Civil Procedure
Civil Procedure on the Mississippi Bar is federal-rules practice with a state overlay: the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure are modeled on the FRCP, so the tested analysis is the same, but Mississippi procedure governs in state court. Questions cluster around jurisdiction, joinder, discovery, summary judgment, trial motions, and preclusion.
Jurisdiction, removal, supplemental claims
- Diversity needs complete diversity plus more than $75,000; a corporation is a citizen of its incorporation state and of its "nerve center."
- Federal-question jurisdiction follows the well-pleaded complaint rule; a federal defense does not create it.
- Removal: 30 days from service of the initial pleading; no removal by an in-state defendant in a diversity case; all defendants must join.
- §1367(a) reaches claims in the same case or controversy; §1367(b) bars supplemental claims by plaintiffs against parties joined under Rules 14, 19, 20, or 24 when jurisdiction rests only on §1332.
- Personal jurisdiction, venue, and process objections are waived unless raised in the first Rule 12 response.
Pretrial and trial
- Rule 4(m): 90 days to serve. Rule 26(b)(1) allows discovery that is relevant, proportional, and nonprivileged.
- Summary judgment: no genuine dispute of material fact; the nonmovant gets favorable inferences; the movant must show the absence of evidence (Celotex).
- Rule 50(a) JMOL is a prerequisite to Rule 50(b) renewed JMOL; a Rule 59 motion must be filed within 28 days.
Worked example
Plaintiff, a Mississippi citizen, sues a Texas defendant for $90,000 on a state negligence claim and joins a second Mississippi citizen under Rule 20 on a related claim. Diversity is incomplete, so §1332 fails. Supplemental jurisdiction cannot cure it: §1367 requires an independent basis, and §1367(b) would bar the claim against the Rule 20 defendant in any event. Change the anchor to a federal claim and the state claims come in under §1367(a).
Traps
Removing before the complaint is served; invoking "same transaction" to save a jurisdictionally defective diversity case; forgetting that a personal-jurisdiction objection disappears with the first Rule 12 answer; confusing claim preclusion (same claim, final judgment, same parties) with issue preclusion (actually litigated and necessary).