Opening Arguments
T3BE78: Following the Interpleader
Professor Heather Varanini has brought us our next question as we study for the Bar Exam!
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Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.
0:00:46 Thomas: Hello and welcome to... Oh man, it's terrible. I can't even do it. Yeah, go ahead.
0:00:52 Lydia: Maybe I introduce it. Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments.
0:00:57 Thomas: Your voice is marginally better.
0:00:59 Lydia: It is, I wanted to start this with, oh my God, we're back again. Just because I just went to the Backstreet Boys concert, everybody. My name is Lydia Smith. I am taking over the introduction duties
0:01:04 Thomas: I don't know what that is. Yeah,
0:01:11 Lydia: Because Mr. Thomas Smith over there, he's in a worse spot than I am vocally. I'm starting to get my voice back.
0:01:17 Thomas: I don' know what we caught. Yeah, we caught something.
0:01:19 Lydia: I caught concert fever.
0:01:21 Thomas: That's not all it was.
0:01:22 Lydia: I think it was. I was screaming really loud. I was screaming real loud. Backstreet Boys were great. I'm sure everyone is wondering.
0:01:25 Thomas: There's no way that's all it is. Not a chance.
0:01:30 Thomas: She thinks I lost my voice due to illness, and she lost her voice for like a week because of a concert. But not the illness that we both definitely have.
0:01:38 Lydia: My gosh. Well, anyway, my voice is better than yours. And welcome everybody to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam Thursdays. Whoop whoop.
0:01:43 Thomas: I'm not arguing with that. Yeah! We get the answer to last Last week's question 77, which was, oh, that was, yeah, that's right. Chandelier incident. We'll get to see how I did, how you all did. And then we'll get question 78, see how that goes. And after that, of course, we'll come back for the very hoarse shout outs.
0:02:04 Lydia: You sound almost like an NPR host though. Like there's like a, yeah, you're going to like the way you
0:02:08 Thomas: Yeah, I always think of the men's warehouse guy. I wonder if he didn't actually sound like that. They just only filmed that like on days where he had the, like, good news. I got a virus again. You're going to like the way you look. Same with Vin Diesel. Maybe he only films a new Fast and Furious movie every time his voice sounds like this. Oh, this. You gotta tell. Yeah. Well, that part's not hard. The movies are so bad. Yeah. And they're terrible. So he's just like, oh, I'll just find a guy right here. And it's like, that's about it.
0:02:16 Lydia: Look when he was sick. Oh interesting interesting and they have to move fast before he gets it back yeah okay all right oh it's fast and furious so there you
0:02:43 Thomas: Family. Anyway, why don't we take a break and get to a past me that sounded a lot better. And Heather Veronini, who's always going to sound a lot better than me.
0:02:57 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]
0:02:57 Thomas: Heather Veroniti, how are you doing today?
0:02:59 Heather: I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing?
0:03:01 Thomas: Well, I've had many a successful escape by way of chandelier since we last spoke. It's one of those things where like, oh, I forgot how fun that is. So I've just been chopping them left and right. You know, I feel like people should fasten their chandeliers with something not so choppable.
0:03:14 Heather: I agree.
0:03:15 Thomas: I think that's a real, real bad move. But yeah, remind us what this question 77 was.
0:03:20 Heather: Well, we had a wife who was on the way to meet her husband for lunch, and he was in the restaurant when a chandelier fell on him in the dining area. And the wife, she saw some of the injured people, she heard some of what was happening, and then when she saw her husband in the wreckage, she fainted, and on the down, she hit her foot and she broke some bones. So we're trying to figure out if Winnie sues the bookstore for her injury, is she likely to prevail? A, yes, because her husband was one of the people she saw lying in the wreckage. B, yes because the bookstore used the fastener for the chandelier. C, no, because she was not personally in the zone of danger of physical injury. Or D, no because she did not actually see the chandelier collapse onto the diners. So you peg this as a torts question. You were correct to do that. This is definitely a torts question.
0:04:06 Thomas: All right. The tort of chandelier escape.
0:04:10 Heather: Yeah, that's one of categories.
0:04:11 Thomas: I knew it. Well, you know, the law does date back a long way. And this used to be more common back then.
0:04:15 Heather: That's true. That is fair. And so what we're trying to do now is figure out what our issue is. You're talking a little bit about somebody being a bystander and whether or not that there's any liability surrounding something like that. If you're a bystanding to an accident like this, are you able to recover? And that's exactly what we are trying to get at here. I like to think of torts as covering two major topics, right? Intentional torts and negligence. And you talked a little bit about this being negligence involved. What made you think that?
0:04:42 Thomas: Well, okay, jokes aside, I don't think the bookstore intentionally dropped the chandelier, so it seems like they neglected to properly fasten their chandeliers.
0:04:50 Heather: That's exactly it. I really liked what you said where you're saying that But negligence is when someone neglects something or they neglect to fasten the chandelier. So that's exactly how we end up in the negligence flavor. So I say that to say there's kind of two flavors of this, which is there's a topic called infliction of emotional distress, and they come in flavors of either intentional infliction of emotional stress.
0:05:10 Heather: You'll hear this as IIED or negligent infliction of emotional distress, NIED.
0:05:10 Thomas: Wait, why are we talking about that? Because this bone is very real. The shattered bones in her foot are very not emotional.
