I'm a 1L and I went into this year planning to just focus on getting the rule from each case, and working on studying so I knew the rules and could on exams regurgitate them and then apply them to the fact patterns. But now I'm realizing, even after having gone through all these cases in the casebook for say, Contracts, I can't really tell you the rule because all the cases we've been reading are from different jurisdictions or the book points out that something we read isn't true in many other jurisdictions. For example, the enforceability of adhesion contracts. A quote from Hanks v. Power Ridge Restaurant Corp.:
How do I construct a rule, then, in exams? I don't think we've even read any cases from my state yet. Do I just act as if all the holdings from the cases we've read over the semester are binding regardless of their actual jurisdiction? How, then, do I take into account issues that the book itself says that courts wildly disagree upon?"We conclude that the agreement in the present matter [an adhesion contract which included an exculpatory clause] affects the public interest adversely and, therefore, is unenforceable because it violates public policy. . . . The defendants and the dissent point out that our conclusion represents the 'distinct minority view' and is inconsistent with the majority of sister state authority . . . Put simply, we disagree with these decisions . . ."
Is it just a mess of "in California, XYZ. In Ohio, some courts say XYZ, others say ABC." Or?
