November 10, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 11/10, we first reviewed a few aspects of the Butler case, and the concept of dictum. We went over the three types of dictum that we've seen, and we also talked about the second issue in Butler, voluntariness. We also went over the relationship between state courts and U.S. Courts of Appeal in terms of mandatory authority. We then discussed Dempsey and the retroactive / prospective distinction. We talked about the models available to the Montana Supreme Court, and the choice they made. We covered Strunk v. Strunk and the absence of precedent, and the role of the guardian and the guardian-ad-litem. Then we went over Hubbard v. Greeson and the choice of law (or conflict of law) issue. We discussed good lawyering in Hubbard, even though things didn't turn out as Greeson's lawyer may have planned. The assignment for Tuesday 11/15 is to read in the text pp. 144-146 (the Erie Doctrine and Land v. Yamaha), and the pp. 115-129 (the end of Chapter 3 (Finstuen) and start of Chapter 4 (Cheap Escape v. Haddox)).