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Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
both pragmatic and policy-driven reasons.
Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
c. For examples of uses of the plain meaning technique, see Problems #1, #4, and #6.
See also James v. City of Costa Mesa, a text case discussed below.
d. Go through the various legislative history sources. Note that courts use them both
when the statute is ambiguous and, increasingly, when the language is plain. Also,
Steelworkers v. Weber, Problem #2, discussed below) and the General Dynamics
case (formerly a text but now Problem #5).
e. Discuss prior interpretations and the factors that help determine their
authoritativeness. There is another argument for following prior interpretations
question, from situations in which the legislature simply did nothing. Since in the
first case there is some reason to think the legislature might have known about the
interpretation should be followed. This is known as “statutory stare decisis,” and its
courts sometimes employ, and provide further examples of its operation. Instructors
also might want to mention and illustrate other maxims not discussed in the text,
including expressio unius est exclusio alterius (the expression of one thing is the
another reading would avoid the redundancy, that the latter reading is preferred. This
James’s proposed reading of the statute.
g. United Steelworkers v. Weber (former text case; now Problem #2): The Supreme
Court holds that a "voluntary" private employment plan preferring racial minorities
Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Note that the Court sets out what have subsequently become the tests for the
statute).
Points for Discussion: What statutory interpretation technique would Weber have
wanted the Court to use? (Plain meaning). Did Weber have a plausible argument
that he should win the case under such a reading of the statute? (Yes. Justice
Brennan’s majority opinion concedes as much.) Doesn't the Court's decision reach a
affirmative action plans of a temporary nature.)
You might note another factor that helps explain the result in Weber. The defendants
employed by the defendants would have been unavailable. Thus, the decision helped
scrutiny.
h. Cyberlaw in Action box (p. 15): Note the content and apparent purposes of § 230 of
the Communications Decency Act. Note its application to defamation cases. Then
harmonized.
i. Jones v. City of Costa Mesa (p.18): The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
holds that plaintiffs who are users of medicinal marijuana, under the supervision of
physicians, are not “qualified individual[s] with a disability” as defined in the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), because they are engaged in the “illegal use
which is lawful under California state law. Nonetheless, marijuana is a controlled
substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), and thus, its
Title II of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the
Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
provision of public services. The trial court never decided whether the cities’ actions
authorized by the [CSA] or other provisions of Federal law.” The case is provided, in
part, to illustrate how the majority opinion and the dissenting opinion each use the
same techniques of statutory interpretation and yet arrive at opposite conclusions.
Points for discussion: It may be helpful for instructors to begin by parsing the
opinion applies to find that the plaintiffs are not within the exception to the illegal use
of drugs. (Plain meaning and legislative history; also arguably general public purpose
in the sense that the court argues that Congress would only depart from the clear “war
on drugs” policy clearly and expressly, which the exception does not do.) The
“other” in the exception is made redundant by the cities’ preferred interpretation.
j. The Olympic Airways case discussed in the Global Business Environment box (p. 22)
4. Remind students of the limits on courts, as stated near the end of the chapter.
IV. RECOMMENDED REFERENCES:
A. B. CARDOZO, THE NATURE OF THE JUDICIAL PROCESS (1921).
B. J. FRANK, LAW AND THE MODERN MIND (1930) (perhaps the best-known legal realist
tract).
C. W. FRIEDMANN, LEGAL THEORY (5th ed. 1967) (a general treatise on jurisprudence).
D. W. FRIEDMANN, LAW IN A CHANGING SOCIETY (2d ed. Penguin 1972) (an
examination of the interaction between law and social change which focuses on a variety of
topical problem areas).
E. L. FULLER, THE LAW IN QUEST OF ITSELF (1940) (a critique of legal positivism and
related jurisprudential views).
F. E. LEVI, AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL REASONING (1949).
G. D. LLOYD, THE IDEA OF LAW (Penguin 1970) (a general discussion of jurisprudence
Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
from what seems to be a positivist viewpoint).
H. Fuller, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers, 62 HARV. L. REV. 616 (1949) (a classic
hypothetical case that provides an excellent vehicle for discussing statutory interpretation and
schools of jurisprudence).
I. P. SUBER, THE CASE OF THE SPELUNCEAN EXPLORERS: NINE NEW OPINIONS
(Routledge 1998) (an outstanding work that builds upon Fuller’s classic case by adding new
hypothetical judicial opinions that illustrate other schools of legal thought and modern
jurisprudential themes).
J. B. WEINREB, NATURAL LAW AND JUSTICE (1987).
K. K. LLEWELLYN, THE BRAMBLE BUSH (1930 edition and later editions) (Karl Llewellyn’s
classic work dealing with many legal reasoning issues).
V. ANSWERS TO PROBLEMS AND PROBLEM CASES:
protect the municipality against liability that would otherwise arise out of certain dog bite
incidents. Hyatt v. Anoka Police Dept., 691 N.W.2d 824 (Minn. Sup. Ct. 2005).
3. No. In upholding the district court’s issuance of an injunction against Lynch and Moscinski,
the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that natural law did not constitute a
valid defense. United States v. Lynch, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 32729 (2d Cir. 1996).
4. The court should determine whether the common-law “discovery rule” for tolling of the
the rule that when an applicable statute and a common law rule conflict, the statute controls.
Trentadue v. Gorton, 738 N.W.2d 664 (Mich. 2007).
5. No. Relying on the legislative purpose and legislative history techniques of statutory
interpretation, the Supreme Court focused on what the ADEA was designed to do (deal with
statutory focus on addressing the problem of discrimination against older employees in favor
6. The court should apply the techniques of statutory interpretation to determine the meaning of
Chapter 01 - The Nature of Law
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© 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
“personal privacy.” In this particular case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the “personal
privacy” exception in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) does not furnish corporations
protection against disclosure of requested documents in government files based on the plain
meaning of the language, looking at it in context. The Court noted, “[w]hen it comes to the
together (as with the term “golden boy” meaning something other than a boy who is gold
colored), the Court explained that “personal privacy” “suggests a type of privacy evocative
(2011).
7. An extreme legal positivist would say that the laws are valid positive law and they should be
enforced and obeyed. Natural law thinkers, on the other hand, would generally say that
these laws respect the Sabbath.
As usual, legal realists would be quick to note how the non-enforcement of these laws
growing secularization of American life, the prevalence of society’s consumer orientation,
and the political influence of business. They could further suggest that a balancing of
repealed.
8. No. The Supreme Court of Arizona refused to abolish the common law family-purpose
In applying the rule to the particular facts of the case, it concluded that the parents should be
doctrine inapplicable. Young v. Beck, 2011 Ariz. LEXIS 19 (Ariz. Sup. Ct. 2011).
9. No. The U.S. Supreme Court held that one who makes an oral complaint to his employer
retaliated against by the employer for having made the complaint. The Court began with the
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
563 U.S. 1 (2011).
10. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that § 230 of the Communications
Fair Housing Act liability regarding statements as to which Roommate was an information
Roommate provided users regarding information they needed to submit effectively made
Roommate a co-maker of many of the statements posted by the users. It may be useful to ask
students a slightly reformulated version of the question posed in the Cyberlaw in Action box
earlier in the chapter: whether Craigslist (a decision discussed in the Cyberlaw box) and Fair
liable for its own statements that arguably violated the Fair Housing Act.) Fair Housing
Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2008).