0:05:21 Heather: That's right. Well, we'll get to that in just a second, I promise. And then that breaks down a little bit further. And then there's actually a bystander, one bystander NIED and bystander IIED. And that comes up when there's somebody who was not directly injured in the result of the accident, which is what we have here with Winnie. She wasn't the husband, right? That's different. The question is different if it's asking whether or not the husband can recover. But since we're talking about Winnie, who's our bystanders, so to speak, we're trying to figure out whether or Not she can recover and like you said, because this is negligence, we're in the negligence flavor of that. So we're in negligent bystander and negligent infliction of emotional distress. So what we're trying to figure out here is whether or not she can recover. And let's go through some of the answer choices. So we have here, it said that she didn't actually see the chandelier collapse onto the diners or that she wasn't personally in the zone of danger. Those are our no answers. C is getting at, what C is giving out with the zone danger, that's getting at negligence specifically because one of the things that you have to prove when you're proving negligence itself, not negligent inflection of emotional distress,
0:06:24 Heather: But just negligence itself, is that there's two ways to prove that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care. One of the first things you have to do is to talk about the duty, whether or not, yeah, exactly. So what you're doing with negligence is that's the first step is trying to figure out the defendant owe the plaintiff the duty of carer. And one of the major ways that you do that is to say that the plaintif was within the zone of danger.
0:06:34 Thomas: Oh, I didn't think of it from that angle. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. Oh.
0:06:48 Thomas: Because she did just enter the building, so I think I was kind of assuming that was enough, but it sounds like maybe not.
0:06:53 Heather: Yeah, sometimes there are instances outside of negligence itself in which sometimes very limited, you can still recover if you're outside the zone of danger. Because a lot of times what they're trying to get at is whether or not, have they done something?
0:07:07 Thomas: Mm -mm.
0:07:07 Heather: How do I say this?
0:07:08 Thomas: Well, owing a duty of care, you're saying? I mean, yeah, we're familiar with that. Yeah. Yeah.
0:07:10 Heather: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. And so there's a case that every law student reads and it's about a train and some fireworks.
0:07:16 Thomas: Is this Paul's graph or no? Yeah.
0:07:17 Heather: Yeah, Paul's got, yeah that's right, I always forget the name, but which is funny because it's like this really famous case that everyone remembers yeah even you paul scott versus yep
0:07:22 Thomas: Even me. Come on. Get with it, Heather. Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad. Obviously.
0:07:29 Heather: And it's it's it was no no no it was because it breaks down into there's two there's like a majority view and there's a minority view they're called the cardozo and andrews you don't have to know this but um that's what it gets to because one of the types the majority view looks at are you within the zone of danger and when you are if the plaintiff is within the zone of danger then generally speaking, the defendant owes them a duty of care,
0:07:29 Thomas: The year was 1928. No, I did pull it up on the Wikipedia. I didn't remember all that. Yeah.
0:07:54 Heather: Which makes sense, right?
0:07:55 Thomas: You
0:07:55 Heather: I basically like to think of it as the blast zone.
0:07:57 Thomas: Come into my chandelier blast radius and I owe you safety, I guess.
0:08:03 Heather: Yes. Yeah. And so that's part of what this is getting at. So what we have to ask ourselves is when it comes to NIED bystander, NIED, do you have to be within the zone of danger in order to recover? Well, the answer here is that they don't exactly have to be Within the Zone of Danger. Yeah, but they do have to Be present at the scene. Right and so the plaintiff or the person bringing here that's winning she does have to be present and we do see that she is present although she's not within the exact blast radius of the chandelier she's present when the event happens so that's how we eliminate c right because she doesn't have to within the zone of danger but she does has to be present when it happens
0:08:38 Thomas: Oh, I see. Yeah. For a second, I was confused how you were limiting. Okay. Okay, so it's that that's not the distinction, like being in this. Oh, I mean, I kind of said that, right? Because I said, no, actually, I did.
0:08:49 Thomas: I think I pretty explicitly said I just didn't put it in the duty of care language exactly. But yeah, I think my problem with C was this means you could witness something horrible, like right there. But if you're technically not within a chandelier's radius of it or whatever, then no, no can do on terms. Okay, I Think I nailed that one. All right. No on C.
0:08:49 Heather: Yes I yeah yeah and then with b we're talking about the fastener and you're right to eliminate this answer choice. Because when we're thinking about bystander NIAID, the fastener, like you said, it doesn't really matter. It's not really the issue. And you also talked to about some what's referred to as premises liability. How much does, how much duty, what extent of the duty or standard of care is there for businesses to the people who are on their premises? What's referred to as like I was saying, it's referred to as premises liability. And the businesses owe the highest duty of care to keep the premises safe. And it's a non -delegable duty, meaning that they They can't just try to pass it off to somebody else.
0:09:41 Heather: And so that's part of the reason that B is wrong, right? It doesn't matter because even if it was the same that somebody else did it, put the fastener in, it doesn't mater. The bookstore remains liable.
0:09:45 Thomas: Well, that's good because that was the one I really eliminated. I was like, no chance on that.
0:09:53 Heather: Yes. So if you were like, you're like, I'm getting those rid of those right away. I like too that you were focused on the language of the fastner because saying like, that doesn't really matter here.
