Professor L: “Does inner city crime have substantial effects on interstate commerce? Well, one argument is that no one is learning anything because they are too busy dodging bullets during the school day…”
Student #1: “Professor, is there anyplace where we can learn more about standard of review? This comes up in all of our classes but we haven’t had any authoritative description of it.”
Student #2: “Wikipedia!”
Professor C: “Uh… I’m not sure about that.”
Yesterday, my housemate and I walked into CivPro and got our laptops out.
My housemate’s screen flashed blue and then went black.
WINDOWS: ERROR 10123THOUARTSCREWED.
We exchanged “oh shit” looks and she tried to avoid drawing the prof’s attention during her silent panic.
She restarted her computer and got the, “Hi. Your computer sucks. Do you want to start Windows in Safety Mode?” screen. (Which, for a Mac Girl, must have been equally scary, but her laptop started successfully this time.)
While this was going on, I imagined losing all of my notes. BLEH. My gag reflex kicked in. I’ve been told to “backup, backup, backup!” about a dozen times, but I needed that moment of vicarious horror to actually do so:
That evening at Dunnhouse, the first thing I did was unwrap the flashdrive that I received during orientation, and backed up all of my OneNote files and class notes. Whew.
Now that I’m backed up the blue screens can bring it! Come see about D. Jansen. I stay two doors over…
(Haha, and yes that was a B.Scott reference)
Professor L’s nose was bruised this morning. She told us why:
Professor L: “I was playing tug of war with my dog Monday. And my dog, with great force, head butted me! Right in the nose! If you’ve ever seen a boxing match, it was like the moment the guy’s fist connects with the nose and, (I know it’s early) imagine the blood spurting everywhere… well this was the scene at my house Monday morning…”
Sweet semantics
Professor C: “Ahhh, I don’t think it’s an ice cream shop! It’s a frozen yogurt shop! TCBY? Let’s call it a frozen yogurt confection.”
Minor’s Consent:
Professor T: “When my daughter was 12, she wanted to get her ears pierced. So my daughter goes down to the local piercery, which is the same thing as serial stabbing…do I have a case?”
Student: “Did she ask you?”
Professor T: “Of course not. She knew I would say “no” so she does what any 12 year old does, and didn’t ask me.”
Student: “Then you can sue!”
Professor T: “Yes. Exactly. I can sue for battery because they put holes in my property.”
In case you die:
Professor T: “Minnesota Statue 145 B.04. Write this down. Minnesota Statue 145 B.04. I say this because you are all young and think you’re bullet proof. You’re not. You will be in a car accident. Bricks will fall out of the sky. Minnesota Statue 145 B.04.”
Medical Liability:
“Putting the tumor back is not an option. Because that poor tumor, after it’s been deprived of its sustenance, is now dead.”
Bloodlust.
Professor T: “If you’re going to be in an accident and run someone over, who’s your favorite victim?”
Jack: “A bum!”
Professor T: “Who’s your second favorite victim?”
Jill: “A CHILD!”
Professor T: “Right. They are worthless. And then?”
Jack: “A retired person!”
Professor T: “And for the purposes of future earnings you want to nail a child, a retired person, and a bum.”
Billy: “What about a nun?”
Professor T: “I’m TRYING TO HAVE A SERIOUS DISCUSSION HERE!”
Billy: “Sorry!”
Professor T: “But now that we’re on it, YES. Since the nun is concerned with poverty, her worth isn’t much in court. Now, after you run over your child, retired person, bum, and nun…what do you do?”
Jack: “Repent?”
Professor T: “No. You back up and make sure you finished the job!”
Sugamomma…
Professor T: “Jill, does your husband have any interest in you?”
Jill: “Besides my sugamomma status?”
Professor T: “Yes a consortium…damages.”
Jill: “But I’m irreplaceable!”
Professor T: “We all are. Well, most of us. Not all of our dogs love us…”
Tracing liability
Professor T: “You can trace everything back to your mother. But we aren’t going to sue your mother just because she caused you, and you caused torts.”
Consent
Professor T: “It’s subjective… In a sexual encounter, what would normally be rape can be classified as a good or bad decision…”
On Vaccinations:
Professor T: “What do we call someone who marches down a row of people stabbing them in the arm?”
