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Better to sue for fraud in state or federal court?
Are there advantages/disadvantages to suing someone in state versus federal court (diversity and amount in controversy satisfied) for contract breach and/or fraud? Any effects on collecting from a judgment? Does one take much longer than the other? All advice greatly appreciated.
Public Comments
- Sounds to me that you are dealing with a civil case here. The only time you can move your case to the Federal courts is if the case is very controversial and after several attempts the case has not been settled. Most of the civil cases are settled in the State courts.Your case has to be very big and controversial for them to even look at it (news headlines and protest type of BIG). But if it’s just a small case they will refer you back to the state level to resolve our issue.
- It depends on the type of case, and the courts involved, and the details of the case. From a procedural standpoint, you need to be carefull, because if you sue in your state courts, your opponnet could remove the case to the federal court, while they could not if you filed in thier state's court. Generally, the state/federal forum choice shouldn't make a difference (as per the Erie doctrine), but it might. If you case involves some type of question that is difficult to understand, then picking the court the understands the matter best would be in favor of the side with the strongest leagle case. It might also be less expensive in state court, as the Federal courts tend to have longer back logs. There might also be a difference based on the Judges background but that's true regardless of the forum. For a fraud case, either forum probally has equality informed judges, so I can't see much of a difference there. Collecting is still the same as far as I know, a judgement is still a judgement. Except that a judgement from state A is always harder to collect in state B. I might be easier to get a federal order to collect based on a federal decesion, but that should not be the case. If this is a real case, be sure to see a Attorney.
