Spring 2010 Exam Prep Rant Thread Forum

[mikeytwoshoes]

Outlining Ks. Raffles v. Wichelhaus is one of the most retarded cases ever.
That is all for now.

WTF Raffles is a classic of K-interpretation?

[mikeytwoshoes]

Civ Pro question

For Supplemental Jx, must the court preserve venue? My thought is "no" because if venue is proper, then you would still have complete diversity and you wouldn't need 1367.

[Spoonmanners]

Sweet contracts.

The contract was for the sale of cotton. It was immaterial by what ship the cotton arrived as long as it arrived as contracted, i.e. on a ship called the Peerless. Since the parties did not state an intention at the time of contracting as to which ship should carry the cotton, absent fraud, a written contract, good on its face, shall not be disturbed by parol evidence.

They both intended different ships. They were betting on the price of cotton going up or down.

--ImageRemoved--

What kind of school has contracts in the spring?

[Esc]

Torts...

[PSLaplace]

Civ Pro question

For Supplemental Jx, must the court preserve venue? My thought is "no" because if venue is proper, then you would still have complete diversity and you wouldn't need 1367.

I had Civ Pro last semester so I'm a bit rusty...but I do believe venue must lie if you're trying to join another party through 1367 SMJ + Rule 14/19/20.

Your reasoning is a bit faulty: 1367 does not allow the original plaintiff to sidestep 1332's complete diversity requirement. If 1332 is the basis for original jurisdiction, the (original) plaintiff cannot assert 1367 jurisdiction over a claim against another party, if bringing that party in would destroy complete diversity; see 1367(b). You may then wonder what work for the original plaintiff 1367 does that 1332 does not; it allows SMJ over claims against another party that do not violate complete diversity but are not large enough to exceed the amount-in-controversy (and are therefore ineligible for 1332).

[kings84_wr]

What kind of school has contracts in the spring?

This is only the 2nd year we haven't had K's and CIv pro a Full year. When we added Legal prof it changed everything.

So be thankful we didnt start two years ago

[vanwinkle]

The important thing about Raffles is that it was actually normal to contract arrival date by what ship it was on back then. That's why the court allowed for a ruling there was no "meeting of the minds" when it was shown there were two ships named Peerless. That was actually normal business activity, it was actually reasonable for that kind of mistake to have happened (rather than the court believing it was some ruse for the buyer to get out of a perfectly valid contract, which some people think it was anyway...)

Context matters. You can't get out of a contract to buy a car by claiming you thought "fifty" meant $50 instead of $50,000; nobody would reasonably expect to buy a nice new running car for $50. But if there's a legitimate ambiguity... void under Peerless.

We studied a pretty retarded companion case that involved a lackey being ordered to buy a UPS for a company for less than $200 (back in the 1980s when technology was still really fucking expensive) while the company president is out of town. Lackey can't find anyone who sells UPSes for that cheap, but then calls one place up and gets told they'll sell him a UPS for "fifty-six twenty" including installation, and the lackey says okay and orders it. Lackey's company submits a purchase authorization to confirm for $56.20; UPS salesman sends a sales receipt for $5,620. Nobody reads either of these when they get them.

President comes back, goes "WTF, that is a five thousand dollar UPS, did we really get that for under $200?" Records are checked. Hilarity ensues. Court ultimately voids for ambiguity, with a big WTF to both parties for being complete and utter morons.

[98234872348]

Outlining Ks. Raffles v. Wichelhaus is one of the most retarded cases ever.
That is all for now.

WTF Raffles is a classic of K-interpretation?

Can you point me to the holding and rationale, plz? kthx in advance.

○ Raffles - Rule: no contract comes into being if a material aspect of the agreement is left indefinite by parties and uncertainty cannot be resolved by the process of interpretation and construction
i. Must be an incurable uncertainty
□ Either intent is in doubt or court is at a loss for establishing a basis for enforcing what was agreed upon
ii. Uncertainty must relate to a material aspect of the agreement

This is what my outline from last semester says. It sounds intelligent so I'll go with it.

As for the rationale, I think it's basically that if something is so ambiguous that it would be unfair to impose a contract on the parties that the only reasonable thing to do is to call it void.

Also, I HATE CON LAW.

Oh

My

God.

This exam is going to be terrible.

[vanwinkle]

Also, I HATE CON LAW.

Oh

My

God.

This exam is going to be terrible.

+1, how do you even test for this stuff?

[98234872348]

Also, I HATE CON LAW.

Oh

My

God.

This exam is going to be terrible.

+1, how do you even test for this stuff?

Who knows. My teacher basically just invites you to make normative arguments about the material, not a fan of her testing style, there isn't even a fact pattern, it makes no sense.

[vanwinkle]

I'm sad that everyone missed my joke.

Eh, we're law students. We're good at analysis, not humor.

[98234872348]

I'm sad that everyone missed my joke. I think everyone easily learns the issue behind Raffles. But, the point is that it is an incredibly obtuse and conclusory opinion written by like three people, none of which actually choose to put their rationale on paper.

