Sex & Sourdough by A.J. Thomas

Author:A.J. Thomas [Thomas, A.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 10

“AND WHO would like to volunteer to give us a summary of the next case?”

Anders kept his head down. He opened the brief he’d done on the fourth case for Civil Procedures I on his laptop, keeping his notes open in a small word-processing file in the corner.

“Anyone? It’s a fun one,” said the professor, her eyes gleaming with malicious glee. “Mr. Blankenship,” she said, reading his name from her roster. “Where is Mr. Blankenship?”

Anders pressed his lips together tight to keep from cursing out loud and raised his hand.

“Mr. Blankenship! Would you give us a summary of Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp, please?”

Anders rubbed his eyes. This case had to have been assigned as a joke. A way to make the first week seem entertaining, just to make the whole curriculum over the next three years seem manageable rather than intimidating. Anders wasn’t entertained or intimidated, though—he was just annoyed.

“A merchant marine employee got hurt, he tried to sue his employer for damages, and the employer filed a motion for summary judgment based on the one-year statute of limitations governing marine law. He responded to the motion by saying that the three-year statute of limitations for torts applied. The court ruled that since the basis for the suit fell under maritime law, the maritime statute of limitations won.”

“That’s the rule, true enough. What does this case teach us about the basics of filing a civil complaint?”

Anders couldn’t believe he had to say this out loud. “Despite the fact that there is no rule stating that legal filings have to be typed, you should not handwrite them in color crayon,” he said seriously. “Particularly in goldenrod, because it’s harder to read than forest green.”

“Exactly!” The professor clapped her hands together. “No rule of civil procedure says that a complaint has to be typed and printed. The reason this isn’t addressed is to insure that the courts remain accessible to every citizen, regardless of access to counsel or even access to a computer. Was that what happened in this case, Mr. Blankenship?”

“No. The attorneys for both parties were friends. They were trying to be funny. Possibly trying to be so over the top that the judge didn’t notice they didn’t even cite the law they referenced. Both the complaint and answer were written in color crayon on the back of placemats from the same bar.”

“That’s right. And because there is no rule prohibiting it, the court did try to muddle through the color crayon and issued a ruling on the motion. However, the attorneys in this case were friends with the sitting judge, and he was feeling indulgent. In practice, you will all type everything. Unless you really want the judge to hate you, always type, always spell-check, always make sure your work is legible. And absolutely no goldenrod!”

A twitter of laughter vibrated around the lecture hall.

“All right, we’re already three minutes over our time for today. On Wednesday, we’ll begin our study of who can and cannot be a party to a civil suit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.