Assignment

Answers should demonstrate your knowledge of the material and your ability to determine the relevant legal issues raised by the facts. You should indicate clearly the specific issue raised and the law applicable to the issue. You should apply the law to the facts and analyze the various possible results. Finally, you should state your conclusion. Do not state mere conclusions without full analysis.

1. Patton hires Allison as his sales agent for a nine-month period. (Assume that Allison is an independent contractor.) Allison is to receive a salary of $20,000, plus a 5% commission on everything he sells. Three months later, Patterson fires Allison and terminates the agency because he thinks that Allison's manner of dress is odd. Allison wants to sue Patton for breaching the agency agreement. Allison maintains that: Patton could not revoke the agency because the agency is an agency coupled with an interest (Allison's commission); (2) in any event, Patton could not revoke the agency without just cause, odd looking clothing is not just cause, and Allison therefore is entitled to an injunction restoring the agency; and (3) even if Patton could revoke the agency, he had no right to do so on these facts, and therefore Allison is entitled to damages. Is each of these claims correct? Why or why not?

2. Abe is a sales agent for Pluto. Although it is customary in the trade for sales agents to warrant the quality of the goods they sell, Pluto specifically told Abe not to make any warranties on the goods he sells. In addition, Pluto wrote each of his customers to inform each of the policy. About one month later, Abe made a forbidden warranty in order to make a sale to Thomas. Thomas was an established customer who knew that Abe was acting on Pluto's behalf and who also had been informed of Pluto's warranty policy, but who honestly forgot about the policy while dealing with Abe and thus thought that Abe had authority to make the warranty. Is Pluto contractually liable to Thomashere? Is Abe liable to Tate? Would it make any difference if Pluto had simply published a notice in a newspaper rather than notifying each customer directly? Discuss fully.

3. Bill Straight didn't exactly fit in at the XYZ Corporation. First, Bill lost out on a promotion because a female co-employee was sleeping with their mutual boss and for that reason got the promotion instead. Later, Bill was denied a raise because he refused to have sex with his male supervisor. Still later, Bill was fired when he refused to sleep with the firm's female CEO. Bill sues XYZ for sexual harassment, citing all three incidents. For which of the incidents is he most likely to recover? Why? Discuss fully.

4. Goofy Don starts a fire that soon consumes Poor Paula's trailer. Don did not know that the trailer was occupied and had no reason to know this, but it was. After rushing into the trailer to save her child, Paula is severely burned. Paul sues Don in negligence. Assuming that Don has breached a duty, what two arguments might he make in defense? Assume that the traditional negligence defenses apply. Will these arguments work here? Discuss fully.

5. The 10-member board of directors of Dave-Sells, Inc., votes to sell Dave-Sells's potato chip manufacturing division for $70,000,000, although Dave-Sells has received offers from other prospective purchasers for $80,000,000 cash. The division is sold to a corporation owned by all the directors of Dave-Sells. Scarra, a shareholder of Dave-Sells, initiates a derivative suit against Dave-Sells's directors for selling the division for too little money. Two directors resign and are replaced by two new directors, who are appointed by the remaining directors. The board appoints the two new directors to a shareholder litigation committee, which decides that the corporation should not sue the directors who sold the division. The board of directors asks the court to dismiss Scarra's derivative suit on the grounds that she failed to make a demand on the board and that the business judgment rule requires the court to follow the committee's decision not to sue the directors. Will the court dismiss the suit?

6. Allie is a licensed pilot who is nearsighted. She has 20/20 (perfect) vision when she wears her contact lenses. Without her contact lenses, she cannot read or drive, but with her contact lenses, she is able to engage in these activities. Acme Airlines has a requirement that its pilots have 20/20 uncorrected vision. Allie applies for a pilot position with Acme, and is rejected based on her need to wear contact lenses. Allie goes to the EEOC to file a charge under the ADA against Acme Airlines. What is the likely result?

7. Joe Smith, a police patrolman, joins a new religious sect called Christ's Little Sheep. Members of this sect renounce any real or threatened use of force against another human being for any reason. Thus, Joe refuses to employ or threaten any kind of physical force against anyone he encounters in his patrolman's job. Instead, he tries to reason with lawbreakers and to instruct them about God's will. For this reason, the city police force reassigns Joe from his patrolman's job to an office job. Joe sues for religious discrimination under Title VII. Can the department successfully argue that it isn't discriminating against Joe's religion, just the way he does his job? If not, what else can the department argue? How successful is this argument likely to be?

8. Police officer Summer Winter arrested Elvis Greaseley on a burglary charge. Officer Winter neglected to give Greaseley the Miranda warnings at the time of the arrest or at any time thereafter. During "booking" at the police station, Officer Winter required an unwilling Greaseley to submit to fingerprinting. (Information obtained through the fingerprinting process ultimately proved useful, because the police discovered Greaseley's fingerprints on the glass door of the store where the burglary occurred.) After booking was completed, Detective Springer Fall interrogated Greaseley at the police station. Detective Fall did not give Greaseley the Miranda warnings because he (Detective Fall) erroneously assumed that Officer Winter had already done so. In fact, however, Officer Winter had not done so. During the course of the interrogation by Detective Fall, Greaseley confessed to the burglary for which he had been arrested. Greaseley later retained attorney Priscilla Lisamarie to represent him in the burglary case. She has filed, on Greaseley's behalf, a motion to suppress (i.e., motion requesting a court order excluding certain evidence) in which she argues that the fingerprinting of Greaseley and the interrogation of him violated his Fifth Amendment rights and his Miranda rights. Lisamarie argues, therefore, that the exclusionary rule should be applied, so as to prevent the state from using the following evidence against Greaseley: (A) any evidence derived from the fingerprinting that took place during booking; and (B) Greaseley's confession. Is Lisamarie correct in her argument that Greaseley's Fifth Amendment rights and Miranda rights were violated? Why or why not? As to the evidence (listed above as (A) and (B) ) mentioned in the motion to suppress, state whether the exclusionary rule would prevent the prosecution from using that evidence against Greaseley. Explain your reasoning.