Business LawCuyahoga Community College

Online CourseSummer Semester 2015

Instructor: Joseph J. Fell, Esq.

IntroductionLearning how to read and understand descriptions

of cases is essential to success in the legal fieldThis assignment will help you learn how to

interpret a court’s decision in a particular case, understand how the court reached that decision, and pick out the “rule” established by a court’s decision in a case that will affect the way in which future courts make decisions

Additionally, this assignment will give you the opportunity to learn how to analyze and interpret legal decisions in the manner that lawyers and those who deal with the effects of a law request that their law clerks prepare analyses of court decisions

IntroductionAs you may remember from earlier in the

course, a “case brief” is a short summary of a long and complicated legal case that is used to understand the important elements of the case

Before beginning this assignment, reviewing the material that we covered during Week 1 that dealt with the American governmental and legal structure may be helpful

This assignment is distributed later in the semester because it would be extremely difficult to do without first familiarizing yourself with the law-related material that we have covered all semester long!

Parts of a Case BriefCase Name (15 Points)Last Court In Which Case Was Heard (15

Points)Procedural History (15 Points)Conclusion (20 Points)Facts Of The Case (30 Points)Reasoning (25 Points)Rule (30 Points)

All of these parts must be included in your brief and will be explained on the next slides

Parts of a Case BriefCase Name: What is the name of the case?

Example: Marbury v. MadisonThe plaintiff’s name is firstThe defendant’s name is lastYou can have multiple parties on both sides of the “v.”

Last Court In Which Case Was HeardIdentifying the name of the court is important because

it will tell you if you are reading a description of a case at the initial stage (a trial court) or a description of a case from a subsequent stage (an appellate court)

Examples of Trial Courts: Cleveland Municipal Court, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio

Examples of Appellate Courts: Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court

Parts of a Case BriefProcedural History

This is the section that details everything that happened in the lower courts in the past

Do NOT put the facts of the case itself in this section; you will want to put that material in the “Facts of the Case” section

If this is an appellate case, what happened in the lower courts\trial courts? How did those courts rule? Be sure to list ALL of the previous courts that handled the case

You will omit this section if the case that you select comes from the trial level because no courts have yet ruled on this matter. HOWEVER, you must explain that in this section. Do not just omit this section. In the future, this would those who read and use your work and I want you to develop good writing\analytical habits!

Parts of a Case BriefConclusion

What did the court decide in this case?For which party did the court rule? Please be

specific!If this is an appellate case, did the court:

1) Uphold (keep) the lower court’s decision? OR 2) Reverse the lower court’s decision? OR 3) Uphold part of the lower court’s decision and

reverse part of the lower court’s decision?

Parts of a Case BriefFacts of the Case

What were the facts of the situation that led the parties to go to court? What happened that caused one party to take the other party to court?

Please describe the facts in your own words – restate the facts using easy-to-understand language

You do NOT need citations or footnotes, but do NOT cut-and-paste the facts directly from Wikipedia or another online source; this is plagiarism and doing so will cause you to fail the assignment

Parts of a Case BriefReasoning

How did the court arrive at its decision in the case that you read?

How did the court use existing law and previous court decisions lead to reach their outcome?

How did the court explain its decision in the case that you read?

RuleThe “rule” consists of the law that was created by a

court’s ruling in a particular caseRules established by courts affect people later in the

futureWhat rule of law was established in this case? How will the court’s ruling in this particular case affect

future parties within America in the future?How does this case affect businesses in the 21st Century?

Case Brief AssignmentYou may choose any of the cases on this list. Please

do not select a case that is NOT on this list unless you obtain explicit permission from me via e-mail.

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores,

Inc. DECKER v. NORTHWEST ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY Bragdon v. Abbott PGA Tour v. Martin Lau v. Nichols Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc. National Federation for the Blind v. Target Corporation Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. Michigan Paralyzed Veterans of America v. The University of Michigan NEVADA DEPT. OF HUMAN RESOURCES v. HIBBS Gomez-Perez v. Potter Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States O’Bannon v. NCAA ETW Corp. v. Jireh Publishing (this case deals with Tiger Woods) Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe Hackbart v. Cincinnati Bengals, Inc.

Case Brief AssignmentOnce you have selected a case, please read a secondary source

description of the case on a site such as Wikipedia or oyez.org, and write your “brief” At this stage in your academic career, I would not recommend reading

the actual decision itself—they are very lengthy and filled with legalese that is inaccessible and incomprehensible even to many lawyers

Your words should be your own; please do not cut and paste directly from the site (this is plagiarism!) If you do this, you will earn a zero on the assignment.

A sample case study that earned a perfect score has been posted on BlackBoard

All assignments should be typedYou don’t need to write in paragraph form; you can simply write

“Court: U.S. Supreme Court” or “Rule: The U.S. Supreme Court applied the Commerce Clause to the states. Private employers cannot discriminate based on race.”

I am willing to review drafts of your Case Brief Assignment before the submission date – please email them to me and I will provide comments and guidance

Case Brief AssignmentDue by August 2, 2015 at 11:59PMThis assignment is worth 150 points

Do not copy material directly from other websites without proper citation. This is considered plagarism, which is prohibited by tri-c and the policies of this course. If you do this, you will receive a zero on the assignment!

Please let me know if you have any questions about this assignment! Good luck.