… And We’re Back!

So much for not letting law school completely take over our lives. We’re 6 weeks into 2L year and ready to share more witticisms, shockers, and legal heterodoxes.

To kick off our renewed faith in balanced living, we offer this cynical piece from our Civil Procedure II professor:

“In Washington Quid Pro Quo means ‘Holy crap, what a coincidence!'”

With that statement we slid into home.  No that is not a legal term but rather a good ole’ fashioned baseball reference.

For the past six weeks we have been playing baseball in the Civil Procedure pro league.  So far at the top of the list, the heavy hitters are Pennoyer of the Oregon Traditionals, Shoe of the Washington Single-Shoed Salesmen, and Seaway of the Oklahoma Accidents (he just got traded).

Till the next game,

N+S

Lesson 4: Sick chickens

Why didn’t the chicken cross the road?

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Because the other side of the road was a different state and the Federal Government said it couldn’t. Not funny today, and especially not funny in 1935 when the Federal Government’s regulation of interstate commerce was highly contested. In 200 years the United States Federal Government went from having power only in foreign affairs, some financial stuff, and a very narrow definition of interstate commerce to having its hand in every state cookie jar. Bad government, don’t eat that!

But seriously, what do you think about the following: the Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3, giving the Federal Government the power to “regulate commerce among the several states.”)  allows Federal regulation of which one/s of the following:

A. Wheat grown on farms for consumption on the farm.

B. Passenger ferries between NJ and NY

C. Minimum wage and maximum allowable hours

D. The price of a train ticket from Marshall, TX to Dallas, TX?

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The correct answer is all of the above. Mix one sentence giving one power with a little judicial interpretation and BAM! every step of every commercial endeavor is now fair game.

Mmm, to be a judge on the Supreme Court…

N + S

Recess: Apple’s are for teachers

Did you notice the misuse of the apostrophe?

Apparently grocery stores are known to advertise as follows: “Apple’s $0.39/lb.”

Mistake or does this reflect the current state of our education?

N+S.

Boondoggle Films Presents – featuring the hit song “No Child’s Behind Left”

Lesson 3: Gift v. Contract

In the land of Contracts, it should be no surprise that promises to make gifts and contracts between parties are treated differently. Want some examples from the book? Here are three lessons from the trade:

1. Imagine making a promise to donate $500 to your favorite charity.  Now if Save the Whales in reliance on your promise buys ad space to protest the fishing industry and you renege on your promise, the courts may hold you accountable even though you promised to make a gift.

2. You are walking down Market St. and a perfectly clean, sober looking law student passes out from pure exhaustion in front of you. You, having taken that CPR course in community college start administering CPR. You, being awesome at everything you do, save them. Now you want some cash money.

Under the theory of Emergency Restitution you need to fulfill the following elements:

• Benefit conferred.  Clearly met.  You saved the exhausted student.
• Service was reasonably necessary.  Met.  Who knows what would have happened to the student if you walked by and did nothing.
• Consent was impossible.  Met.  The student was passed out.
• Intent to charge at the time you saved the student.  Bummer.  You being the good samaritan had no intent to charge thus no cash money for you.

3. It’s 1935, you’re working at a lumber mill cleaning the second floor in the usual manner by pushing giant blocks of wood off the ledge onto the ground floor.  You are about to push a 75 lbs. pine block off the ledge when you see your boss standing directly below.  There is no time for a warning, so what do you do.  Clearly you fall with the block in order to push it to the side and avoid hitting the bossman.  While you may have saved the boss you have suffered permanent injuries and become handicapped.  The boss received a material benefit at your expense and promises to pay you $ 15 every two weeks for the rest of your life.  However, he dies and the executor of his estate cuts you off.  Eight years later, $15 probably lost some value but considering 100 aspirin cost $0.76 in 1940, he could buy 1,000 aspirin and still have almost half the money to spare.

So the estate cuts you off.  Under emergency restitution you get nothing.  What next.  You bring suit to recover under promissory restitution since there was a) a benefit conferred on the boss; b) the boss made a promise in recognition of the benefit; and c) injustice would be avoided if the promise were enforced (you’d get your aspirin and then some).  If you’re wondering, this was a true story (see Webb v. McGowin 27 Ala.App. 82 (1935)).

Note to self: think twice before you make your next promise and make sure you form an intent to charge.

N +S.

Lesson 2

The Reverse Santa Clause

As much as we wish this were the new dance craze to hit the nation, it’s actually something you’re probably already familiar with – burglary. Or under the classic common law definition NOT burglary. Originally the crime required the breaking and entering of a dwelling with an intent to commit a felony. A chimney, which is already open does not require breaking to enter (similarly, pushing open an already open window would also not constitute burglary under this definition). Rest assured under the modern definition, however, a large red clad figure shimmying down a chimney to take unwittingly left presents would be a burglar…among other things…

N+S

Lesson 1

This lesson comes to you courtesy of our statutory class on education, and our own lifelong tenure in the education system.

“There are too many cooks stirring the education broth”  Translation: the California Education Code is confusing because it is trying (and some say failing) to appease the multitude of parties that have an interest in the state’s education system. Also, it’s a really big pot of broth – 2,420 pages, over 101,060 Sections, 4.6 lbs.

N + S

Welcome to your first day of lawschooled

Law school is definitely a solitary endeavor.  You lose touch with the “preschooled” world and immerse yourself in property law, torts, civil procedure, and the like.  These topics frame and focus even those experiences meant to be a break.  No river  is wide enough, no mountain high enough to keep us from the law.  The law becomes the derriere of every joke, and you find that you don’t have much to talk about with your friends and family except law school.

This blog is meant to share a little bit of that experience with those that we’ve left behind when we started law school.  We’ve made it through one semester and now live to tell the tale of being law schooled.

N + S