"Minimal Diversity"

As some of you know, the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts (jurisdiction to hear purely state-law cases when there are parties from different states) is limited by an amount in controversy limitation as well as a complete diversity rule. Now, for those of you still reading this post, let me say that the interesting thing here is that neither of these limits is imposed by the Constitution; instead, they are statutorily imposed. Really, it means that the Supreme Court has interpreted the diversity statute as imposing this requirement, but that's a lengthy John Marshall story for another day.) This means that Congress can choose to do away with the amount in controversy limitation for diersity cases. Indeed, there used to be one for federal question cases, too, but Congress eliminated it. It also means that Congress can eliminate the complete diversity requirement. In other words, Congress can permit the federal courts to hear cases where there are plaintiffs and defendants from the same State, so long as there is one plaintiff from State A and one defendant from State B.

This latter rule is called minimal diversity and is part of the class action reform bill passed by Congress in February (the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005).

I won't go into the technical change this effects in class action law. But I just wanted to point out that the class action bill actually takes purely state-law cases and . . .

Oh, I have to go. There's actually a point to be made here. But it has to wait.