Good Essay Example (July 2019 Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law)

This lesson presents a real, good response to the July 2019 MEE Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law question. First, read the essay, then listen to the analysis below.

Download the essay as a PDF.

Good Essay

1. Does the court have subject matter jurisdiction over the state law claim raised in the class action?

Subject matter jurisdiction can be either diversity jurisdiction or federal question jurisdiction.

Is federal question jurisdiction? Federal question jurisdiction is when there is a federal issue at stake. In this case, the complaint from the man alleging that his medical records were stolen by a hacker/thief out of trident's database alleges that the court has diversity jurisdiction pursuant to 23 USC 1332. Although State X has a law allowing any person whose private medical information is obtained by an unauthorized third party in any manner to recover actual damages from the health care providers, there is no federal law in question. Because there is no federal law in question, there is no federal question jurisdiction.

Is there diversity jurisdiction? diversity jurisdiction is when the plaintiff and defendant are completely diverse from each other, meaning they are domiciled in different states, and the amount in controversy is over $75,000. in this case, the plaintiff man is domiciled in state X and is a citizen of state X. Plaintiff wants to bring an action against defendant trident in state X. Trident has its corporate headquarters in State X. there is no diversity between the plaintiff and defendant so there is no subject matter jurisdiction is federal district court. If the named representative plaintiff was diverse from the defendant, meaning not domiciled in state X, then there would be subject matter jurisdiction in this class action. You can assume with plaintiff class that has 30,000 patients affected by the breach, that their recovery for $500 per each 30,000 would be well over the amount requirement of $75,000. If the named representative plaintiff was diverse with the defendant, then there would be diversity because the amount in controversy is met. Otherwise, there is not diversity jurisdiction.

2. Does the action fail to allege a claim upon which relief can be granted because of the state law barring class actions to recover statutory damages?

In this case, the state law in state X does not allow recovery of damages for a complaint like this unless the complaint is filed by an individual, not in a class action. The man filed a class action so he cannot recover damages as a class action. The man could file individually. Because the state law of X does not allow recovery for claims in the nature of the complaint filed by the plaintiff. there is not relief that can be granted and the 12(b)(6) motion will most likely be granted.

3. Does the man have standing the bring a statutory claim in federal court? Standing requires injury, causation, and redressability.

Is there an injury? Injury is measured by a concrete injury. the injury cannot be moot (not a live controversy) or overripe. In this case, the man has a concrete injury because his medical records were stored in Trident computers. Although there is no evidence that the thieves have used any of this stolen medical information, laws impose a duty on health care providers to keep patient information private. The laws claim that the invasion of privacy from the data breach causes significant harm to the individuals involved so any person whose private medical information is obtained by an unauthorized third party in any manner may recover actual damages from the healthcare provider. There is most likely an injury here because last December, an unknown person hacked into trident's computer system and obtained the personal medical data that is meant to be private information. The man bringing the suit is one of the people whose medical information was stolen.

It could be argued that there is no injury because other than stolen data, there is no evidence that thieves used any of the medical data. Opponents could argue that the case is not ripe yet because no actual concrete injury as occurred. I think that this counter argument would fail because I think the invasion of privacy itself is the injury.

Is there causation? the injury must be directly caused by the action of the defendant. to be the cause, there must be some sort of causal connection between the injury and the act. in this case, the plaintiff is injured by the stolen medical information from Trident because there is now an invasion of privacy of his personal information that a hacker/thief is now in possession of. there is a connection between plaintiff's injury and the defendant.

Is there redressability? redressability means there must be a way to fix the damages. the claim must be able to be remedied. in this case, a remedy is available because the state statute provides that individuals are entitled to a minimum statutory damage award of $500 to compensate them for the invasion of privacy. this award of damages to compensate those affected constitutes redressability.

There is standing here.

But the issue is if there is standing in federal court. Standing in federal court in a class action suit is lawful when the plaintiffs have. Erie is when you bring a state claim in federal court. this would be governed by federal procedural law and federal substantive law. in this case here is not standing because the federal law does not even mention this issue. the law is not outcome determinative because the state law does not allow recovery of class actions with this type of complaint. there is no standing in federal court.