0:10:01 Thomas: Yeah, I really didn't get that. I think that was, yeah. Okay, well done there. All right, so far so good. Thomas's second chance. Back in the game, baby.
0:10:09 Heather: Yes. So then we're thinking about what are some of the other requirements for being able to successfully bring a case for bystander NIED? D, they have to have personally perceived the event. And what this means is perception can be any of the senses.
0:10:24 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah, actually, just as you said that, I was actually worried. Wait a minute. Are we, like, if someone actually is visually impaired, does that mean no liability? But I'm glad you're saying so. It's about perceiving it. Gotcha, good.
0:10:35 Heather: And to your point too, if someone is, if they can't physically see it, right, for whatever reason, it doesn't eliminate them from being able to, exactly, so we do have it that Winnie that she heard what happened. And that's one of the five senses. So she heard the crash, and that sort of thing. So that qualifies as her perceiving the event, again, it hasn't, she's not eliminated just because she didn't actually see it.
0:10:38 Thomas: Be scarred by it in some way. Sure, yeah, yeah!
0:11:00 Heather: So what What that means is that D is eliminated as an answer choice. I'm sorry to say.
0:11:00 Thomas: Okay, darn it! All right. Right?
0:11:04 Heather: D for darn it.
0:11:05 Thomas: Well, baby steps, you know, first I have to get, first, I have to get a second chance back in the game. And before I can, you know, crawl before I could walk. It would have been better if I just got it right. Honestly. Oh, wait. Second chance is out of the game, right? No, it is. Yeah. Cause I said, oh, it's a, it is a, oh man. No. Okay. So just full on failure, full on failure mode. That's right.
0:11:20 Heather: It is A. I'm Sorry. You were also talking a little bit about negligence per se, which I'll talk about. Negligence per se comes up within negligence. When you're doing a negligence analysis, and it usually comes up in the bar exam when you see like a law or some other statute. And that's usually the trigger that negligence, per se is an issue. And so here, because we don't have a statute, we don'T have anything that says, oh, you know, no, the health and safety code says they have to cook burgers. Yeah.
0:11:43 Thomas: Hmm. Chandelier code.
0:11:46 Heather: No chandelier code. Sorry. So unfortunately negligence per se is inapplicable here. So answer choice A, one of the other requirements of to recover under bystander negligent infliction of emotional distress is that the plaintiff and the person injured by the defendant has to have a close relationship. And so because he is the husband and that's going to, they're going to presume that there's a special relationship there between the two. They hate each other.
0:12:09 Thomas: Your honor I object these two don't even look like they like each other. I have it on good authority he's been sleeping on the couch for a year no damages yeah
0:12:20 Heather: Well, it was interesting to hear you talk through it and talk about that there must be a relative or there. I kind of heard you getting at that relationship aspect. Yeah.
0:12:26 Thomas: Yeah that thought that was like I wasn't sure what the line would be there but I suppose uh yeah I suppose I kind of kind of missed the fact that it can you can just kind of have it be well someone who matters but I don't know. So the standard is just close relationship. Is that what you said?
0:12:41 Heather: Yeah. The special relationship, it must be such that there can be distress that leads to physical symptoms or that somehow that you would be otherwise injured. So I think when you're talking about what does that extend to? That's a good question. But definitely having that close or special relationship helps to limit liability outside of, as you had mentioned, what if it was just someone else, just anybody else walking by? Would that be enough? And so that's part of how this is limited is that relationship. So yeah. So A is our correct answer choice. Voice.
0:12:46 Thomas: Prove you would be upset if this person dies.
0:13:09 Thomas: Oh boy. Well, another week, another failure. I should have swapped my other answer to A because I kind of got off of C quite a bit toward the end. And I thought about switching my second chance to A, but I wasn't picking A as my first chance. So barely matters in the end, just drops my second Chance down to 82%. So not a good couple of results these past few weeks. Not not great. I had high hopes for this one. I thought maybe I got it. But now that you pointed out, I suppose did not actually see I could have it could have occurred to me that actually seeing didn't need to be the issue there. Yeah. Could have thought of that maybe and didn't. And so therefore, I'm just a crap lawyer.
0:13:47 Heather: But I like that you were thinking about the perception aspect. You were thinking, and you were right to be thinking, to reason your way into, doesn't perception matter here?
0:13:55 Thomas: I thought it mattered to to witness it in some way and you're saying I mean that's kind of a that's a dirty trick because she didn't really witness it she just saw like how late could she have come in and seen her husband there and then they still be liable
0:13:59 Heather: Yeah, it does. That's a good question. That is why some of these analyses are really fact intensive. And so here, she was physically present while the...
0:14:13 Thomas: As long as the chandelier still warm then boy that was uh that was a tough one that was tough one I just thought it was really trying to tell me I didn't think of seeing it in the terms of like oh what if she didnít literally see it. And that, you know, I think I could have, I could have gotten there maybe because that is one of those like picking apart the exact wording things that I tend to do. But I did just sort of think it was getting out like, you know, witnessing it in some way. And so, yeah, got that one wrong. All right. Well, time for people on the Internet to show me up once again. Go ahead. Let me have it. I get it.