Student: “A serial stabber?”
Professor T: “…what about in this case?”
Student: “A doctor with consent to stab?”
Professor T: “And is he liable?”
Student: “If he has permission to serially stab I guess.”
Professor T: “At first pass they can stab a couple of times,.. at least until they get it right. And why does consent matter, when dealing with a serial stabber? I like serial stabbers…”
Context and custom to infer apparent consent:
Professor T: “Mike, Let’s say you and Sarah go on a date tonight…”
Mike*: “Erm…”
Sarah: “I’m MARRIED!”
Professor T: “That makes it even more interesting!”
Mike: “Erm…”
Sarah: “Well, my husband’s pretty beefy…”
Professor T: “And he finds out! And you’re shocked, and you find yourself in a lot of legal turmoil…”
The pain is just beginning…
Student: (dead silence)
Professor T: “And this was the easy question. I have three more.”
How to get called on:
Professor T: “Jake!”
Jake: “Uh?”
Professor T: “I saw you twitch right?”
Jake: “Uh… no… I was just scratching the back of my head.”
Professor T: “Well answer anyway.”
Professor T: “And Kevin since you’re my expert on all things surgically removed.”
Professor T: “What do you think student? Why did she sue when she didn’t have a cause of action?”
Student: “Money, money, money mooooney!” (yes, he sang the Apprentice theme song).
Professor T: “During cross examination you can ask a leading question. And what a leading question does is makes you walk off a cliff one step at a time.”
Professor T: “And while you’re cross examining you have the deposition there, and if they say something inconsistent with the deposition you highlight it and make them read it back to you, so they are perjuring themselves… and then you BEAT THEM ACROSS THE HEAD AND SHOULDERS WITH IT!”
Professor T: “…and since nothing good can ever happen from talking to the police… you should just walk away!”
Professor T: “So you walk into a store with Jane, and I say, “If you don’t go into the back room with me I’ll shoot Jane’s dog. Is that false imprisonment?”
Student: “I don’t like dogs. So no.”
Later…
Professor T : “Well, Jack may be a very sensitive person who is concerned with the wellbeing of Sarah, but the rest of us may regard Sarah’s fate with supreme disinterest…”
It’s 9am and I’m usually studying at Dunn by now.
But this morning, the preview for America’s Newsroom looked so interesting that I decided to relax and watch the first hour. (I think I’m going to miss the Megyn’s Court segment, however. Hmmph.)
This is going to be my first “full” week of law school since half of my classes were canceled last week. And while I didn’t succeed in creating a week-long reading buffer, I am good until Wednesday. This means that I can extend my easy weekend reading pace throughout the week without falling behind…in theory at least.
We’ll see how this goes.
I spent a chunk of my weekend reading for contracts. The contracts cases are interesting they contain plot twists equal to Law & Order and Maury.
For example, this short case was assigned:
Kirksey v. Kirksey
(Ala. 1845)
The plaintiff was the wife of defendant’s brother, but had for some time been a widow, and had several (about 9) children. In 1840, the plaintiff resided on public land, under a contract of lease, she had held over, and was comfortably settled, and would have attempted to secure the land she lived on. The defendant resided in Talladega county, some sixty, or seventy miles off. On the 10th October, 1840, he wrote to her the following letter:
“Dear Sister Antillico–Much to my mortification, I heard, that brother Henry was dead, and one of his children. I know that your situation is one of grief, and difficult…
* * *
I do not know whether you have a preference on the place you live on, or not. If you had, I would advise you to obtain your preference, and sell the land and quit the country, as I understand it is very unhealthy, and I know society is very bad. If you will come down and see me, I will let you have a place to raise your family, and I have more open land than I can tend; and on the account of your situation, and that of your family, I feel like I want you and the children to do well.”
Within a month or two after the receipt of this letter, the plaintiff abandoned her possession, without disposing of it, and removed with her family, to the residence of the defendant, who put her in comfortable houses, and gave her land to cultivate for two years, at the end of which time he notified her to remove, and put her in a house, not comfortable, in the woods, which he afterwards required her to leave.
——–
What a jerk, right?
And the court told the poor widow that she was out of luck. Gasp.
