Animal World TV is a basic cable network owned by Animal Wor…
Questions
Animаl Wоrld TV is а bаsic cable netwоrk оwned by Animal World TV Corporation ("AWTC"), which is headquarted in New York and incorporated in Delaware. In 2025, Animal World TV introduces a new reality show, "Who Wants to be a Wild Dog?" The show follows 10 contestants as they are dropped off in the Mojave Desert and forced to fend for themselves for 2 months. Each week, the contestants engage in a physical challenge, with the winning contestant being named the week's Alpha Dog. They then have a group meeting, called a "dogpile,", where all of the contestants vote on which competitor to "drive out of the pack." The Alpha Dog is immune from being driven out of the pack, but all other contestants are fair game. The last competitor standing at the end of the competition is crowned Top Dog and wins a prize of $1 million and a lifetime supply of jerky treats.*Ellie, who lives in California, sees an casting call for the show and decides to audition. She has Fauci record a tape of her barking about her interest in complex litigation. She sends it off to the show's casting agency, who immediately call the show's producers and announce "I think we've found our villain!" Three months later, Ellie hops out of a helicopter in the desert and heads for camp. Ellie soon alienates all of her fellow contestants, who form the "Anti-Ellie Alliance" and vow to drive her out of the pack at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, it turns out that all of the physical challenges involve sniffing out, chasing, or retrieving tennis balls, which happens to be the one thing in life Ellie is genuinely good at (besides suing people). This means that Ellie manages an improbably long string of physical challenge victories and is the Alpha Dog eight weeks in a row. This catapults her into the final two, where she goes head-to-head with a therapy dog from Silver Spring, Maryland named Chance. The contestants were told prior to filming that the winner would be the contestant who scored the most points in the finale's string of physical challenges and trivia questions. Ellie scores the most points and is ready to accept her prize, but at the last minute the producers announce a twist and bring back the eliminated contestants to vote on the eventual winner. All the other contestants vote for Chance, and Chance is crowned the champion. As soon as she returns home, Ellie files a lawsuit against AWTC in federal court, claiming the corporation committed fraud by changing the rules of the competition at the last minute solely because they didn't want her to win the title of Top Dog. She claims $1,005,000 in compensatory damages (the value of the cash prize and the jerky treats), along with punitive damages to be determined at trial. *I am not ashamed to admit that I would watch the heck out of this show. Please answer the following question about this scenario. You must answer each part of each question. If you skip any question or part of any question, you will lose points. You must be specific and explain your reasoning. If the question asks you to apply a rule that has four parts, apply each of the parts, not just one. Please do not forget to cite the relevant rules in your answers. 1. After filing her lawsuit against AWTC, Ellie learns through discovery that two other contestants, Ranger (a great dane from New Jersey) and Princess (a doberman from California), were the ones who initially approached AWTC and suggested the final twist that allowed the eliminated contestants to vote on the winner. Ellie decides to try to add them as additional defendants, bringing claims of fraud. a. Can Ellie join Ranger and Princess to her lawsuit? If so, what rule or rules would she use to add Ranger and Princess? b. Would adding Ranger and Princess affect federal court subject matter jurisdiction over the lawsuit? If so, how?2. Assume Ellie decides not to add Ranger and Princess, because "they're probably judgment proof anyway." AWTC decides to add them instead, arguing that they are liable for part of any judgment Ellie receives because they were the ones who suggested changing the rules. a. Can AWTC add Ranger and Princess to the lawsuit? If so, what rule or rules would they use to add Ranger and Princess? b. Would adding Ranger and Princess affect federal court subject matter jurisdiction over the lawsuit? If so, how?3. After some investigation, Ellie finds that this is not the first time that there have been issues with one of AWTC's shows. She learns that AWTC has changed the rules of its competitions after the competition began several other times, negatively impacting a total of 45 contestants. The claims are similar in that each contestant is claiming that a last-minute rule change caused it to lose out on a large cash prize, but the details about which rules were changed, how the rules were changed, and how the change affected the dogs varied from competition to competition. Instead of suing AWTC individually, Ellie decides to bring a class action for fraud with herself as the named plaintiff. Ellie's attorney, who just passed the bar six months prior and who is so excited to be handling a class action that he agreed to represent Ellie, files a motion to have the class certified. Should the court certify the class? 4.Assume that Ellie gives up on the class action idea because she decides it's too much work. She proceeds with her lawsuit against AWTC. During the discovery process, Ellie deposes several witnesses, including Chance, Ranger, and Princess, all of whom show up with attorneys. All of these witnesses are subsequently subpoenaed for trial, which is to be held in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of California. Chance appears at trial, where he testifies in a way that is inconsistent with several things he said in his deposition. Ranger and Princess do not appear. When Ellie's lawyer investigates, he learns that Ranger is at home in New Jersey, and that Princess, who lives fifty miles away from the courthouse, is refusing to come to testify because she has a mild case of distemper and doesn't feel like being in the car for an hour. Ellie's counsel asks the judge to let him use the following depositions:Chance's deposition for purposes of establishing that Chance's trial testimony was inconsistent with his deposition testimony; Ranger & Princess's depositions as substantive evidence in place of their testimony at trial. If you were the judge, would you grant Ellie's counsel's requests? Why or why not?