Exam 3: Civil Dispute Resolution

What is jurisdiction? How does subject matter jurisdiction differ from jurisdiction over the parties? How does in personam jurisdiction differ from jurisdiction in rem?

A long-arm statute allows a state to obtain jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant when the nonresident defendant has sufficient contacts with the state.

Court-annexed arbitration:

The purpose of venue is to regulate the distribution of cases within a specific court system and to identify a convenient forum.

The procedural stage of a lawsuit after the pleadings but before trial is the:

If a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit wins the case but the defendant does not pay the judgment, the plaintiff may request the clerk to issue a writ of execution.If the writ is returned unsatisfied, certain property of the defendant may be seized by the sheriff and sold to pay the judgment.

In the United States, there is never a right to a jury trial in a civil case.

A demurrer is a motion filed by a defendant denying the allegations of the complaint.

A directed verdict is a judge's final binding determination on the merits after a jury's verdict.

Congress enacted legislation that almost completely eliminated the right to appeal to the U.S.Supreme Court.

In diversity of citizenship cases, federal courts apply:

If a defendant fails to respond to a summons, a default judgment will be entered against the defendant for the relief the court determines in a hearing.

An appeal from a small claims court is taken to the state court of appeals, where a trial de novo is begun.

The pleadings in a lawsuit include:

The U.S.District Court is the trial level court in the federal court system.

Often arbitration is preferred over litigation because the quality of the arbitrator's decision is often higher than that available through the court system.

State trial courts of general jurisdiction:

Mark, a resident of Illinois, while driving on the freeway, hits Bill, a resident of Wisconsin, and totally destroys Bill's brand new vehicle.Bill may bring suit in federal district court:

Appellate judges can reverse a decision of the trial court:

The federal courts have jurisdiction over all matters that have not been given exclusively to the state courts by the Constitution or Congress.