I was confused. This seemed horribly unfair. Some of the notes after the case pointed me towards a Georgetown Law review article that examined the history of the Kirksey case. I read the article and learned that the story is far more complicated and colorful than what’s in the casebook…
It turns out that BOTH of the Kirkseys were involved in shady real estate transactions.
At the time, the Alabama government was selling 160 acres of land to squatters at $1.25 an acre. The defendant already owned a huge plantation so he was ineligible for the discounted rate. He convinced widow Kirksey, his sister in law, to act as a placeholder for him so he could get the land on the sly.
These placeholder deals were common but illegal. The widow objected to being shoved off the land because she wanted the title for herself.
So basically, the “poor widow” moved on the land as part of a scheme to defraud the government. Widow Kirksey then tried to throw her coconspirator under the bus, and failed.
Hm.
Another case, also part of the contracts reading, involved a child custody suit. A man (Wright) assumed parental responsibility for his girlfriend’s son. Wright knew he wasn’t the father, but he put his name on the child’s birth certificate and played dad.
Wright and the girl split up. She wants child support. He pulls a Maury classic: “THAT AINT MY KID!”
Court says:
Wright’s commitment to Newman (the girlfriend) to assume the obligations of fatherhood as regards her son are enforceable. Specifically, it is abundantly clear that Wright should have known that Newman would rely upon his promise, especially after he undertook for ten years to fulfill the obligations of fatherhood. In this regard, it could hardly have escaped Wright’s notice that Newman refrained from seeking to identify and obtain support from the child’s biological father while Wright was fulfilling his commitment to her. Moreover, Newman did in fact rely upon Wright’s promise, to her detriment when, ten years after he undertook the obligations of fatherhood, Wright reneged on his promise.
Trying to disown a kid after 10 years. What a jerk right?
Well, actually the dissenting opinion had an interesting little nugget of information:
In fact, Wright contends, and Newman does not refute, that Newman severed the relationship and all ties with Wright when the child was approximately three years old. For approximately the next five years, until the child was eight, Newman and Wright did not communicate. Only for the past two years has Wright visited with the child. Importantly, Wright contends that during the past seven years he did not support the child.
What the hey? You don’t kick your man out and then demand that he support another man’s child 7 years later.
The majority opinion made it seem like Wright played father for a decade and then tried to dip. Turns out, Wright was booted out early on, hasn’t supported the kid since he got the boot, AND the mother, “has not alleged, nor does the record reveal, that she does not know the identity of the natural father, nor does she show that the natural father is dead or unable to be found.”
Not even Maury would let this one fly.
Go bother your real baby’s daddy.
The cases that are hardest to understand are the ones where one of the parties did something incredibly stupid. For example, in Batsakis v. Demotsis (1949), Mrs. Demotsis agreed to pay $2000 for a loan of 500,000 drachmas (worth about $25)
‘Q. ….. who suggested the figure of $2,000.00?
A. That was how he asked me from the beginning. He said he will give me five hundred thousand drachmas provided I signed that I would pay him $2,000.00 American money.’
I had to look the case up on Westlaw because I couldn’t believe someone agreed to pay back 80 times the amount they borrowed.
It also looked like Mrs. Demotsis signed a letter stating she received $2000, when she really only borrowed $25.
I must have read it wrong. The case must be in old-speak. No one does that. I must be missing something…
And so I check Westlaw and learn that Mrs. Demotsis actually agreed to pay $2000 for $25 loan. And she also signed a letter stating she received $2000, when she …well, didn’t.
So I learned three things:
Prof: “What if I call in a bomb threat?”
Student: “Well did you mean it?”
Prof: “If I call you up and tell you I’m going to commit a tort I mean it! I’m going to burn your house. I’m going to kill your dog. You will find your rabbit in a pot of water…”
The hilarity isn’t limited to my Torts professor:
Professor V: “I was going to get all hysterical about a student using the wrong form of “its” but then I saw it on an ABA website this morning — so welcome to the club!”
Professor V: “Marshall defines commerce as intercourse, and since we aren’t in high school we don’t have to go “tee hee hee” about his word choice.”
