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HOW TO BRIEF CASES

To fully understand the law with respect to business, youneed to be able to read and understand court decisions.To make this task easier, you can use a method of caseanalysis that is called briefing. There is a fairly standardprocedure that you can follow when you “brief ”any courtcase.You must first read the case opinion carefully.Whenyou feel you understand the case,you can prepare a briefof it.

Although the format of the brief may vary, typically itwill present the essentials of the case under headingssuch as those listed below.

1. Citation. Give the full citation for the case, includingthe name of the case, the date it was decided, and thecourt that decided it.2. Facts. Briefly indicate (a) the reasons for the lawsuit;(b) the identity and arguments of the plaintiff(s) anddefendant(s), respectively; and (c) the lower court’s deci-sion—if appropriate.3. Issue. Concisely phrase, in the form of a question, theessential issue before the court. (If more than one issue isinvolved, you may have two—or even more—questionshere.)4. Decision. Indicate here—with a “yes” or “no,” if possi-ble—the court’s answer to the question (or questions) in theIssue section above.5. Reason. Summarize as briefly as possible the reasonsgiven by the court for its decision (or decisions) and thecase or statutory law relied on by the court in arriving at itsdecision.

AN EXAMPLE OF ABRIEFED SAMPLE COURT CASE

As an example of the format used in briefing cases, wepresent here a briefed version of the sample court casethat was presented in Chapter 1 in Exhibit 1–6 on page 24.

MORSE v. FREDERICKSupreme Court of the United States,2007.__ U.S.__,127 S.Ct. 2618,168 L.Ed.2d 290.

FACTS On January 24, 2002, the Olympic Torch Relaypassed through Juneau, Alaska, on its way to the wintergames in Salt Lake City, Utah. Deborah Morse, the princi-pal of Juneau-Douglas High School (JDHS),permitted thestudents to leave class to observe the relay as it passed infront of the school. Teachers and administrative officialsmonitored the students' actions.As the torchbearers andcamera crews passed, Joseph Frederick, a senior, and hisfriends unfurled a banner bearing the phrase “BONG HiTS4 JESUS.” Morse immediately crossed the street anddemanded that the banner be taken down. Everyone butFrederick complied. Morse confiscated the banner andsuspended Frederick for ten days. The Juneau SchoolDistrict Board of Education upheld the suspension.Frederick filed a suit in a federal district court againstMorse and others, alleging that the school board andMorse had violated his rights under the First Amendmentto the U.S.Constitution.The court issued a judgment in thedefendants’ favor. On Frederick’s appeal, the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment.Thedefendants appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

ISSUE May a principal, consistent with the FirstAmendment, restrict student speech at a school event,when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting ille-gal drug use?

DECISION Yes. The United States Supreme Courtreversed the decision of the lower court and remandedthe case for further proceedings.

REASON The Court acknowledged that the banner’smessage was “cryptic.” But Morse believed it could be

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interpreted as promoting illegal drug use and “that inter-pretation is plainly a reasonable one.” The Court explainedthat the phrase could be read as “an imperative”to use ille-gal drugs or as a celebration of illegal drug use.Under fed-eral law, and through the provision of federal funds,schools are to educate students about the dangers of drugabuse. Schools, including JDHS, have adopted policies tocommunicate and enforce this message.“Student speechcelebrating illegal drug use at a school event, in the pres-ence of school administrators and teachers, * * *poses a particular challenge for school officials working toprotect those entrusted to their care from the dangers ofdrug abuse.”When Frederick displayed his banner, Morsereasonably concluded that it promoted illegal drug use inviolation of JDHS policy, and she acted accordingly. “TheFirst Amendment does not require schools to tolerate atschool events student expression that contributes to [the]dangers”of drug abuse.

REVIEW OF SAMPLE COURT CASE

Here, we provide a review of the briefed version to indi-cate the kind of information that is contained in eachsection.

CITATION The name of the case is Morse v. Frederick.Morse is the plaintiff; Frederick is the defendant. TheUnited States Supreme Court decided this case in 2007.The citation states that this case can be found in Volume127 of the Supreme Court Reporter, on page 2618.

FACTS The Facts section identifies the plaintiff and thedefendant,describes the events leading up to this suit, theallegations made by the plaintiff in the initial suit, and(because this case is a United States Supreme Court deci-sion) the lower courts’ rulings and the party appealing.The appellant’s contention on appeal is also sometimesincluded here.

ISSUE The Issue section presents the central issue (orissues) decided by the court. In this case, the UnitedStates Supreme Court considered whether a high schoolprincipal may restrict student speech at a school event ifthat speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegaldrug use.

DECISION The Decision section includes the court’sdecision on the issues before it.The decision reflects theopinion of the judge or justice hearing the case.Decisions by appellate courts are frequently phrased inreference to the lower court’s decision—that is, theappellate court may “affirm” the lower court’s ruling or“reverse”it.Here, the Supreme Court determined that theprincipal’s belief with respect to others’ interpretation ofthe message of the banner was reasonable.The principalthought that the banner could be viewed as promotingillegal drug use. On that basis, the principal could legiti-

mately confiscate the banner. The Court reversed thelower court’s ruling in the student’s favor.

REASON The Reason section includes references tothe relevant laws and legal principles that the Courtapplied in arriving at its conclusion in the case.Here,rele-vant law included the federal statute that requires theschools to educate students about the dangers of drugabuse and provides funds to further this purpose.This sec-tion also explains the Court’s application of the law to thefacts in the case.