0:14:17 Heather: That was a doozy. Yeah. Yeah. Let their right answers rain down like shards of glass from the chandeliers.
0:14:51 Thomas: Yeah. And let's start off with Blue Sky. Got four Skeeters. Well arguably three and a half I feel like one could be AI no offense that's totally fine but it did that formatting that's like if I don't know that formatting it's like a red cross and a green check I mean maybe somebody's just super handy with that formatting but I usually only see that with chat GPT but got the answer wrong so I don'T know well I will say this it has a number two next to the a so now I think about it that's their second chance answer I don't think I don't think chat GPt would have done that unless they told it to so maybe it's just a good formatting so we don't have any correct answers on blue sky there's four four swings and four misses someone said dan adron dan ardron said c some tired law person at some point decided trying to figure out the secondary and tertiary knock -on effects of falling chandeliers was too hard so they drew the line that people sat underneath incorrect incorrect apparently and then let's see first oh I want to shout out a first time player olivia mango lover 808 says
0:15:55 Thomas: Says, first time player, I say B with hesitation because the law is a tricky little beast. My initial thought was D, but I eventually came around to the idea that the bookstore could be liable for bystander injuries. Perhaps a secret fifth thing, hop onto Herb's suit and make him pay up times two. Okay. Well, also incorrect, you know? And so we're actually a total whiff on blue sky, but thank you so much. That makes me feel better. Maybe people are doing it just to make me feel good. But this question was hard.
0:16:20 Thomas: I really thought I maybe got to this one and yet I didn't. So thank you so much for playing on Blue Sky, everyone, at OpenArgs. And thank you, Olivia, for the first time play there. Keep up the, you know, better luck next time to all of us. So did anyone on Reddit have a better time?
0:16:37 Heather: Well, interestingly enough, there's a lot of C answers on Reddit also, but unfortunately, the C answers are wrong. Part of the reason C is wrong, just as a reminder, is that it says here that see no, because she was not personally in the zone of danger of physical injury. But we know that the majority rules allows a bystander to recover based on the factors for negligent infliction of emotional distress, even when the bystanders outside of the zone of danger or physical injury, but we did get somebody who did get close like Olivia, who also answered B.
0:17:07 Heather: So I'm going to go ahead and shout out Bukowskified.
0:17:07 Thomas: Love Bukowskified.
0:17:10 Heather: Me too, got super close. It was interesting because part of the answer was I don't like the first yes yes, answer, because I don't like trauma needing to be tied to family relations.
0:17:18 Thomas: That's kind of what I said. Yeah.
0:17:19 Heather: Seeing my, exactly, seeing my best friend in the same position would be traumatic and ruling out the danger zone, no answer, despite the concept of danger zones being legally defined, makes me happy.
0:17:29 Thomas: Bukowskified, you're a genius. You and I think alike. I think we got the wrong answer for probably very similar reasons, it sounds like.
0:17:36 Heather: It's exactly what it sounds like. So everybody got, like I said, Bukowsky was the closest with B since we're in that yes answer choice. But unfortunately, again, everyone else got it wrong. So Thomas, you weren't alone here. This was a tough question, like you were saying, same thing on blue sky so I'm curious to hear about the patron answers
0:17:49 Thomas: So yeah, that means on patreon .com slash law, we have our one and only winner. Our one and only, only one got this right. I want to shout out Maytree who explained the Aquaman thing. I think misunderstood. I often don't realize how much I just don't say my full thought. I know the Aquoman joke, but it's made a resurgence. It's from an old H Bomberguy video. It got to be a decade or more old. It is really funny, but the thing I was commenting on is it's come back. I've I've heard it on other podcasts lately. I don't know if it's just one of those like memetic things where somebody says it and then somebody says, it's really funny.
0:18:20 Thomas: So I think it just like, I was wondering why it popped up again, but no, I love classic, classic video. Love it. And then we had someone who said B, there's a direct causal chain from fastener to chandelier falling to husband and wreckage for two fainting to breaking foot. It's a whole series of butt force. Yeah, no, but now the fastener, I don'T think was, was a good answer there. I will say second place, I like my podcast like I like my coffee, Chunky, favorite name. I'm not sure any of the listed answers can be correct because the fact pattern fails to lay out that the bookstore slash restaurant are on a train and the wife was carrying a box of fireworks. That's the second best answer. But the number one, the only champion, the lone, there can be only one champion is dot, dot, dot who write for autographs. This person's giving us an entire, I don't know, essay a little bit at a time as their patron name says, I believe A is the best answer, answer. This would be negligent infliction of emotional distress, one of the elements of which is a close personal relationship. D could be correct, but there's enough in the fact pattern to say that she was personally involved in some way with the accident. So I think that's not going to be the best answer. Zone of danger, I believe, is just for emotional damages. Well, there you go. I was going to say it sounded too good to be true, but by the time it was the end of the answer, I feel like maybe that was off the dome. Maybe that was just off the top of that patron's head and they remembered all that, but they got it right.
0:19:41 Thomas: Dot, dot, dot. Who write for autographs? So it's a shame to have your big moment be like some random part in the middle of your big thing you're doing, patron, but that's okay. They have a picture of a cat. So that's good if you want to check them out.
