Period 2: Intro to Civil Law, Day 6 - Class Recap

I don't drink coffee (I have enough energy as is), but here's a delicious morning treat that I once had at JFK airport in New York, in 2010. Jamba Juice is amazing!

Dear class,

As I have said before, I really enjoy exploring different cases and possible outcomes with you all. Yes, this process is somewhat time consuming, but it is also very important to gaining knowledge about how particular laws impact our study. Thanks for following along! Here's what we did today in class.

Soundtrack: “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” by Led Zeppelin. A great song for referencing the concept of liability! Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/8/13:
Tort Report
Finish Mosely Case
Chapter 18 Review
Hot Coffee

Homework: Start reviewing terms. Turn in missing work. Check the blog! Tort Report assigned to: Antonio

Tort Report: Patrick brought in this article about one of the largest settlements in California history. SourceFed.com - Brutal Beating Victim Awarded $58 Million Settlement. The picture that accompanies the article gives you an impression of just how bad the man's injuries were. We talked in class about the concept of punitive damages, which is to try and ensure that the entity at fault in a civil case has a big enough incentive to never have something like it happen again.

Finish Mosely Case: Last class, we started looking at Mosely v. Portland Public Schools, which is a case about a student suing the district for negligence in not protecting her from a knife attack. Here is the actual Oregon Supreme Court ruling in the case. Basically, because of the statute cited in the handout, the school was not found responsible. We talked about why this was and then I had students answer a few questions in notebooks, which are on a handout in class.

Chapter 18 Review: Next, we continued our look at the answers to the questions posed in Chapter 18 of the textbook, about various kinds of torts. We still have a few more sections to get through - thank you for working hard on this and contributing to the class discussion.

Hot Coffee: To end class, we started watching the documentary Hot Coffee, which has to do with all sorts of aspects of the civil justice system. In the beginning, it is about the infamous case of a woman spilling McDonald's hot coffee on herself and how that case was misconstrued (in the eyes of the filmmaker) to encourage the concept of tort reform.

Here are the questions that the class is completing as part of watching the documentary. We will occasionally pause and talk about them.

Google Drive: "Hot Coffee" Documentary Viewing Questions

We made it through about the first 15 minutes of the film in class - hopefully we will be able to finish it next class. Usually I do not show entire movies, unless I think they are very good and relevant to what we are learning about. This is definitely one of those circumstances.

We will get back to it next class! Thank you for reading and doing your homework.