ANALYZING CASE PROBLEMS

In addition to learning how to brief cases, students ofbusiness law and the legal environment also find it help-ful to know how to analyze case problems. Part of thestudy of business law and the legal environment usuallyinvolves analyzing case problems,such as those includedin this text at the end of each chapter.

For each case problem in this book,we provide the rel-evant background and facts of the lawsuit and the issuebefore the court. When you are assigned one of theseproblems, your job will be to determine how the courtshould decide the issue, and why. In other words, you willneed to engage in legal analysis and reasoning. Here, weoffer some suggestions on how to make this task lessdaunting.We begin by presenting a sample problem:

While Janet Lawson, a famous pianist, was shopping inQuality Market, she slipped and fell on a wet floor in oneof the aisles.The floor had recently been mopped by oneof the store’s employees, but there were no signs warningcustomers that the floor in that area was wet.As a result ofthe fall, Lawson injured her right arm and was unable toperform piano concerts for the next six months. Had shebeen able to perform the scheduled concerts, she wouldhave earned approximately $60,000 over that period oftime. Lawson sued Quality Market for this amount, plusanother $10,000 in medical expenses. She claimed thatthe store’s failure to warn customers of the wet floor con-stituted negligence and therefore the market was liablefor her injuries.Will the court agree with Lawson? Discuss.

UNDERSTAND THE FACTS

This may sound obvious, but before you can analyze orapply the relevant law to a specific set of facts, you mustclearly understand those facts. In other words,you shouldread through the case problem carefully—more thanonce, if necessary—to make sure you understand theidentity of the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s) in the caseand the progression of events that led to the lawsuit.

In the sample case problem just given, the identity ofthe parties is fairly obvious. Janet Lawson is the one bring-ing the suit; therefore, she is the plaintiff. Quality Market,against whom she is bringing the suit, is the defendant.Some of the case problems you may work on have multi-

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ple plaintiffs or defendants. Often, it is helpful to useabbreviations for the parties.To indicate a reference to aplaintiff, for example, the pi symbol—�—is often used,and a defendant is denoted by a delta—�—a triangle.

The events leading to the lawsuit are also fairlystraightforward. Lawson slipped and fell on a wet floor,and she contends that Quality Market should be liable forher injuries because it was negligent in not posting a signwarning customers of the wet floor.

When you are working on case problems, realize thatthe facts should be accepted as they are given. For exam-ple, in our sample problem,it should be accepted that thefloor was wet and that there was no sign. In other words,avoid making conjectures,such as “Maybe the floor wasn’ttoo wet,”or “Maybe an employee was getting a sign to putup,” or “Maybe someone stole the sign.” Questioning thefacts as they are presented only adds confusion to youranalysis.

LEGAL ANALYSIS AND REASONING

Once you understand the facts given in the case problem,you can begin to analyze the case. Recall from Chapter 1that the IRAC method is a helpful tool to use in the legalanalysis and reasoning process. IRAC is an acronym forIssue, Rule, Application, Conclusion.Applying this methodto our sample problem would involve the following steps:

1. First, you need to decide what legal issue is involvedin the case. In our sample case, the basic issue is whetherQuality Market’s failure to warn customers of the wetfloor constituted negligence. As discussed in Chapter 7,negligence is a tort—a civil wrong. In a tort lawsuit, theplaintiff seeks to be compensated for another’s wrongfulact. A defendant will be deemed negligent if he or shebreached a duty of care owed to the plaintiff and thebreach of that duty caused the plaintiff to suffer harm.2. Once you have identified the issue, the next step is todetermine what rule of law applies to the issue.To makethis determination, you will want to review carefully thetext of the chapter in which the relevant rule of law forthe problem appears. Our sample case problem involvesthe tort of negligence,which is covered in Chapter 7.The

applicable rule of law is the tort law principle that busi-ness owners owe a duty to exercise reasonable care toprotect their customers (“business invitees”).Reasonablecare, in this context, includes either removing—or warn-ing customers of—foreseeable risks about which theowner knew or should have known. Business ownersneed not warn customers of “open and obvious” risks,however. If a business owner breaches this duty of care(fails to exercise the appropriate degree of care towardcustomers),and the breach of duty causes a customer tobe injured, the business owner will be liable to the cus-tomer for the customer’s injuries.3. The next—and usually the most difficult—step in ana-lyzing case problems is the application of the relevantrule of law to the specific facts of the case you are study-ing.In our sample problem,applying the tort law principlejust discussed presents few difficulties. An employee ofthe store had mopped the floor in the aisle where Lawsonslipped and fell, but no sign was present indicating thatthe floor was wet.That a customer might fall on a wet flooris clearly a foreseeable risk.Therefore, the failure to warncustomers about the wet floor was a breach of the duty ofcare owed by the business owner to the store’s customers.4. Once you have completed Step 3 in the IRAC method,you should be ready to draw your conclusion. In our sam-ple problem, Quality Market is liable to Lawson for herinjuries, because the market’s breach of its duty of carecaused Lawson’s injuries.

The fact patterns in the case problems presented in thistext are not always as simple as those presented in oursample problem.Often, for example,a case has more thanone plaintiff or defendant. A case may also involve morethan one issue and have more than one applicable rule oflaw. Furthermore, in some case problems the facts mayindicate that the general rule of law should not apply. Forexample, suppose that a store employee advised Lawsonnot to walk on the floor in the aisle because it was wet,butLawson decided to walk on it anyway. This fact could alterthe outcome of the case because the store could thenraise the defense of assumption of risk (see Chapter 7).Nonetheless,a careful review of the chapter should alwaysprovide you with the knowledge you need to analyze theproblem thoroughly and arrive at accurate conclusions.

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