Michael Green's CivPro Blog

Two Questions about Pleading

James Damon had two good questions about pleading: 

1) I have a simple question about the term "notice pleading." Is this the standard for all modern pleading? If not, what other modern standards of pleading currently exist?

2) I am somewhat curious as to the history of the rules for stating a claim. I know that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted in 1938 (you said this in class), but I wonder whether this is primarily based on an older document/procedure/precedent.

McDonnell

Just quoted in Politico about the McDonnell case. 

A Warning for My New CivPro Class

Class will start on Monday Aug. 26. I intend to use this blog for posting written responses to student questions. (Most questions I'll answer orally, but for particularly interesting or widespread questions, I like to provide written responses.) Later in the semester, you should also find it useful to look at some of the old exam questions and answers posted here to anticipate what the exam will be like. But some of these old questions address material that I won't discuss this semester. Struggling with them won't be helpful. In addition, I strongly discourage you from reading any of these old exam questions until we are sufficiently advanced in the course. I'll let you know when the time comes.

Hard Multiple Choice Question from the 2006 CivPro Exam

2              P, a citizen of Ohio, files a complaint in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against General Motors (a citizen of Michigan and Delaware) and Ford (a citizen of Michigan and Delaware) on behalf of a class of 100 million American urban dwellers, alleging that the defendants violated the Sherman Antitrust Act (a federal statute) and Michigan state antitrust law by conspiring to restrain the development of automobile air pollution mechanisms, thereby polluting the atmosphere of North America and causing the plaintiff class damages of $100 billion dollars (i.e. $1000 for each member of the plaintiff class). The defendants are properly served. Which of the following is most accurate?

a.     The Michigan state antitrust actions should be dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction, since aggregation of plaintiffs’ claims is not allowed to meet the jurisdictional minimum. (Ignore the recently-enacted jurisdictional provisions of the Class Action Fairness Act for this answer.)

b.     Both the federal and the state antitrust actions should be dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction, since aggregation of plaintiffs’ claims is not allowed to meet the jurisdictional minimum. (Ignore the recently-enacted jurisdictional provisions of the Class Action Fairness Act for this answer.)

c.     If P has offered no evidentiary support of his factual allegations of an antitrust conspiracy, his complaint should be dismissed for failure to state a claim.

d.     P’s complaint should be dismissed for failure to satisfy the pleading requirements in Rule 9(b).

e.     P’s Sherman Act action should be dismissed for failure to state a claim, since conspiracy to restrain the development of automobile air pollution mechanisms is not restraint of trade of the sort encompassed by the Sherman Act.