he Case Brief Assignment is due April 25th. The instructions for completing this assignment will be forthcoming via an email I will dispatch at the appropriate juncture. Be mindful that this Assignment will constitute 20% of your course grade.  After you have been seasoned in the reading and analysis of the cases in the text you should send an email to me so that I may give you the case to be briefed.  At the outset you could not yet prepare a proper case brief as you have not been seasoned with the study; you should request your case about the time of the second exam.  Further instructions on the process will be forthcoming.  

Very important assignment

Hello Scholars!

Now that we are at Exam 2 you MUST (upon completing same) REQUEST, via email, a case to brief.  I will then assign the case you are to brief.  This is not akin to doing a book report; nor is it a mere recitation of facts as would be done in a newspaper article. It requires, and is, a demonstration of the development of your critical legal thinking skill in analyzing the reasoning of the decision.

Please note that, unlike the case you have been assigned, the cases in the text have been stripped down to a fundamental legal issue related to the chapter of study and do not contain much of the procedural aspects you may find in your case.  Hence, you must first do such with your assigned case.
(In the analysis of your case you should stick to the fundamental issue and don’t get bogged down on procedural aspects).

DECIDE ON A FORMAT AND STICK TO IT: Structure is essential to a good brief. It enables you to arrange systematically the related parts that are scattered throughout most cases, thus making manageable and understandable what might otherwise seem to be an endless and unfathomable sea of information. There are, of course, an unlimited number of formats that can be utilized. However, it is best to find one that suits your needs and stick to it. Consistency breeds both efficiency and the security that when called upon you will know where to look in your brief for the information you are asked to give. Be mindful that the operative word is “brief”; ideally the case brief should be about one page in length and never over two pages.

Nevertheless, it is important that a brief contain the following:

TITLE AND VENUE: Identify the case name and citation in the correct format.

RULE OF LAW: A statement of the general principle of law that the case illustrates in the form of a statement.

Determining the rule of law of a case is a procedure similar to determining the issue of the case. Avoid being fooled by red herrings; there may be a few rules of law mentioned in the case excerpt, but usually only one is the rule with which the judges are most concerned. The techniques used to locate the issue, described below, may also be utilized to find the rule of law.

FACTS: A synopsis of only the essential relevant facts of the case, i.e. those bearing upon or leading up to the issue. The facts entry should be a short statement of the events that led one party to initiate legal proceedings against another in the first place. While some cases conveniently state the salient facts at the beginning of the decision, in other instances they will have to be culled from hiding places throughout the text, even from concurring and dissenting opinions. Some of the “facts” will often be in dispute and should be so noted. Conflicting evidence may be briefly pointed up. It is impossible to tell what is relevant until the entire case is read, as the ultimate determination of the rights and liabilities of the parties may turn on something buried deep in the opinion. The facts entry should seldom be longer than five sentences.

ISSUE: A statement of the general legal question answered by or illustrated in the case (Do not attempt to delve into procedural issues; just focus on the substantive legal issue). For clarity, the issue is best put in the form of a question capable of a yes or no answer. In reality, the issue is simply the Concise Rule of Law put in the form of a question.

The major problem presented in discerning what is the issue in the case is that an opinion usually purports to raise and answer several questions. However, except for rare cases, only one such question is really the issue in the case. Collateral issues not necessary to the resolution of the matter in controversy are handled by the court by language known as obiter dictum or merely dictum. While dicta may be included later in the brief, it has no place under the issue heading.

To find the issue, the student again asks who wants what and then goes on to ask why did that party succeed or fail in getting it. Once this is determined, the “why” should be turned into a question.

Since many issues are resolved by a court in coming to a final disposition of a case, you should focus on the portion of the opinion containing the issue or issues most relevant to the area of law under scrutiny. A noted law professor gave this advice: “Look at the case key or head notes”. It is also most important to remember to read the key or head notes at the beginning of a case to determine what the editors of the case reporter have gleaned from it.

OPINION AND DECISION: This section should succinctly explain the rationale of the court in arriving at its decision. In capsulizing the reasoning of the court, it should always include an application of the general rule or rules of law to the specific facts of the case. Hidden justifications come to light in this entry; the reasons for the state of the law, the public policies, the biases and prejudices, those considerations that influence the justices’ thinking and, ultimately, the outcome of the case. At the end, there should be a short indication of the disposition or procedural resolution of the case. You may wish to put this portion of the brief in outline form.

