November 29, 2016

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Tuesday 11/29, I distributed four handouts: Assignment #2 (reproduced below); TD Banknorth v. Hawkins, 2010 ME 104, 5 A.3d 1042; Brown v. Thaler, 2005 ME 75, 880 A.2d 1113; and an excerpt from the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure. We went over the assignment. We then finished up Chapter 4 of the text by going over subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts in diversity cases. We covered St. James Apartments in terms of diversity of citizenship, and Frump in terms of the amount in controversy. The assignment for Thursday 12/1 is to read the cases to brief, Hawkins and Brown, and to read in the text pp. 154-164 (including Salmon, p. 156 and Johnson p. 162).

Assignment due at the beginning of class on Thursday, December 8, 2016

The assignment is to do two case briefs: the first is of the case of Brown v. Thaler, 2005 ME 75, 880 A.2d 1113 and the second is of TD Banknorth v. Hawkins, 2010 ME 104, 5 A.3d 1042. The cases were distributed to class today.

For the Hawkins case, only do the Facts, Issues, and Holdings through Section II (A) of the opinion, “Service of Process”. Do not do the Facts, Issues, and Holdings for Section II (B) “Amendment of Complaint” (¶ 18-25). Do include Section II (B) for the remainder of the brief (everything but Facts, Issues and Holdings).

These are both cases in which the brief is more useful if you utilize an “even though...” portion of the Issues, and Holdings (and include any facts used there in your Facts section). This means that you include the loser’s facts (opposite to what the Court holds) to show what the losing side was arguing. For example: “Under the rules of our class, may a student make cell phone calls during the class when such calls are disruptive, even though there was no specific prohibition on such calls in the syllabus.” The “Facts” would include “ such calls are disruptive even though there was no specific prohibition on such calls in the syllabus”.

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 Thursday 12/8, 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.

Remember to work by yourselves; do not collaborate. Do not show your work to anyone else; do not look at anyone else’s work. Do not discuss your case brief with anyone but me.