your favorite mademoiselle

the last question on yesterday’s civpro exam was strikingly similar to last semester’s entire exam, in that it asked “are you a smart person” not “did you learn civpro”?

i remember one of the greatest problems i faced was, uh, (so embarrassed to admit this) reading comprehension. i read this one sentence and realized, Wow I do not understand any of the words here. well okay that’s a lie, there was only one word i had never heard of before, but it was definitely key. so that was a lot of fun, and i based a lot of my analysis of the question on my assumption of that word.

to all you law schoolers out there, here was the basic premise:

A brings a lawsuit against S, but S claims B is an indispensible defending party. however, A+B are NOT diverse, and this suit is in federal court based on diversity. normally, you’d just have to throw the case out, right?

nope, it seems A+B are cousins who own the ranch A is suing S over (S was growing weed on it, bad girl) and so B could just be joined as a plaintiff then, right?

well, it’s not that easy: one of A’s claims is that B is in collusion with S for the weed-growing business AND under Texas state law, if B is found to be in collusion with S, he can recover nothing. But, if B is found to Not be in collusion w/S, he can recover half of the damages along with A.

additionally, S claims that she split some of the profits with B already AND (here’s the part i assumed) under TX state law, that doesn’t matter and she still has to pay up all her profits to the plaintiffs if she is found liable. reconcile THAT.

Phew! not your average Rule 19 indispensable party analysis, eh?