The parties must have a “Meeting of the minds”

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Let’s recap: Remember that in order to form a contract the parties must have a “meeting of the minds” in other words, there must be an agreement to form a contract. Accordingly, the element of intent is of prime importance. In contract law, intent is determined by what is called the objective theory of contracts, not by the personal or subjective intent or belief of a party.

The facts are interpreted by a reasonable person standard (rather than by the party’s own secret, non-spoken, or subjective intentions) such as what the party said when entering the contract and the circumstances surrounding the transaction.

For this assignment, respond to the following: (1) Is it fair for a court to hold that parties are bound in contract even though one of the parties later claims that he/she did not intend to form a contract? (2) Generally, should the courts give more weight to subjective intent in determining whether a contract has been formed? Why or why not. (Please include what is meant by “subjective intent” in your response.) Please address completely each question above in your post.

Revenge Porn and Invasion of Privacy

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Read Digital Update, Revenge Porn and Invasion of Privacy, at page 119 of your book then respond to the following questions for 40 points. For an additional 10 points comment on one of your classmate’s posts stating whether you agree or not with their assessment of question #2 and why or why not. Book : Business law 14th edition

1. Should domain name hosting companies be liable for revenge porn? 2. Has the current Covid-19 Pandemic made instances of revenge porn worse? What can be done?

The Scott v. Carpanzano case excerpt

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Read the Scott v. Carpanzano case excerpt at pages 91and 92 and respond to the following questions: (Please number and repeat the question followed by your response.) Book: Business law 14th edition 1. Briefly state the facts of the case, including the procedural facts (what happened in the lower court and how did it get to the U.S. Court of Appeals)? 2. What is the issue(s) before the appellate court?

(what question(s) must the court resolve) 3. What evidence did the appellate court find supported the trial court’s findings? 4. Did the appellate court disagree with any portion of the lower court? If so, how? 5. Did Carmela Carpanzano meet the minimum acceptable standard for ethical business behavior? Explain

An area of housing Projects in Phoenix

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On August 23, 2011, late in the evening, Officer E was patrolling an area of housing projects in Phoenix. The area was a high crime area, “known for burglaries, sexual assaults … children being abducted from the housing projects … homicides, shootings, stabbings that occur right around that same exact area.” As he was traveling westbound in his marked patrol car, Officer E. observed Defendant walking eastbound on a sidewalk, approached to about fifteen feet from Defendant, and made eye contact with him. Defendant hesitated and stopped “midstep” when he saw the officers. Defendant then changed his direction and started walking southbound.

Officer E. made a U-turn and attempted to locate Defendant. Officer E drove through a nearby alley, around a building, and then observed Defendant walking southbound. When he drove around the building, Defendant changed his direction again and started walking westbound. At this point, the officers concluded Defendant was attempting to avoid them.

Defendant eventually left the sidewalk and walked into the projects. In order to follow Defendant, the officer drove over the sidewalk and onto the grass. The officer did not activate his lights or sirens as he followed Defendant. While the officer was following Defendant, Defendant put his hands in his pockets and continued to walk away from him.

When Defendant put his hands in his pockets, Officer E. feared Defendant was attempting to grab a weapon. As Officer E stopped behind Defendant and started to exit his patrol car, Officer E commanded Defendant to take his hands out of his pockets and place them on his head. Defendant ignored the officer’s instructions and continued walking away with his hands in his pockets. Officer E. repeated his command a second time, and Defendant briefly “turned back” or looked over his shoulder while he continued to walk away from the officer. As he walked away, the officer was unable to see Defendant’s hands, which remained in front of his body and in his pockets.

Officer E ran towards Defendant, and repeated his command a third time. After Officer E put his hands on Defendant, Defendant put his right hand on his head and, with his left hand, he placed a piece of clear plastic in his mouth. Officer E said he “believed” the plastic contained crack cocaine.

  1. Did Officer E seize Defendant? (yes/no) If yes, when?
  2. What type of seizure, if any, did Officer E perform? (none, Terry stop, ,or the equivalent of an arrest)
  3. What level of suspicion did Officer E require to perform this action without violating the 4th Amendment?
  4. Did Officer E have this level of suspicion? Why or why not?

 

The Hospital’s ethics committee

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The local newspaper has published a letter to the editor (found on page two of this document) arguing that the hospital you work for is guilty of an ethical violation.  You are on the hospital’s ethics committee.  The director of the hospital comes to you and requests that you provide her with an analysis of the argument the letter writer is making.

This is a serious matter, so be prepared to do some detailed and highly focused work.  Your boss is a demanding one, but she is understanding and will be grateful to you for any help you can provide even if you are uncertain on some points.  Do the best you can. Submit your work product to Prof. Wagner as a WORD file.

