My Mother Will Be Happy To Know That I'm Apparently Very Polite

After 12 hours at the law school yesterday, we went to a fund raiser for the Intellectual Property Society here at Albany Law. We ended up staying way later than either of us had wanted and after just five hours of sleep, we were back at the law school. Hers had an 8:00am Torts class and I had a 9:00am Civil Procedure class.

At the start of class, we went over some subject matter jurisdiction problems. The professor went up down the rows in my section systematically calling on people to answer each question. For those of you who aren't law students, the federal courts have to have subject matter jurisdiction to hear a case. That means the case has to involve a federal issue (First Amendment rights, for instance), or it has to involve citizens from different states (called "diversity of citizenship"). The federal courts, however, can get "supplemental jurisdiction" over claims it could not otherwise hear hear if the claim is part of a case that involves a related federal question or if it envolves diversity of citizenship.

My question looked like a supplemental jurisdiction problem because the plaintiff is from the same state as one of the defendants (thus there's no diversity of citizenship). I answer the question as a supplemental jurisdiction problem because there's a state claim related to a federal issue that a federal court could hear (still with me). The professor listens and then says "Well, you're right, but do you need spplemental jurisdiction in this case? Isn't there an easier way?"

I look at the probvlem wondering what in the hell I'm missing. She's clearly hinting that there is diversity of citizenship, but it really doesn't look that way. Furthermore, the claim the question is asking about is clearly a state issue. Finally, feeling compltelte defeated, I meekly utter "Well, it doesn't look like there's complete diversity, so I really don't know what else there is."

The professor looked at the problem again, looked back at me, and apologized. "I was thinking of another question. You're absolutely right. Supplemental jurisdiction is the only way to go here. I'm so sorry, but thank you for being so polite about it. It makes me feel even worse that I made the mistake."

Polite? Well, my mother would be glad to hear it, but lets face it: the last thing I'm going to do is get snooty (snoty?) with a law professor, especially because I do, on occasion, miss small details. After a late night I was in no possession to just assume the professor was wrong.

One more class and we get to go home!