AA 4306 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Fifth Amendment To The United States Constitution, Skin Grafting, Guilty Men
Business Law
8/26 Lecture Introduction
I. 5 TYPES OF LAW
A. Constitution
1. Idea to divide government powers-no one person can make bad decisions (king)
2. Split into executive(President), legislative(Congress), judicial(Supreme Court)
B. Statutes
1. Main tool congress uses to create laws
2. Any idea that does not violate the constitution
3. To become a law:
a) Majority vote in HR>Majority vote in Senate>President signature
C. Administration Regulation
1. Passed by government agency (EPA, IRS, etc)
D. Common Law
1. Setting precedents from court decisions
E. Court Orders
1. Court can order individuals for justice serving purposes
II. CHECKS & BALANCES
A. Throwing roadblocks to slow down the process of other parts of gov't
1. President = Congress
a) Veto Statutes
b) Congress can override veto with ⅔ vote in HR AND Senate
2. President=Judicial
a) President nominates next justice
b) Justice has job for life and can essentially ignore president
3. Congress=Judicial
a) Congress can change the constitution with amendments
b) Senate confirmation power
4. Judicial=Congress
a) Judicial Review allows the court to review any law and determine if acceptable under
constitution or not
III. SALDONA VS O’DANIELS CASE
A. PG 17-20
B. The lawsuit is usually never put on the party mostly responsible but more onto the one that is “likely
the one that can/will pay”
8/31 Lecture 2
I. STRUCTURE OF THE COURTS
A. Federal Courts operated by federal govnt
B. Each state has a local court system (Most cases due to volume)
C. Federal court deals with anything regarding federal law/national
law/legal ideas (amendments, civil rights act) Lawsuits between
people/business of different states or worth more than
$75,000….”neutral territory” no home advantage
II. HOW COURTS FIT TOGETHER
A. In trial courts the “loser” can appeal a case once to a mid level court,
Court of Appeals
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B. How to appeal:
1. Convince a panel of judges the judge made an error or mistake in a how a trial is conducted
2. Jury wasn’t fairly assembled etc..
3. Convince that a law was misapplied or misinterpreted
C. When the Court of Appeals gets done with a case it can be:
1. Affirmed-A panel of judges in a higher court found no problems in trial court order
2. Reversed- Higher courts found a mistake
3. Remanded- Sent back to trial court to do over full case or part of case
D. If you lose a case you can appeal to the supreme court which is having 1 less than the majority (4/9)
to get the case reviewed
1. 95% of cases get rejected
III. SALDONA VS O DANNIELS
A. Judge at trial court at first dismissed case
B. The family appealed to intermediate court
C. Case remanded back to trial courts but settled before reaching trial
IV. CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAWSUITS
A. Civil- private and looking for compensation for wrong doing
B. Criminal- public involving broader chunk of society
C. Remedies- ways to settle/compensate case
D. Civil Remedies
1. Cash damages
2. Injunction- court order to stop someone from doing something bad (stalking)
3. Specific Performance- court order to do something (will dispute)
E. Criminal Remedies
1. Fine- goes to government not victim of crime
2. Imprisonment/proliferation/death
3. Shame penalty- specific punishment to crime, psychological
F. Burdens of proof
1. Civil (51%) “more likely than not”
2. Criminal(90-95%) “beyond a reasonable doubt”
a) Better to have 10 guilty men free than 1 innocent imprisoned
G. OJ Simpson case- won criminal, lost civil because burdens of proof are different!
9/2 Lecture 3
I. PLEADINGS
A. Lawyer writes pleadings
B. Pleadings- open bits of paperwork in the beginning
C. Types:
1. Plaintiffs Complaints- first pleading files
D. Somebody lists allegations or claims that the other company or person did that lead to harm or
reason for lawsuit
E. Copy delivered to defendant (hand delivered)
F. Look for deadline to responding
a) If not> Default Judgment enter a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs and fulfills all
demands
2. Example: Pepsi. The Wisconsin group claimed that the company ripped them off on the
filtration technique they had in the 80’s for the product “Aquafina” and demanded profits from
every single bottle sold across the world since selling date. Default Judgement entered. Group
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awarded 1 billion. Pepsi appealed “complaint sent to wrong office/person” and able to reverse
judgment. Not everyone is as lucky
II. DISCOVERY PROCESS
A. If you have a junk lawsuit the discovery process can be costly
B. Discovery Process- Providing documentation. During junk lawsuits a company is asked for a whole
lot more information than needed to make as expensive as possible for opponent.
C. Companies want lawyers to get rid of things as soon as possible to avoid discovery process and
media coverage
III. JURISDICTION
A. Area of a court's power, extent of authority
1. Have limits on kinds of cases it can hear
2. Do they have the authority to make the defendant show up and pay the fine?
3. Not useful/no effect to companies like Amazon
B. 2 types of authority
1. Subject Matter Jurisdiction- whether the court has power over a defendant, automatically has
power over plaintiff because one who filed complaint
2. Personal Jurisdiction
a) Lives in same state
b) Serve with summons while in state
3. Long Arm Statute- helps people get jurisdiction to people outside of state as long as not
unconstitutional “Due Process Law”
4. -------------Due Process--------------->
5. Minimum Contacts Doctrine
a) If you're being sued and don't feel like they have legal authority but you've had some
basic kinds of interactions with the state they have the right to drag you to trial in that
state
(1) Car crash accident
(2) Contract signing
(3) Regular business
(4) Taking a formal step to defend
b) Ex:Filing an answer for an out of state lawsuit without consulting a lawyer but
pressured by deadline to reply
(1) SEE A LAWYER- They file a special appeal on your behalf and stops default
judgement and does not count as a formal step
C. KNOWLES VS MOGLIA
1. Truck driver from Alabama died in California due to a heart attack. The family hired a doctor
to do an autopsy on the body for fowl play check. Hired an Undertaker to protect the body
from decomposition and send back in a nice wooden casket.
2. Undertaker lied, bad body handling, cheap casket, and pocketed rest of the cash
3. Family filed a lawsuit against both the doctor and undertaker
4. Lower court stated Alabama had no jurisdiction over them
5. Higher Alabama court recognized if the defendant caused “foreseeable harm” then they had
jurisdiction
6. No jurisdiction over doctor who “did his job” but because of what the undertaker agreed to
and job entails he is under jurisdiction of Alabama courts
D. If you really wanted to sue and can't bypass due process, you can travel to the home state of the
defendant
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Document Summary
Idea to divide government powers-no one person can make bad decisions (king) Saldona vs o"daniels case constitution or not: pg 17-20, the lawsuit is usually never put on the party mostly responsible but more onto the one that is likely the one that can/will pay . How courts fit together: in trial courts the loser can appeal a case once to a mid level court, Saldona vs o danniels: judge at trial court at first dismissed case, the family appealed to intermediate court, case remanded back to trial courts but settled before reaching trial. Civil- private and looking for compensation for wrong doing. 2: specific performance- court order to do something (will dispute) Injunction- court order to stop someone from doing something bad (stalking: criminal remedies, fine- goes to government not victim of crime. 2: shame penalty- specific punishment to crime, psychological.