     Your boss asks you to present your analysis of the letter to the editor’s argument in the form of a list of statements setting out, in complete sentences, each of the following:

  1. The argument’s claim of a wrongful act: ________________________.
  2. The argument’s conclusion in the form of a judgment that the hospital’s action is wrongful for a specific reason: __________________________.
  3. The normative premise or premises directly and indirectly supporting this conclusion: __________________________.
  4. The factual premise or premises directly and indirectly supporting this conclusion: __________________________.
  5. The logical inter-relationships connecting the various factual and normative premises both to one another and to the argument’s ultimate conclusion:______________________.

As you complete the list, she also asks you to place a label after statement on the list as follows:

  1. After each normative and factual premise, (sound) or (unsound).
  2. After each logical inference the writer of the letter draws of a conclusion from a premise, [valid] or [invald].

In addition, she asks you provide a short of list of:

  1. Any emotional utterances included in the letter that are unverifiable and therefore do not qualify as a premise, i.e., supporting reason.

 

 

 

PAGE TWO

 

Letter to the Editor

     Central Hospital of Milwaukee makes good people angry, and it makes decent people weep.  This hospital has committed an unethical act. You may wonder why I say so. This letter explains. My cousin Mandy Mankowski arrived at the hospital ER at midnight on June 4.  She was in what turned out to be an acute health crisis.

The hospital sent her away untreated.  She died three hours later.  The triage nurse, at the time, said that all the available beds had to be allocated to victims of a multi-car accident that had just occurred on the interstate. 

     It is true that several of these victims required immediate care, but frankly several of them died even after receiving care.  My cousin was only complaining of a stomachache, but if the hospital had accepted her as a patient, tests could have been done that would have revealed that she had acute appendicitis. 

The hospital is subject to the ethical standards set out in the Wisconsin Licensing of Hospitals Act.  The section of that Act dealing with Triage (principles governing the allocation of scarce hospital resources) say that a hospital with limited health resources has a duty to allocate these resources to their patients in the following order: 

1) first priority goes to those in known acute danger of death or permanent
    disability who have a reasonable chance of survival.

2) second priority goes to those who show serious signs of being in such acute danger and    
     require diagnostic testing to ascertain the degree of the danger; and

3) third priority goes to those who are facing almost certain death and treatment
     stands virtually no chance of success.

It was unethical for this reckless and unfeeling hospital to prioritize patients who were clearly in the third category over my cousin who was in the second category.   

     When asked about her symptoms, my cousin said, “O its nothing, just a stomachache. The people in the wreck are more important.” But the hospital has a duty to examine patients scientifically before making a judgment about the seriousness of their health status. Any intern would have seen on even a superficial examination that my cousin showed all the symptoms of acute appendicitis. 

I was shocked that the hospital answered my accusations by saying that their duty applied only to “patients” and that my cousin was not yet a patient because she had not yet checked in to the hospital.

     In conclusion, I furiously oppose this hospital

A Negligence suit

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Review the fact pattern found BELOW. You are a paralegal in a law firm that has been retained by the Hanks to determine whether they should proceed with a negligence suit. Using the prompts that follow the fact pattern as guidance,  a client letter to send to the Hanks assessing the strength of their claim. Use https://www.law.cuny.edu/legal-writing/students/client-letter/ to assist you in formatting your letter. Make up the name of your firm, the Hanks address, and the name of the attorney for whom you have drafted the letter.

On the morning of April 3, 2000, a thunderstorm occurred near Lake Bonin in Union County, Minnesota. At 6 a.m., an intense lightning strike from the storm destroyed the electrical transformer serving the lake home of Joe and Sara Hanks, causing a fire that destroyed their home. E-nergy, Inc. (“Energy”) owned and maintained a transformer and lightning arrester on a pole 90 feet from the plain-tiffs’ home.

The lightning arrester (also known as a surge arrester), bolted to the transformer, diverts high-voltage surges into the ground. All agreed that the specific surge suppressor was the appropriate protection when lightning struck (about twice a year) and when there were surges along the distribution lines.

Lightning arresters can fail because of missing internal parts (some can erode over time as a result of numerous strikes), design flaws, or poor ground connections.

This particular transformer had been installed in 1996. An Energy engineering manual states that very high current strikes or a strike directly to the lightning arrester could destroy the transformer. Energy never received complaints about it or requests for repairs.

Energy employees had received instructions to inspect equipment visually when performing their regular duties; there were no specific instructions to inspect the transformers.

On April 8, E-nergy employees visited the Hanks home and found that the bottom of the transformer’s steel tank had been blown out, damage so severe that it was rarely seen. The transformer showed that the lightning arrester apparently sustained no damage; E-nergy didn’t keep the lightning arrester after its worker installed a new transformer when the Hanks house was rebuilt.

