November 17, 2009

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Tuesday 11/17, I distributed one handout, the final case briefing assignment, which is shown below,and which is due a week from today, Tuesday 11/24. We started our discussion with a comparison the concepts of conflict of law, subject matter jurisdiction, and personal jurisdiction, by using the Maine Supreme Court case of Collins v. Trius, 663 A2d 570 (Me 1995). We then focused on subject matter jurisdiction, with the Maine Supreme Court case of Landmark Realty v. Leasure, 2004 ME 85, 853 A2d 749,and the U.S. Supreme Court case of Bowles v. Russell, 551 US 207 (2007). We finished today by discussing the Bohlander case from the text. The assignment for Thursday 11/19 is to read the remainder of chapter IV of the text, and to begin work on the Bickford case brief.


Assignment due Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The assignment is to do a Case Brief of the case of Bickford v. Onslow Memorial Hospital Foundation, 2004 ME 11, 855 A.2d 1150 . The case can be found on the website of the Maine Supreme Court.

To access the case, go to

http://www.courts.state.me.us/opinions/supreme/index.html

--select “2004 Opinions”

--select 2004 ME 111, Bickford v. Onslow Memorial Hospital Foundation

Do not brief the FCRA issue (Part II (A)) of the decision, but brief the other issues.

Follow the format from the Sample Briefs that I’ve distributed. Note especially that the Facts, Issues, and Holding are copied and pasted. Whatever you put into the Fact section should appear exactly in your Issue and Holding sections as well. Your
Issue and Holding sections should be identical, except that the issue is a question, and the Holding is the answer to that question. Your briefs will be evaluated on the format, as well as the specific content.

Please make two copies of your brief, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion.

You may e-mail me if you have questions about the brief. The more time that I have to answer our questions, the more likely it is that i can be helpful.

If you cannot be in class on Tuesday 11/ 24, you should still e-mail me your brief by the beginning of class time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the brief. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon
as possible to see what options are available to you. (Generally, I do not want to accept assignments after we have discussed them in class). See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your brief to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If I do not reply, then I have not received the assignment.