Professor L: “You’re unlikely to see congress be quite this dumb, although close…”
And Professor T on intent:
“Whether you are strangling your roommate because you think you’re squeezing lemons, or strangling your roommate because you hate him…”
And, taking someone’s suggestion, I started a quote category, “On the Record.”
For those of you, who though law school would be boring, here are the best snippets from my prof today*,
“So it’s convenient for hypos to have the kid say, “I like to see little old ladies fall on the ground!”
“How many preschool kids pull chairs from under others? Lots. Why? Because it’s funny. It’s funny to watch people fall on the ground.”
“What about Ruth!? SHE’S DEAD!”
“The A.L.I.? We are a bunch of lawyers, and judges, and professors, and we get together once a year at a big convention. It usually conflicts with opening of fishing season so I don’t go.”
“So we have a new dean. I’ve already gotten on a bad foot with the new dean. So I have to do what you do when you get on a bad foot with a new dean… I roll a hand grenade into his office.”
“Let me rephrase the question, what is the expected outcome when I roll a hand grenade into a small enclosed space with people in it?”
“What happens when I see the new dean across the parking lot? Hundreds of feet away? And I say that there’s no way I can hit him…and of course I throw the rock and fell him like an ox….”
“And the defendant said, “Assault and battery! You betcha! But good! And by the way the statute of limitations is up!”
Prof: “What do we call when a person dies from having a chair pull from under them?”
Student: “Misfortunate?”
“So what do we do with shy people? We humiliate them! I mean, I’m not the subject of friendly, unsolicited hugs.”
“Today we take that kind of friendliness to be sexual harassment in the workplace.”
“I’m moving this chair to demonstrate my capacity to move a chair. And you are impressed.”
“Whenever there’s a buffet I always find it convenient to just pull my chair up so I don’t have to move around.”
*most of these were said in jest.
So, it’s officially my second week of law school. I’ve fallen in love several times during the past week –my current crushes are Westlaw and Microsoft One Note.
And of course I have Black’s Law Dictionary on the side for those moments of weakness. Shush. You have them too.
I’m still fine tuning my schedule, but I’ve learned a few things
This week I’m trying to establish a homework buffer by getting a week ahead in all of my classes. This is actually possible because my contract teacher’s wife gave birth early. The little-bundle-of-joy caused my 4-times-a-week contracts class to be canceled this week.
My Con Law professor also canceled Friday’s class. I know. It’s amazing. The universe has my back.
My favorite class so far is torts. The professor is awesome. Example:
Prof: “I have a farm in the wilds of northern Minnesota. We have beavers on our property. They build dams. They restrict the flowage of our property. So occasionally, for fun, we go to the hardware store and get some dynamite. We then stick it in the beaver dam and run!”
Context: Strict liability in blasting cases. AND, to be fair, I’m not sure whether or not he was kidding.
Goals for week 2:
Anyhoot. I’m at Caribou and neglecting my torts book. Back to False Imprisonment. Vöt!
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas 1970
P40
So I completely forgot to write about the robbery – the gamma house was robbed Friday morning.
I came downstairs around 4am to make breakfast and one of the 3L’s was watching TV.
We had the “Oh shit you’re still up? Oh shit you’re all ready up?” conversation and then he went to bed.
I made breakfast, watched the news, then left for the library around 5am.
Sometime between 5am and 7:30am (when the others woke up) someone ripped open our screen, opened the window, and slid into the house.
The burglar stole the 3L’s backpack and one of the 1L’s bikes.
Now 5am is a weird time, even for a crackhead, to break into a house.
The 3L thinks the robber was outside for a while and waited for the TV to turn off. Which means that the burglar was looming around and watched me leave. Eek.
Police reports were filed, the 3L already has a new backpack, and we triple-check the windows every night.
Yes, the law fraternity has parties.
I played DJ.
The best part of the night was when the Irish exchange students walked up to me, fists balled, and screamed “RIVERDANCE!”
And they did, indeed Riverdance.
“RIVERDANNNNCE!”
The library became annoying around 8am so I walked to my ConLaw class (which starts at 9am.)
There was already someone in the room when I arrived, so I felt less like “that kid who arrives an hour early” and more like, “one of those kids who arrive an hour early.”
