CA Bar cheat sheet

Personal jurisdiction requires purposeful availment plus fair play and substantial justice; general jurisdiction exists only where a defendant is essentially "at home" (domicile, principal place of business, or state of incorporation).

Diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 requires complete diversity of citizenship and an amount in controversy exceeding $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

Removal must be filed within 30 days of service of the removable pleading; a diversity case cannot be removed more than one year after commencement or if any properly joined defendant is a citizen of the forum.

Venue under § 1391 lies where any defendant resides if all defendants reside in the same state, where a substantial part of the events occurred, or where any defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction.

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests plausibility under Twombly/Iqbal; a responsive pleading is due 21 days after service, or 60 days if a waiver of service was returned.

Erie requires federal courts in diversity cases to apply state substantive law and federal procedural law; a valid Federal Rule that directly conflicts governs under Hanna.

Summary judgment requires no genuine dispute of material fact and entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, with evidence viewed in the nonmovant's favor.

Claim preclusion requires a final judgment on the merits, the same parties or their privies, and the same claim; issue preclusion additionally requires that the issue was actually litigated and necessarily decided.

Rule 23(b)(3) certification requires that common questions predominate and that a class action is superior to individual adjudication.

Strict scrutiny (compelling interest plus narrow tailoring/least restrictive means) applies to suspect classifications such as race and national origin and to fundamental rights such as voting, travel, and marriage.

Intermediate scrutiny (important interest plus substantial relation) applies to sex-based classifications, illegitimacy, and content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations of speech.

Rational basis review upholds a law rationally related to a legitimate government purpose and governs economic and social legislation, age, and wealth classifications.

Dormant Commerce Clause: a discriminatory state law is invalid unless it serves a legitimate local purpose that cannot be served by nondiscriminatory means; nondiscriminatory burdens are upheld unless clearly excessive under Pike.

Standing requires an injury in fact that is concrete and particularized, fairly traceable to the defendant, and likely redressable; taxpayer standing is limited to Establishment Clause challenges to enacted spending.

Content-based speech restrictions receive strict scrutiny, prior restraints are presumptively invalid, and obscenity (Miller), incitement (Brandenburg), fighting words, and true threats fall outside First Amendment protection.

Fourth Amendment: a warrant requires probable cause and particularity, and exceptions include search incident to arrest, automobile, consent, plain view, exigency, inventory, and the Terry frisk.

Procedural due process under Mathews balances the private interest, the risk of erroneous deprivation, and the government's burden; substantive due process protects fundamental rights against arbitrary interference.

Preemption may be express, field, or conflict (impossibility or obstacle); state law is invalid to the extent it stands as an obstacle to a valid federal scheme.

UCC § 2-207: a definite and seasonable expression of acceptance operates as an acceptance even with different terms; between merchants, additional terms enter unless material, objected to within a reasonable time, or already refused.

Statute of Frauds categories (MY LEGS): marriage, year-or-more performance, land, executor's personal promise, goods of $500 or more, and suretyship.

Consideration requires a bargained-for exchange of legal value; the preexisting duty rule and past consideration do not supply consideration, though promissory estoppel may substitute.

Parol evidence: a fully integrated writing bars prior or contemporaneous agreements on covered terms, with exceptions for ambiguity, fraud, mistake, condition precedent, and consistent additional terms in partial integrations.

Under the UCC perfect tender rule the buyer may reject nonconforming goods, but the seller may cure within the contract time, or beyond it with reasonable notice where the buyer has accepted or the time has not expired.

Anticipatory repudiation must be clear and unequivocal; it excuses the other party's remaining duties and permits immediate suit unless retracted before a material change in position.

Impracticability requires an unforeseen event whose nonoccurrence was a basic assumption and no assumption of risk by the party; frustration of purpose requires substantial frustration of the principal purpose.

Expectation damages equal loss in value plus incidental and consequential damages minus costs avoided; the aggrieved party must mitigate, and liquidated damages must be a reasonable forecast of a hard-to-estimate loss.

UCC risk of loss: in a shipment contract risk passes to the carrier, in a destination contract risk passes on tender at destination, and FOB terms turn on whether the place named is shipment or destination.

A full arrest requires probable cause; a Terry stop requires reasonable suspicion grounded in specific and articulable facts, and a frisk requires reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous.

Miranda applies to custodial interrogation; invocation of the right to remain silent must be unambiguous, and once counsel is requested no further interrogation may occur unless counsel is present or the suspect initiates (Edwards).

The exclusionary rule bars evidence obtained through unconstitutional searches and its fruits, subject to inevitable discovery, independent source, attenuation, and good-faith exceptions.

The Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches after formal charging at all critical stages; Massiah bars deliberate elicitation without counsel and Crawford bars testimonial hearsay absent a prior opportunity to cross-examine.

