Don't Answer That!

Abstract

Forget hard cases: "bad" cases make bad law. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Bauman, which never should have been filed in a California federal court, has the potential to make very bad law. It is a paradigmatic example of egregious forum shopping that stretches jurisdictional doctrines beyond their limits. And, like other acts of overreaching by overzealous plaintiffs’ attorneys,1 it is likely to come back to haunt not only these plaintiffs but other less manipulative plaintiffs in the future.