0:19:41 Heather: Was a great answer oh yay
0:19:53 Thomas: But yeah, that's it. That's the biggest winner. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Only one person getting it right so that's a super duper trophy. Good job. Yeah, and I don't even think they like looked it up. Like it really seems like, it sounds like they just kind of knew that. So that'S wow. All right, well, thanks for making me feel better, everybody. That was, you know, Because not only did I get it wrong, my second chance wasn't even right. So that sucks. But if there's got to be one to blow it on, I guess it being one that basically nobody else got right except for one genius on Patreon is the one to be. So nice.
0:20:00 Heather: Extra points impressive yeah
0:20:23 Thomas: All right. Well, I feel better. Thank you so much, everybody. And after this break, we'll get question 78. See if I can... I need to get... I need a start back up on my second Chance. I got to get, not only do I need to get a new streak going of just answering the question right. Right? I need to get, I need a jumpstart my T3B. I need to like pull the, you know, the, it's doing that. Like I'm trying to pull the thing that T3, second chance is 0 for 2 in a row. I don't know if I've ever done that. I'm looking back through the thing. Hold on. I've looking back. I have never in this iteration. So in these, these last few years, 78, 97 questions, this is the first time I've gotten two second chances wrong. So, oof. I think that tells me I really got to recover. So after this break, we'll get question 78.
0:20:23 Heather: Yeah
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0:22:56 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]
0:22:56 Thomas: OK? I'm going to take two swings at this one. Give us question 78.
0:23:00 Heather: Elsa was a single woman with a life insurance policy that pays her designated beneficiary $74 ,000 upon her death.
0:23:07 Thomas: I thought this was going to be an ice related thing. I see. OK, great.
0:23:10 Heather: She tragically died in a boating accident. Her ex -boyfriend Anthony was a resident of Arkansas and named his beneficiary, but her mother Mary, a resident of California, also filed a claim for the life insurance proceeds. The insurance company, a Delaware corporation having its principal place of business in California, filed an interpleader action in federal court to protect itself from potentially inconsistent and multiple claims. May the insurance company bring the interpleader action in federal court? A, no, because there is no federal court where the insurance company will be able to establish personal jurisdiction over both claimants. B, no because the insurance
0:23:35 Thomas: I've never, I've never even heard of an interplay. Okay. All right. Here we go. What are the possible answers here? Well,
0:23:51 Heather: Country is not diverse from one of the claimants, C, no because the amount in controversy does not exceed $75,000 and there is not diversity between the insurance company and one of claimants or D, yes, because the amount in controversy is $500 or more and both claimants are diverse from one another.
0:24:08 Thomas: It does ultimately sound like a diversity jurisdiction thing, which is good. I feel like this has to be federal civil procedure. I feel Like there's no way it is not that I'd be amazed if it's anything other than that. And so that's done. That's all I'm going to do. I'm just going to try it now. Okay. Single woman life insurance policy that pays for designated beneficiary designated. Okay. Does it tell us who she designated? She tragically died in a boating accident. Ex -boyfriend Anthony was a resident beneficiary. Oh, he was. Oh sorry, I missed that. So Anthony was named as the beneficiary I don't know if that matters though because ultimately the thing we're doing. The mother filed also filed a claim for the proceeds so that seems like it shouldn't work. I feel like shouldn't this just be a matter of the insurance company being like why is the legal system even involved? I mean maybe life insurance maybe it's like heavily regulated but part of me feels like that's almost the company being Like oh no you're the wrong person filling out this paperwork. You know, like if Anthony is the beneficiary, so he gets it and then someone else like off the street tries to claim it. I feel like the company would just be like, no. But I guess this goes to the legal system. I don't know. The insurance company, a Delaware corporation, having its principal place of business in California, filed an interpleader action in federal court to protect itself from potentially inconsistent and multiple multiple claims. Oh boy. Well, this is, gosh, I'm really, I think, I think, you familiar with the concept of a hustle? I think I've been hustled. It was a long con. I think Heather gave me questions that I could answer for a while and now it's just like, I knew I shouldn't have bet money on this one. I bet, I bet Heather a lot of money on this one, so I feel like she got me. This is, no, yeah, this seems really hard. So it sort of seems like it's a diversity jurisdiction and I always remember 75 ,000 is that number and above and it's $74 ,000. So that would be under that amount. But I believe it's $75 ,000 and above AND diversity jurisdiction. Yeah, you need both those things, right? Or is that the one? Yeah, because it's definitely $75000 and something. Part of me was just thinking like, wait, no, if you just have diversity jurisdiction, don't you have to be in federal court anyway? But I actually think not because I don't know what else the AND would be. My brain was like, yeah, it's $75 ,00 AND and it went to complete diversity. Yeah. Yeah. I think it must be both those things. Okay. So can, may the insurance company bring the interpleader action in federal court? What, what even is that interpleaser action to protect itself? I mean, is that just them saying like, we're kind of getting out ahead of the inter pleader action, inter pleader option. What would that be? I means, is it like a, you guys got to duke it out thing like inter, or, or is it, like, is like trying to get the court? It would, it, I mean, from context, it sounds like if it's protecting itself, you would think that means it's almost like it wants like declarative, whatever, like the court to just make a declaration. What's that called again? I can't remember. It's almost like it once that it wants the court just say, hey, settle this so nobody else can sue me. Or the only other thing I can think of is it's some sort of action where it makes the people fight it out first or something like maybe it's like, hey casting a protect spell where you guys have to do it first and before you sue me. That's the only other thing. I have no idea. Interpleader? It does sound like involving interactions among different pleaders. So that's the two things I can kind of guess. Now, if you were filing that kind of thing, it makes sense for it to be in federal court because like if the thing that this is doing is, hey, I need to protect myself from like wild different claims, like just a bunch of different claims. I feel like it would make sense that those are going to come from maybe all over the country. So it makes sense for this to be a federal thingy, at least insofar as that makes sense. Okay. A, no, because there's no federal court where the insurance company will be able to establish personal jurisdiction over both claimants. That, okay, that can't be right. No federal court? How