MPC mens rea levels are purpose, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence; when a statute is silent on culpability, recklessness suffices for most offenses.

Felony murder requires an inherently dangerous underlying felony and is limited by the merger doctrine, the agency or proximate cause rule, and the res gestae requirement.

Murder requires malice, shown by intent to kill, intent to inflict serious bodily harm, depraved-heart recklessness, or felony murder; adequate provocation negates malice and reduces the killing to voluntary manslaughter.

Attempt requires specific intent to commit the crime plus a substantial step beyond mere preparation; factual impossibility is not a defense, while pure legal impossibility is.

Self-defense requires a reasonable belief in imminent unlawful force; deadly force requires a reasonable belief in imminent death or serious harm, and the majority rule imposes no duty to retreat outside the home.

Relevant evidence has any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable; Rule 403 permits exclusion where unfair prejudice, confusion, or waste substantially outweighs probative value.

Propensity character evidence is inadmissible in civil and criminal cases, but a criminal defendant may open the door to reputation or opinion character evidence and to specific acts on cross-examination.

MIMIC: prior bad acts are admissible to show motive, intent, absence of mistake, identity, or common plan, but never to show conduct in conformity.

Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered for its truth; party-opponent statements, prior consistent statements, and prior inconsistent statements under oath are defined as non-hearsay.

Availability-immaterial exceptions include present sense impression, excited utterance, then-existing state of mind, medical diagnosis or treatment, recorded recollection, business records, public records, and learned treatises.

Crawford requires that testimonial statements be met with the declarant's unavailability and a prior opportunity to cross-examine; nontestimonial statements are governed by ordinary hearsay rules.

Impeachment by conviction requires a felony (subject to Rule 403) or any crime involving dishonesty; convictions more than ten years old require special findings of probative value.

The best evidence rule requires the original writing, recording, or photograph to prove its contents, unless an exception such as loss, collateral matter, or public record applies.

Rule 702 and Daubert require expert testimony to rest on reliable methodology and helpful specialized knowledge; Rule 701 limits lay opinion to opinions rationally based on the witness's perception.

A fee simple determinable ends automatically on a stated event and leaves the grantor a possibility of reverter; a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent requires the grantor to exercise a right of entry.

Joint tenancy requires the four unities of time, title, interest, and possession and carries a right of survivorship; conveyance by one joint tenant severs survivorship as to that share.

Real covenants require writing, intent, touch and concern, horizontal and vertical privity, and notice, and are enforced by damages; equitable servitudes need no privity and are enforced by injunction.

Easements may be express, implied (necessity or prior use), or prescriptive through adverse use for the statutory period; they terminate by merger, release, abandonment, estoppel, or prescription.

Adverse possession requires actual, exclusive, open and notorious, continuous, and hostile possession for the statutory period; the majority uses the objective standard, and color of title extends constructive possession.

Recording statutes are race (first to record), notice (first without notice), and race-notice (first to record without notice); notice includes actual, inquiry, and record notice, and the shelter rule protects grantees of a protected purchaser.

Residential leases carry an implied warranty of habitability and covenant of quiet enjoyment that generally cannot be waived; constructive eviction arises when conditions are uninhabitable and the tenant vacates within a reasonable time.

Fixtures are determined by annexation, adaptation, and intent; a mortgage or lien on real property attaches to fixtures as of the date of recording.

Regulatory takings: a permanent physical occupation or a denial of all economically viable use (Lucas) requires compensation, while Penn Central balances economic impact, investment-backed expectations, and the character of the government action.

Negligence requires duty, breach, actual cause (but-for), proximate cause measured by foreseeability, and damages.

Duty runs to foreseeable plaintiffs within the zone of danger under Cardozo/Palsgraf; there is no general duty to rescue absent a special relationship or creation of the risk.

Professionals are held to the standard of ordinary skill in their field, and children to a reasonable child of like age, intelligence, and experience except when engaged in adult activities.

Negligence per se requires that the plaintiff be within the class the statute protects and that the harm be the type the statute was designed to prevent.

Res ipsa loquitur permits an inference of negligence where the instrumentality was in the defendant's exclusive control and the accident would not ordinarily occur absent negligence.

Strict liability applies to abnormally dangerous activities, wild animals, and defective products sold by a commercial seller under 402A, covering manufacturing, design, and warning defects.

Defamation requires a defamatory statement of and concerning the plaintiff, publication, fault, and damages; public officials and figures must prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence.

Affirmative defenses include comparative negligence (majority rule), contributory negligence (complete bar in a few jurisdictions), assumption of risk, and immunity.

Intentional torts require intent in the form of purpose or substantial certainty; consent, self-defense, defense of others, and necessity operate as privileges.