Analysis of the Sample Essay

Transcript

Now I want to look at an answer that is not as strong as the one from New York, but which still scored very well overall. This one comes to us from the state of Maryland. And I just want to emphasize that even though this one has more problems, the bar examiners from Maryland still provided this as a representative good answer.

So this just underscores the goal of the MEE. We are not aiming for perfection here. Let's be honest, we're not even aiming for excellence. We just want to rack up as many points as possible.

Prompt 1

So, on prompt 1, it starts out with a nice, clear header saying what the issue is: subject matter jurisdiction. So that's good, but then it just basically restates the question instead of giving a conclusion. Remember, we want the first part of our written answer to be a conclusion, that's the first C in our CRAC formula, and ideally a reason as well, something with the word "because" in it. We don't have that here.

So this answer then spends a full paragraph explaining why there's not federal question jurisdiction though, and that's probably not entirely wasted, but certainly the same effort would have earned far more points if it had been expended on class action diversity jurisdiction analysis instead.

Notice that the test taker also misses the special rule that applies to class actions and just applies the standard rules for diversity jurisdiction, that is, it doesn't mention CAFA at all. So, as a result, it doesn't reach the correct answer. But for our purposes, remember, this answer still counted as good, so it can serve as a useful example of how far you can get, even with the wrong rule, just as long as you lay it out clearly and apply it in a logical way.

Prompt 2

Now, let's move on to the second prompt. And remember, the issue here was a matter of Erie. The federal rule should apply instead of the state rule to the contrary. But notice that the test taker just misses that entirely and instead applies a state law.

And let me add here that one of the trickiest parts about Erie questions is just recognizing them for what they are. Anytime that you see a motion that references a particular state law, it'd be helpful to do just a little check and see whether there could be an Erie problem here, that is, could there potentially be a conflict with a federal rule or practice?

Now, the test taker clearly didn't do that, and as we said, missed the fact that this is an Erie question altogether. So again, this is a really good example of picking up some points despite stating the entirely wrong rule. At least the answer applies a rule correctly given the fact pattern.

Prompt 3

Finally, we get to the third prompt, and here the answer makes a much better go of it. So, first, there's a clear statement of the three elements: we've got injury, causation, and redressability. Now, on injury, which is the hardest one of the three here, the discussion notes that the thieves haven't done anything yet with the stolen information, even though there's been a breach of the state law. That's the Spokeo issue that we discussed earlier, and it's pretty impressive that the answer here addresses it so thoroughly.

This test taker also set out the individual elements of standing piece by piece. So, is there causation? Is there redressability? That's a nice way to make sure that your application tracks your rule. So, good job on that.

Now, the last paragraph about standing in federal court is a little hard to figure out. The Erie discussion seems like maybe it was intended to be part of the discussion for prompt 2 instead. And to be honest, it's challenging to make out just what this answer is saying, as the sentences feel a bit disjointed and we get some incorrect statements of law.

So the answer says mistakenly that this would be governed by federal procedural law and federal substantive law as well, when we know that it really meant to say state substantive law. So it's unfortunate that there's this sort of jumbled discussion at the end. But it'll leave the graders with a strong impression, which is what the answer gives in the preceding analysis.

So, stepping back, this answer makes really a number of mistakes. It missed the discussion of CAFA in prompt 1, it missed the Erie problem in prompt 2, and then it added an unnecessary and rather confusing discussion at the end of prompt 3. But this should all be comforting to us. Here's the good news: this answer still scored well because it provided a very solid answer to the third prompt, and it did well enough when answering the other questions, in that it first stated a rule, even if it wasn't exactly the right rule, and then it applied that rule to the facts at hand before providing a conclusion.

So it shows that you could struggle with even a few different parts of an essay and even miss out on what some of the key issues or rules are, but you can still pick up a lot of points along the way.

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