would there be no federal Court? Because I think that might be nonsense. I think federal court is the very place you do have to go when you can't establish the the personal jurisdiction, or is it that's two different things? There's like the personal jurisdiction, then there's a subject matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction. I can't think of why there wouldn't be a federal court that could establish personal jurisdiction? Well, actually, let's think about this. I actually know from gavel gavel that the Blake Lively thing, and it might be specific to whatever the statute is or whatever that she's alleging, but Jed Wallace has gotten the New York one dismissed, and that's federal court. So you do still need to have like even if it's federal court you do still need to have personal jurisdiction so they have to have interacted with that state in some way okay well I guess I better do the math doesn't even say where she was I guess that doesn't matter ex -boyfriend resident of arkansas mary resident california insurance companies in delaware so the logic of a would be that it needs to have some sort of that you need to personal jurisdiction in order to file this interpleader action that that would essentially mean the interpleader action is like suing each person. So that would suggest it's kind of more of an active thing directed at each person rather than like some sort of more like neutral protect spell, which is, it makes sense because the courts don't often do those neutral protect spells. That doesn't usually make sense. So, but I also feel like interplead or action would be pretty useless in this case. Wouldn't it be like if you're trying to, wouldn't you think that the moment either or both of them try to file claims, wouldn'T that create jurisdiction in some place? That's what I would think it would be. But I guess it's because it's doing it ahead of time. Ex -boyfriend was a resident, but her mother also filed a claim. I think that's what's getting me. I don't know if this matters for this answer, but it's like if it doesn't say that Anthony filed a claims, but you would think that being, I don' t know if being named as a beneficiary is enough of an interaction to establish personal jurisdiction wherever that happened or like wherever the company's doing business. I think you would have to be because Because it's like if they're wherever their place of business is, I feel like the fact that the boyfriend, the ex -boyfriend is involved in this would establish jurisdiction. And the mother is filing a claim would establish jurisdiction in like California or something. But I think I'm going to say no on this because for one, I feels like maybe that's not true. For two, it just dodges the $75 ,000 question. So this could be correct if an interpleader action is a specific thing that arises from a federal statute. Statute. But I also think that bar questions, bar questions usually tell us that, I think, because it's common law, usually. I think it would say there's a federal statute, I think, or it would like just be obvious, maybe. I'm going to say no on A, but I'm a little worried. B, no, because the insurance company is not diverse from one of the claimants. Now that certainly, because you do need complete diversity, but you also need 75 ,000. And I think that's going to be a tell because I would worry, I would worried that if both of those things aren't working, then it's a little weird to have an answer be no, because one of them because we're both short on the money and they do share because you have to have complete diversity so that worries me that signals me that maybe there's something else going on I'll leave be alive oh wow we also have three no answers and one yes answer that's interesting see no because the amount controversy does not exceed 75 000 and there's no diversity between the insurance company one of the claimants oh okay that's probably my leader in the clubhouse because there's both and then d yes because the mountain controversy is 500 or more and both claimants are diverse from one another. No way D is right. So I'm going to have to hope that behind all this gobbledygook and nonsense was just a very simple, by the time we just got rid of all the ostentatious, you know, all the decorations, all of all this, all this spikes, all that, you know. Below is just a little tiny baby federal diversity jurisdiction, federal court thingy. What do you call that? I already forget. And those are just 75 ,000 and diversity, complete diversity. And I I do see that Mary, a resident of California, filed a claim and the insurance company. Okay, so people, oh, now there's this thing. Where are people's locations? I think people have, what was it? People have one, but companies can have a couple. Companies, it's either, it is a Delaware corporation and it's principal. There was something weird with that in a recent question. However, I don't see any version of the answer that is besides D. So, but the amount in controversy, okay, so D says, so my thinking is I worry that there's a trick with the diversity jurisdiction because there's something that we had recently where it's like the place, like I always thought that it was the company. It's either, I thought it was an and, I though it was both where it is resides, like it's principal place of, or sorry, where it was like registered and where its principal place Of business was. I thought It was those two things, but I remember a recent question where there was something about that, but I think there was Something there and heather Will have to tell me what I'm remembering because it was pretty recent. It was like two months ago Maybe but I don't see an answer where that would be the problem anyway, because I think that that that would have to say no, because of the money. It would just be like, no, because it's not enough money. Cause you would have complete jurisdiction or so you would have complete diversity and it would just, yeah. Okay. So I'm going to say it's not that. So, I'm back to no on A, no on D. I'm between, no. I'm on no on B and no on G cause I am positive that the mountain controversy being $500 or more is not what we're talking about. So no on D and no one B the reason I'm for sure. No on B is because it only says no, No, because the insurance company is not diverse from one of the claimants. That doesn't address the dollar amount. And there's just no way that can be right. I don't think. I mean, no plausible. Maybe. But so I'm between A and C. So A is that weird one. Maybe there's a personal jurisdiction problem that actually could be like it's entirely possible. I'm Between A and Z. And if I'm getting hardcore punked, if I'M getting hardcore just played by Heather, it's going to be A. Otherwise, I think it's C. Final answer. All right. If you'd like to play along, you know how to do it. Go to step one. Try to get the question right. Step one, go to blue sky, find open args, quote Skeetus. You'll find the question there. It's fun. Go to reddit .com slash r slash open arg. Play along there. It's pretty self -explanatory. It's got a cool score tracker and all that. Or the best place, the place where the one number one winner forever is for this one time that stars aligned and only one person got it right. Patreon .com law. That's where you want to go. That's the place. That's what you want. That's why you want a play. It's the best play. All right, Heather. Oof, I'm in suspense. I guess we'll wait until next time to find out the answer.