Since I was in the wrong room yesterday, I asked the student, “This the correct room for Con Law right?”
It’s 7am and I’m vacuuming the keyhole of my front door.
A neighbor walks by and avoids eye contact, for surely, I must have caught the crazy.
Yeah. I’m that guy.
But let me take a step back (as a certain prof would say) and talk about Wednesday.
Wednesday I had four classes. I arrived at the law school around 6:30am and read until my 8am legal writing class.
Our legal writing sections are in classes of 10 or so students. Each legal writing class is taught by a practicing lawyer and a 2 or 3L .
They brought bagels and it was awesome.
Contracts, Civil Procedure, and Torts followed.
Civil Procedure seems like a crucial course, but it also appears significantly more technical than any of my other courses. CivPro will be a challenge, but my professor uses powerpoints that make things infinitely clearer.
My classes ended around 3:30pm. I biked home and went to bed around 4pm.
Today I woke up around 2am, ate, and then went to the law library. I arrived around 3am.
The library was absolutely abandoned, and amazing. No flip flops smacking, panicked students whispering, or 3Ls glaring.
Around 6:30am biked back across the river to take a break at home.
When I got home I unlocked the door, walked the bike in, and then took my key out of the door…or rather, half of my key…
My key broke in the door.
Half of the key was stuck inside, and I attempted to get it out for about 40 minutes. Knives, paperclips, vacuums… nothing worked.
So, in defeat, I call a locksmith. They tell me that they’ll show up at 8:30.
Con Law was at 9:05.
After a quick expletive or four I decided to email my professor.
“Hi, I’m Jansen, and I can’t come to our first class today because I’m a space cadet who is unable to unlock his own front door without assistance.”
Well, I didn’t actually write that, but that was the gist of the letter.
Then, around 8:30 one of my housemates, a 2L, comes down. I told her of my key dilemma. She tells me that she’s going to study downstairs until 10:30 and didn’t mind waiting around for the key guy – aka, she completely saved my ass from missing the first day of Con Law.
I get to school, sit in the wrong room (the schedule they handed out at orientation had the wrong room number), but I eventually found Conlaw. And of course I had to walk up to the teacher before class, “Hi… I’m that klutz, please disregard that email.”
In class we discussed the DC gun ban and two of my classmates and I continued the discussion after class.
I then went to Contracts early and wondered, along with six other people, where the hell everyone else was.
Hm. Mandatory Lexis Nexis training maybe?
This is what we learned after the class poured in. Oops.
CivPro then Torts, then the grocery store for food and flowers for my attendance-saving housemate.
Some RNC on TV and now, back to bed. This is all.
So there’s a hurricane in New Orleans and chaos in St. Paul…but my day was blissfully uneventful. I went to the library, then the gym, showered at home, and then went back to the library.
I did my Contracts and Torts homework while periodically checking the news sites for updates on Hurricane Gustav and the riots in St. Paul. Oh, I also twittered a lot...so my classmates who added me on facebook probably saw about a dozen status changes via twhirl. Sorry. Expect that.
I think I did all of the Torts assignments for the week…but I’m not sure because the syllabus isn’t on Twen, law school’s answer to Blackboard. Hm. For all I know I read the wrong pages. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow because…
Tomorrow is my first day of class and it begins with a 5:45am trip to the gym. Vöt!
Hark, orientation is over.
Four years ago, during orientation for undergrad I was told, “You’ll never meet a more interesting and diverse group of people than in college.” This was a lie.
In undergrad diversity was superficially measured by skin color and nationality. The range of experience and talent at law school is far greater than in college. A big chunk of the students in my section are changing careers, have traveled extensively, are married with young children, ie, developed passions and ambitions and done something interesting with their lives.
The conversation at orientation’s social events was seldom dry.
As one of the least experienced, fresh-from-undergrad kids, I at least have the grace of coming from somewhere exotic. But after answering a few Miami questions and getting yet another ominous description of a Minnesota winter, I tend to do more listening.
During orientation day #2 we had breakfast with the section, a few lectures, and then a student activities fair. Yes. We had Canefest: The law school version.
And, like a freshman at UMiami’s Canfest, I signed up for just about everything. My inbox might regret that decision. We’ll see.