E-nergy’s inves-tigator, who was on the scene, made no effort to preserve the lightning arrester. Do the Hankses have a cause of action? Why or why not? What difficulties seem likely, based upon what’s mentioned in this chapter, for the Hankses if they do have a cause of action?

 

The Victim reported being sexually assaulted

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The victim reported being sexually assaulted and said that she didn’t know who her attacker was. In the course of the investigation, Officer O investigated Defendant, who was in the area on the night of the crime. Based on a hunch, Officer O decided to see if Defendant would answer some questions. Officer O asked if the defendant would come to a diner near the defendant’s apartment for an interview. Defendant said he would, and arrived at the diner for the meeting.

At the diner, Officer O asked the defendant if he would consent to the taking of a DNA sample for comparison to DNA evidence collected at the scene of the assault. Defendant said no. The defendant was nervous during the interview, rubbing his arms and the side of the chair. Soon after the interview was over and the defendant had left the diner, Officer O took swabs of the chair in an attempt to collect the defendant’s DNA. The police submitted those swabs to the crime lab for DNA analysis, which revealed that the DNA extracted from the swabs matched DNA samples investigators had collected from the scene of the assault.

A further investigation ensued and, eventually, Petitioner was charged with sexual assault and related offenses. What level of suspicion, if any, did the police officer need in order to ask for an interview?

Question 2 options: An officer needs reasonable suspicion to ask for an interview. An officer does not need any level of suspicion to ask for an interview. An officer needs a hunch to ask for an interview. An officer needs probable cause to ask for an interview. Did Officer O have this level of suspicion?

Question 3 options: Yes, because Officer O had a hunch that the defendant had committed the crime. Yes, because Officer O did not need any level of suspicion. No, because Officer O did not have probable cause that the defendant committed the crime. No, because Officer O did not have reasonable suspicion that defendant committed the crime.

Was Officer O’s collection of DNA evidence from the chair a search under the Fourth Amendment? Question 4 options: Yes, because the defendant had a subjective expectation of privacy in his DNA. No, because the defendant’s expectation of privacy in his DNA on the chair was not reasonable. 5. What level of suspicion did the police officer need in order to collect the DNA evidence from the chair? Question 5 options: An officer needs probable cause in this scenario.

An officer needs consent in this scenario. An officer needs reasonable suspicion in this scenario. An officer does not need any suspicion in this scenario. Yes, because the collection of DNA is always a search. No, Because collecting DNA is never a search. 6. Did Officer O have this level of suspicion? Question 6 options: No, because officer O did not have probable cause that defendant committed the crime. Yes, because the officer did not need any level of suspicion. Yes, because officer O had a hunch that the defendant had committed the crime. No, because officer O did not have reasonable suspicion that defendant committed the crime.

The ICJ Statute and the Genocide Convention

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On what provisions of the ICJ Statute and the Genocide Convention did Ukraine seek to rely in arguing that the ICJ had jurisdiction to hear this case? How does the issue of jurisdiction at the provisional measures stage of litigation differ from the issue of jurisdiction generally before the ICJ? Please answer with reference to the international legal issues raised by the provisional measures order of 16 March 2022 (Ukraine v Russia).

The Commissioner of the Indoor professional lacrosse league

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You are the commissioner of the indoor professional lacrosse league for which the current CBA expires at the end of this year.  Recently, several high-profile lacrosse players have been arrested for possession or use of illegal recreational drugs.  Consistent with the World Anti-Doping Code, the international lacrosse federation has banned several athletes for two years for using performance-enhancing substances.  What recommendations would you make to club owners regarding a drug-testing program for the league?
 

To address adequately the concerns of the players and their union regarding mandatory drug testing, note that a wide range of issues will have to be agreed on through collective bargaining with the lacrosse players union, including the following:

  1. Which players would be subject to testing? Would random testing be instituted, or would players be tested only if there was a reasonable cause that they were using performance-enhancing substances?
  2. How would the tests be conducted, and how often? Who would conduct tests, and with what safeguards?  Would there be an opportunity to appeal a positive test result?
  3. Which drugs are prohibited?  How is this determined?  What is the basis for initial selection?  Can the list of prohibited drugs be expanded (or reduced), and by what procedure?
  4. What are the sanctions for a positive test result? Mandatory treatment? Suspension?  Loss of salary and other benefits?
  5. What appeal procedures are available?

The Sexual assault to the Michigan State Police

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In 1992, a Plaintiff reported the sexual assault to the Michigan State Police; and a detective told her that his “hands were tied” and that she had to report it to the athletic department.  In its report describing the ensuing investigation, the Michigan State University (MSU) cleared Nassar of wrongdoing. A few years later, Nassar was sent to prison for abusing hundreds of girls and women.

Based on the Video and article, do you feel that MSU and USA Gymnastic were genuinely concern about the health and well-being of student-athletes, (why would reporting sexual assaults be withheld by the police, administration, and other team physicians)?