0:34:24 Heather: I'm really looking forward to it.
0:34:26 Thomas: All righty. Well, we'll talk then. Yeah. Yeah.
0:34:27 Heather: Ominously. Just kidding. Get out
0:34:29 Thomas: I think that she's saying she's planning my murder and collecting on my life insurance. I think that's what that means. I'm pretty sure. So, we'll find out.
0:34:36 Heather: Of my head.
0:34:37 Thomas: Find out next week if I'm dead.
0:34:42 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]
0:34:42 Thomas: All right. Only one thing left to hoarsely do. A little more horsing around to do. That is to thank our patrons. These are the amazing people, Men's Warehouse customers, who are going to like the way they look. I guarantee it. You know, they say the show must go on, must it I don't know sometimes
0:34:55 Lydia: Go we guarantee it yeah this could have been an email all right thank you to our fantastic new patrons for joining up with the rest of us and hopefully your voices sound better than ours so thank you too my brother told me this was good yeah thank you whoever your brother is and thank you for listening to your brother and joining us we hope hope you also think this is good. Thank you to Charles Carpenter. Thank you to Gail Christine and thank you to Lynn. Woohoo.
0:35:06 Thomas: I wonder yeah nice thanks to your brother all right thanks to you patrons and now it's time to thank our hall of famers our all -time greats on patreon .com slash law thank you to Vetinari for America
0:35:49 Lydia: You're getting choked up over there.
0:35:51 Thomas: 2028 one man one vote UnreMerkable Donna Treadaway, Mother of Harridans. Protect trans kids. I don't want to body shame, but Stephen Miller, it looks like he drinks unicorn blood. Dot, dot, dot. Who write for autographs. It's still that ongoing one. Still at it. We'll see. The show will be long since canceled before this person finishes.
0:36:11 Lydia: Oh man. I got to check in on the message thread. See where we're at.
0:36:15 Thomas: Thank you to Mike Lapinsky. Rise to vote, sir. Dionytus. Disappointed in all the capitulating to fascism. Fourth Circuit attorney reluctantly changing her font. Please help LGBTQ plus folks emigrate from the US. Oh, wow. Interesting. Apprentice of Adventure. Venture. Probably a real person. Still rooting for the hamburgers to deliver more timely justice than the current system. McFish. Unfrozen caveman lawyer. I like my podcasts like I like my coffee. Chunky. A Negative Phenomenon. Uzi rat in a sanitary zoo. Oh, that's a good one. Wow.
0:36:51 Lydia: Wow. Dang. Did they ask chat GPT for help?
0:36:53 Thomas: That's my favorite so far. Usi rat in the sanitary Zoo.
0:36:57 Lydia: I want to know. Was this above board?
0:36:59 Thomas: You think they have to make up their own do you think they have to make up yeah the race car thing like
0:37:00 Lydia: Mr. Uzi rat. Well, if it's going to be this creative I want to know like did you come up with this yourself mr uzi rat
0:37:07 Thomas: Whatever a man a plan panama whatever a man canal plan panama canal how does that one go a man plan a canal panama no what is it a man what is that one you don't know a man a plan I'll just search a man a plan it's a man a plan, a canal Panama yeah yeah
0:37:14 Lydia: I don't know you've lost your mind I guess yeah yeah I mean it seems correct wow is that why they picked panama they're like we need a place to put a canal
0:37:34 Thomas: Yeah that's the only reason they're like god it's really lucky that there's also a very skinny part of land here we couldn't make the canal work and there's no other palindrome countries this was it and we were lucky like we were fingers crossed we were sweating like damn are we gonna get there and it's just like not even close to the ocean there's still build a canal that just does nothing thing like it yeah you
0:37:57 Lydia: Just for the palindrome's sake. Yeah.
