non conveniens.