COMM 317: It's party time! (legal parties, that is)

Good afternoon, hope you enjoyed your vacation! OK, now that's over with, let's get started --

Here, courtesy of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, is a story we're all familiar with, retold in legal language:

The party of the first part shall hereinafter be referred to as Jack, and the party of the second part shall hereinafter be referred to as Jill.

The parties ascended or caused to be ascended an elevation of undetermined height and degree of slope. Their purpose was to obtain, attain, procure, secure, or otherwise gain access to a receptacle suitable for the transport of a liquid consisting of hydrogen and oxygen.

The proportions of which shall not be greater than nor less than two parts of the first mentioned element and one of the latter. This composition shall hereinafter be called water. On the occasion stated above, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that Jack did plunge, tumble, topple, or otherwise was caused to lose his footing in such a manner as to thrust his body in the downward direction.

As a direct and proximate cause of these combined circumstances, Jack suffered fractures and contusions to his cranial region. Jill is said to have fallen after Jack. Whether after is used in the spacial or time passage sense has not been determined.

We're going to use it in class today to study how the parties to a lawsuit fight a case up to the Supreme Court (which is how it gets into the lawbooks). At the end of the hour, you'll know their names (as in plaintiff and defendant, not Jack and Jill). And you'll know what to look for in a legal brief, which is a kind of outline law students use to analyze cases.

But, first, we need to add a couple of things to the story of Jack and Jill. We need a defendant. Let's call him Mr. Hill. His first name? Bill. And we need another fact or two that Jack and Jill can allege when they file the lawsuit. (Whether the facts are true or not is another matter. That's for a jury to decide. But Jack and Jill need to allege Bill Hill did something wrong that caused Jack to fall and break his crown and Jill to come tumbling after.) Let's say Bill maintained the well, and he let big puddles remain at the top of the hill, which made it slippery and caused Jack to fall down. We need Bill Hill's name, because it goes on the case. And we need the stuff about the dangerous puddle, because it gives us a legal issue. To make their lawsuit stick, in other words, Jack and Jill need to prove negligence.

We'll talk about this in class. Here's a link to a handout on How to Brief a Case from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It'll all make more sense after we go through it.

One last thing, and it's legal trivia. When lawyers, and law students, take notes, they use the Greek letter Π (pi) to stand for the plaintiff and Δ (delta) to stand for the defendant. I'm not sure why. It's all Greek to me.

Extra credit! Extra credit! Extra credit! Can you help the Attorney General's Office for the state of Arizona edit its copy? To claim your extra credit points, post a comment to this message explaining how you knew what the mistake was and what you did to verify it.