From what I remember of maybe page or two excerpt of Raffles I read in Ks, I believe I concur with these sentiments.

Also +1..
Our test is a 2hr closed book. 1/2 is composed of 60 M/C that are "relatively factual - gleaned form reading and paying attention in class" and the other 1/2 is composed of two essay questions

I have no fucking clue how to study for it. How the fuck do you memorize all of that shit? Including the names of Justices he makes a point to call out when discussing case (he didn't tell us this part until about a week ago)...
fuck.

Dude that is insane. I am actually glad my class is such a "big picture" class and that we don't have to focus on minutia like who wrote what opinion or attempt to deduce a rule from a case like brown or grutter.

I am still highly displeased.

[vanwinkle]

Dude that is insane. I am actually glad my class is such a "big picture" class and that we don't have to focus on minutia like who wrote what opinion or attempt to deduce a rule from a case like brown or grutter.

In my class we keep alternating between discussing the "big picture" and diving in and discussing what each and every justice said in every single opinion, and it's freaking me out because there's no way I can know all of it on test day.

[98234872348]

Dude that is insane. I am actually glad my class is such a "big picture" class and that we don't have to focus on minutia like who wrote what opinion or attempt to deduce a rule from a case like brown or grutter.

In my class we keep alternating between discussing the "big picture" and diving in and discussing what each and every justice said in every single opinion, and it's freaking me out because there's no way I can know all of it on test day.

Typically speaking, classes I've taken focus on the big picture and use fact specific, subjective examples like that to illustrate legal reasoning and show you how to apply the law to the facts. Of course, I have no idea how your prof approaches it, but that's generally been my experience. I think on test day I'm going to try to demonstrate as much knowledge of the nuances of the opinions as possible while still attending to the "big picture" analysis and try to throw in some normative analysis while I'm at it. I am writing an exam on brown either today or tomorrow, we'll see how that goes.

[vanwinkle]

Typically speaking, classes I've taken focus on the big picture and use fact specific, subjective examples like that to illustrate legal reasoning and show you how to apply the law to the facts.

It feels like we keep diving in and out, and I have no idea what I was supposed to have learned from it all. We discussed so many big principles and so many court opinions that it's all kind of a blur to me.

[98234872348]

Typically speaking, classes I've taken focus on the big picture and use fact specific, subjective examples like that to illustrate legal reasoning and show you how to apply the law to the facts.

It feels like we keep diving in and out, and I have no idea what I was supposed to have learned from it all. We discussed so many big principles and so many court opinions that it's all kind of a blur to me.

I'm trying to tailor my studying to focusing on the big principles, such as "when is it appropriate to overturn precedent," "how specifically must an issue be framed when deciding whether it is a fundamental right" and "should ramifications on federalism be considered when crafting fundamental rights under substantive due process or when deciding that a law violates equal protection, and if so, how significant of a consideration should it be"

/pretending to know what I am talking about.

[98234872348]

Dude that is insane. I am actually glad my class is such a "big picture" class and that we don't have to focus on minutia like who wrote what opinion or attempt to deduce a rule from a case like brown or grutter.

I am still highly displeased.

Yeah. That's the first class that has gotten so... well, undergrad about the whole thing.

Sitting in Con Law every day makes me feel like I am back in undergrad, especially considering that I don't think we read one case for that class that I haven't read 3 times before.

I am not sure if having read them before is a good a bad thing, though...

[rando]

So this is all highly entertaining to me. I am so glad that I am not studying for conlaw or property.

And then I look at evidence... F me.

[mac.empress]

We do K now. So I appreciate the annoyance of Raffles.

I love Con Law!!!!!!!!!

Now studying Larceny/Theft for Crim and Judiciary, Executive and Legislative for Con.

Next stop, Exclusion clauses in K.

[Ipsa Dixit]

Not studying. At some point I will. Business Associations = pain.

[rando]

Not studying. At some point I will. Business Associations = pain.

Damn. BA is annoying. I miss tax. seriously. a lot.

[rando]

So this is all highly entertaining to me. I am so glad that I am not studying for conlaw or property.

And then I look at evidence... F me.

I've heard evidence is all BLL, but a metric fuckton of it? Truth?

Metric fuckton. Truth.

BLL, sort of.... Basically think civpro FRCP with Congress smoking crack and letting Scotus clean up the mess.

[mikeytwoshoes]

We do K now. So I appreciate the annoyance of Raffles.

I love Con Law!!!!!!!!!

Now studying Larceny/Theft for Crim and Judiciary, Executive and Legislative for Con.

Next stop, Exclusion clauses in K.

Far too cheerful.

No shit, having her and Opera on the board is like having two Lexis reps.

[solidsnake]

Conlaw is the shit. It's rich in teh THEORY!!

[98234872348]

So this is all highly entertaining to me. I am so glad that I am not studying for conlaw or property.

And then I look at evidence... F me.

I've heard evidence is all BLL, but a metric fuckton of it? Truth?

Metric fuckton. Truth.

BLL, sort of.... Basically think civpro FRCP with Congress smoking crack and letting Scotus clean up the mess.

fuck