CASE BRIEFING: You are also required to submit 10 CASE BRIEFS for this course. You have the option of submitting them all in one file of 10 cases at the end of the semester (Week 8), or in two files of 5 cases each, one at the midterm point and the other by the end of the semester.
PLEASE NOTE: YOU CAN ELECT TO CHOOSE 10 OF THE MORE THAN 30 CASES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED FOR READING IN THIS COURSE. THIS WOULD BE THE MOST DIRECT PATH TO COMPLETING THE CASE BRIEFINGS ASSIGNMENT. HOWEVER IF YOU PREFER TO CHOOSE AND BRIEF ONE OR MORE CASES THAT ARE RELATED TO THE SUBJECT MATTER COVERED IN THIS COURSE, BUT ARE NOT ON THE LIST OF THE ONES WE’LL COVER IN THIS COURSE, THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. IF YOU ARE NOT CERTAIN ABOUT A CASE(S) YOU WISH TO BRIEF OUTSIDE OF THE ONES COVERED IN THIS COURSE, PLEASE CONTACT ME WITH THE TITLE OF THE CASE(S) AND I’LL BE GLAD TO REVIEW AND GIVE MY APPROVAL.
HOW TO BRIEF A CASE Dear Students: This is a reminder on how to brief cases (It’s also on the OER link I sent but just in case) for all of you who are taking Law Courses with me and are thus required to do CASE BRIEFS. There are two options, you can do the BASIC Version, which is the minimum required, OR you can do the FULLER Version, which may result in a few extra points if the additional two sections are done correctly ofcourse. The following is the format to use. Please use these Headings
BASIC VERSION:
RELEVANT FACTS: In this section you want to tell the story of the case in three or four sentences or at most a very short paragraph. You need not include immaterial facts in this section, only the facts that go directly to the essence of the story.
ISSUE: This should be in the form of a question, for example in a hypothetical care accident case, “Is the driver responsible for injuring the pedestrian?”
HOLDING: This is legal verbiage word for judgment, ruling, decision of the court, etc. The briefest answer for the question posed in the Holding is a YES or NO. On occasion there could be a caveat added, like for example YES partially responsible, or something along those lines.
REASONING:
In this section you will explain how based on the facts and on the applicable law and its interpretation in this case, that’s how the issue and holding were derived. This should be a few lines or at most a very short paragraph, similar in length to the Relevant Facts section.
THE FULLER VERSION will also include these 2 sections, namely the
PROCEDURAL HISTORY: This section should be the starting section before the Relevant Facts, and since the cases you will be briefing are U.S. Supreme Court cases and every case that deals with a Federal issue starts at the U.S. District Court level, the Procedural History starts with the decisions first rendered at the U.S. District Court, and then at the U.S. Appellate Court, before reaching the US Supreme Court. Therefore please address in one or two sentences the decisions of the US District court and US Appellate court.
DISSENTING OPINION:
These are U.S. Supreme Court cases and therefore the decisions are either unanimous, meaning 9 to 0, or if not they will be 8 to 1, or 7 to 2 or 6 to 3 or 5 to 4. Therefore one or the full group that voted in opposition to the decision that prevailed (called the majority opinion) will write a dissenting opinion. This is what you want to write in a couple of sentences or so under Dissenting Opinion. Insert this section at the end of the case brief, namely after the Reasoning section.
Again, please let me know if you have any questions.
1) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/17/316/
2) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/
3) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/1/
4) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/323/214/
5) https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/supreme-court/1962/144-so-2d-25-1.html
6) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/491/397/
7) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/486/35/
8) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/1/
9) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/316/455/
10) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/429/97/