I was also on black watch for day 2 of orientation – after day 1, one of my housemates said, “Yeah, you’re the only black guy in our class.”
Me: “Really?”
Housemate #2: “How do you not notice that you’re the only black guy in your section?”
Me: “I don’t sit down and do a headcount. I don’t think like that.
Housemate #1: “Well, I’m pretty sure you’re the only one in the entire class.”
Me: “How in the world…there are like 200+ of us. I’ll check tomorrow. I’m on blackwatch.”
And sure enough, when the entire class assembled in Lockhart Hall, I realized that I’m the only black person in the class. Well – there’s one guy who may or may not be another halfling like me. I’m not sure. Who knows, we may have a few Mariah’s hiding in the class too, but I doubt it.
At the activities fair I went to the Black Law Students table. I met one of the members and said, “Um, yeah. I think I’m it for the class.” He agreed and welcomed me to the club.
On the bright side I’ll probably have an e-board position next year!
And the law school is not devoid of racial minorities. There are several Hispanics, Asian, and East-Indian students and probably others that I haven’t run into yet. The experiences and ideas of my classmates are more valuable than their shade anyway (although 0.5% black student percentage is pretty weak for a top 25 law school.)
Oh, and there was another person signed up on the Black Law Students enrollment sheet. Turns out he’s from Miami but attended the University of Florida. At least I’m not the only Miamian in the class. 305, DJ Khaled and all that jazz. We are global aren’t we?
After the activities fair we had information sessions which were important, but at varying degrees of interest. We then had a section dinner at a local restaurant.
Friday began with a library tour, then a case briefing session. There was then this awkward hour where some people were getting their books and lockers, and those of us who had already done that had nothing to do.
During that sort-of break, Stella (a housemate) and I went to the other bank to the Health Services department to figure out how to cancel our student health insurance. (UMN, like most schools, automatically bills health insurance to all students.) I also picked up some allergy meds at the pharmacy since the generic whatever-they-are-called from Target weren’t working.
We then ran errands at the student union and were about two minutes late to the, DUM DUM DUM Laptop session!
And the law school knows what it’s doing. They waited until the last possible minute to give us those student laptops because the second we got laptops the entire class tuned out.
One thing I was not happy about was that the computer people HID windows calendar. Windows calendar is Vista’s version of iCal and XP’s Outlook calendar program.
I live by Windows calendar.
So I was a bit worried when it wasn’t on the start menu, or available through search…or on the installed programs list… Wtf eh?!? It took one of the computer tech people 10 minutes to find it on my laptop. Hmf.
But apparently I’m the only person in my section who is dependent on Windows Calendar so it was just my problem… dork moment? Maybe.
Afterwards about 8 of us went to Chipotle, and then I went home. I was thoroughly orientated and I wanted to try out the school gym – which is huge but slightly awkward… More on that later because this is way too long.
I’ve arrived. Today was the first day of orientation. I met my section of about 50 people, listened to a lot of entertaining speeches, and sat through three hours of FAQ.
My section is an interesting mix of students. I think there are more students with undergraduate degrees from BYU than U Minnesota in my section.
Apparently U Minnesota recruits in Utah. Hm. I think we had a few Creighton university grads as well.
My orientation leaders are fun, but there was so much FAQ-time that the questions began to focus on things that we don’t need to worry about, like OCI, 3rd year, etc.
And yes, we did have that girl, the embarrassing gunner.
All of the sections were together in a huge room for the main speeches. The keynote speaker gave a great speech and fielded questions. Most of the questions were relevant and graciously answered.
Then book girl raised her hand.
“Um, yeah, I read this book by so and so, and while you had valid points the book focused on this and that, the book’s author focused on this and disagreed with you…”
She went on for a few minutes about this book.
Book girl: “So did you read the book? And what is your opinion?”
The keynote speaker looked at her, like wtf, and told her that he hadn’t read the book, and didn’t really care for the author.
Yikes.
People talked about “book girl” for the rest of the day. I’m glad I didn’t see her face. I don’t want to have that horrible impression of her.
I was also almost peer pressured into getting chicken at the BBQ, but that is another story.
Tonight: DNC and political debate with the housemates. Orientation day II is tomorrow. Vöt!