0:38:02 Thomas: (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Ex Parte) Jaysank cavalri Vehicular Man's Laughter reth no this is good vehicular men's laughter reith qualls namra luchi have they just made it a palindrome yeah you done palindromed yourself yeah classic joke I've done it's definitely a joke I've heard before seen before done before still rules loved it thanks to oa and gg I read trump's complaint against the wall street journal and could tell just how bad shit it was oh wow yeah even a blind squirrel can find these
0:38:09 Lydia: Oh, no. What did he do? What? Oh, he palindromed himself. Self yeah nice yeah
0:38:39 Thomas: Chunks huh weird this patron name is blinking what happens if I oh no all right finally your turn I'm on vocal
0:38:46 Lydia: Thank you to Thomas Freeman Cajunkilla Fraud Fishy Hates Everything et chris simpson love the extra episodes I love the democrats fecklessness is my fetish baby baby. Gavelhead checking away. Mark Schultz, the Cincinnati Kid. Bob Loblaw's Law Podcast. Philly Basement Bar is busy organizing. Elect Thomas Smith President, American Honkytonk Bar Association. Baltica Tay. Philip Kizer. The astronomer CEO's wife never saw the red flags because they were all yellow. Oh, cool play joke. I see you. They were all hello. Hello. Yeah, because I explained it. Coryn_Lann, A string of unpronounceable characters. Hors d 'oeuvres in the court before we report. Malaika Chandler, Milo Meadsong is fighting petty tyrants. Rhondathedork dot com, Big Easy Blasphemy, Chris Waltrip, FRED R GROOTHUIS, Classic libtard, and of course, Mitchell.
0:39:24 Thomas: Rest oh I didn't get it yeah I get it now. Three cheers
0:39:52 Lydia: That's the best I could offer.
0:39:54 Thomas: For Mitchell. Hip hip hooray.
0:39:56 Lydia: Okay. I know I always say all these patrons, you guys are my best friends. This is how much you mean to us. Our voices sound like this and we're still going to show up and we're Still going to shout your names.
0:40:05 Thomas: I feel like they're going to be like, yeah, we'd rather you not.
0:40:09 Lydia: You're still gonna hear my woo woo, but it's gonna be coming from a different register.
0:40:12 Thomas: I will say my voice feels worse than it sounds like, at least based on editing dads. I was like, oh, it didn't sound as bad as I thought, but it's like work to talk. It's like, it takes an extra couple of calories per syllable, you know?
0:40:23 Lydia: See, my voice feels fine and makes me laugh so like I don't mind this not all the time yeah I don't think all the time I think we get sick of it I like it as a novelty now and then you know but
0:40:27 Thomas: Yeah, I love yours. I wish you sounded like this all the time. It would ruin your singing voice, but where are we in the the show what did you say if you had to guess we're at the end okay okay thanks so much patrons
0:40:45 Lydia: Anyway oh boy maybe I'll go to another Backstreet Boys
0:40:53 Thomas: We're uh we're hoping to get better we're open to get um not as sick not as throat death well then you'll never talk again never podcast again I need insurance take it all right what's that a fancy insurance company lloyds of london that's it there we go all right well
0:40:56 Lydia: Concert oh yeah Lloyd's of London that's It's the one with that. You better go call Lloyd's of London and ensure my voice.
0:41:08 Thomas: We're not sure how much of that you heard everyone check uh yeah that's how we got there that's right but it'll be like if you're trying to get life insurance for someone who's like already mid they had a heart attack, you know, like, why would we do that? Well, enough of this nonsense. We'll see you for rapid response Friday.
0:41:26 Thomas: And I'm thinking hopefully I'll sound better. Believe it or not, I feel like I'm like turning a corner. This was a really bad sounding corner. First, it's always darkest before the dawn. Thanks for listening, everyone. We're going to see you next time.
0:41:57 Thomas: These are the brilliant folks who blah, blah, blah. I'm going to speak less.
0:42:00 Lydia: Well, anyway, my voice is better than yours
0:42:05 Thomas: Find out next week if I'm dead. Insured Tiger Woods' hands or whatever, you now that.
0:42:08 Lydia: I don't know so the bees and that's is it so the beast
0:42:15 Thomas: Yeah, I think that's it. No, wait, place yeah fancy insurance tiger woods hands oh it's a myth okay that's funny
0:42:18 Lydia: That's the auction Well, yeah, they do houses and yeah real estate and art and all that stuff. Yeah, who does oh but what is the company supposed to be all right fancy insurance company
0:42:32 Thomas: I don't know someone told me that and I just assumed it was true and never thought about
0:42:38 Lydia: I looked what is the most expensive insurance company and ai told me companies like dairy land insurance pioneer state mutual and chub but it's for having higher than average premiums but the way like I was reading this like tiger woods hands were going to be insured by chub so elite so fancy
0:43:06 Thomas: It lloyds of london that's it there we go I also see chubb though chub who's picking that one like should I go with lloyd's of lондon or chub hmm which one would I rather tell people
0:43:07 Lydia: Lloyd's of London that's the one really yeah which one would I rather have documentation displaying their
0:43:23 Thomas: About yeah Yeah, there's like Ron Jeremy insuring his with Chubb. Other than that, oh yeah, that's the wrong show for that. Hide that deep in the deep, deep in The Bloopers.
0:43:28 Lydia: Name deep in the bloops
0:43:36 Thomas: Just deep in THE Bloops. Chub. All right.
0:43:41 Lydia: With that you better go call Lloyd's of London and ensure my voice
0:43:42 Thomas: Well, we're not sure how much of that you heard, everyone. Check. Yeah, that'S how we got there. That's right.
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