USE OF PRECEDENT: You should relate how the rule of law discernible from this case compares with that derived from earlier and later cases. Where does this case fit in the series of cases which has shaped the relevant portion of the law? 

EFFECT ON BUSINESS AND SOCIETY:  You should briefly summarize the impact and effect that the ruling in the case will have on business and society.

REMEMBER THAT THE OPERATIVE WORD IS “BRIEF”.

The link below will assist you in navigating the online library for legal research:

http://tamuc.libguides.com/BA301

For further elucidation, check these links out:

http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/research/brief.html

http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/civlib/casebrief.html

http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/briefing.html

Difficile est tenere quae acceperis nisi exerceas

Andrew james

Prof EDGAR J. GARRETT, JR., J.D

MGT 301 – The Legal Environment of Business

Nov 23, 2018

Christiane CARAFANO, Plaintiff, v. METROSPLASH.COM, INC. Defendant

339 F.3d 1119

August 13, 2003, Decided

Metrosplash.com(D) owns the site matchmaker.com which is a web-based dating administration, for a singles individual to get in touch with each other. In October of 1999, an unknown individual posted a profile of on-screen character Christianne Carafano (P) without her assent. She has shown up in various films and TV shows, for example, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and General Hospital. Soon after the posting of the profile, Carafano started to get letters and telephone calls to her home, some of which were notwithstanding undermining. Naturally, she reached the police and abandoned her home for a while. Siouxzan Perry, who was accountable for Carafano’s email, found the profile on the dating site and required that matchmaker.com erase it quickly. Soon after that, Carafano recorded a suit in California state court against matchmaker.com and its proprietor Metrosplash.com, Inc. She referred to an invasion of privacy, appropriation, defamation, and other torts.

The case was then moved to the Federal locale court, which issued a synopsis judgment in the respondent’s support. Carafano appealed the U.S Court of Appeals for the ninth circuit.

Does the provision 47 U.S.C Section 230, enacted under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996, overrule Carafano’s claims?

The U.S Court of Appeals affirmed what the lower courts led, that Metrosplash.com, Inc could not be considered in charge of the “underlying information” posted on the site. The provision 47 U.S.C Section 230 states that “no provider or user of an intuitive computer benefit will be treated as the distributor or speaker or any data given by another data content provider.” In basic terms this implies thatMetrosplash.com, Inc cannot be considered in charge of what an anonymous party posted on their site about on-screen character Christianne Carafano.

The cases on the subject are collected in a footnote to Gentry v. eBay, Inc., and Batzel v. Smith, the head-note to which reads: no supplier(provider) or client of an intuitive computer service will be treated as the distributor or speaker of any data given or supplied by another data content supplier. Due to which an internet publisher being treated differently from print, television and radio publishers. Most Internet services are protected from liability for publishing false or defamatory material so long as another party provided the information. The two sole purposes of this immunity are as: to advance the free trade of data and ideas over the Internet and to motivate willful checking for hostile or vulgar material.

In this case, Matchmaker cannot be contemplated as a data content supplier’ under the resolution because no profile has any content until the point when a user effectively engages and makes it. Additionally, Carafano personal information was not created by the company; instead, a third party created it due to which Matchmarker.com cannot be classified as a content creator or developer of underlying false information. The matchmaker.com simply displayed a profile that was created by a third party, and the way that a portion of the substance was defined in light of the web intermediary’s survey did not change the fact that the internet matchmaker did not play an essential role in making, creating or changing the significant data. This case will bring a lot of Internet Service Provider mainly dating websites in business because they cannot be accused of as a content provider because there are numerous cases when a dating website has real information collected from the third party without the real person consent. Subsequently, users should be cautious when providing information on the Internet and taking different surveys and buying kinds of stuff over the Internet because all their data are collected and traded over to different companies; as a result, it leads to issues like anonymous calls, credit card thefts, and so on.

The Appellate Court concurred with the lower court decision which was in favor of the defendant Metrosplash.com as it cannot be held responsible for another third-party content creation. This case illustrates how internet publishers are treated differently from publishers in print television and radio.