Conflict of Laws

Conflict of Laws - Professor John Parry

• Course Number: LAW-110
• Course Type: Foundational
• Credits: 3
• Enrollment Limit: Determined by the Registrar
• Description: Disputes are rarely confined to a single state. People suffer injuries from out-of-state products, or they enter into (and possibly breach) contracts with people or businesses located across state lines. Every time a case involves more than one state or country, complications arise for the lawyers and judges who are working to resolve it. “Conflict of laws” is an umbrella term for the legal doctrines that lawyers and judges use to solve the problems that the multi-state aspects of a case create.

  The Conflict of Laws course is primarily an advanced civil procedure class, but it also touches on issues of federalism (what role does federal law play in regulating multi-state disputes?) and sometimes international law (because cases sometimes cross national borders, and international law also provides some background rules).

  We study three major topics. The first and most difficult topic is choice of law: for cases in which the facts involve more than one state or country, what law will the court use to resolve the issues raised by the case? Courts have come up with a variety of approaches, and litigators need to be familiar with these methods. The second topic is jurisdiction — not just personal jurisdiction but also the “prescriptive” jurisdiction of a state or nation to regulate conduct. The third topic is the enforcement of judgments rendered in another state’s or nation’s courts.

• Prerequisite: none
• Evaluation Method: Final exam and one or two short quizzes
• Capstone: no
• WIE: no