Q1. Peters, involved in a collision with Dodge under the circumstances described earlier in this
chapter, consults a lawyer about bringing a lawsuit. After hearing Peters’s version of the facts,
the lawyer is likely to (choose as many as are accurate):
- (a) Ask Peters whether he would want to bring the case in state or federal court.
- (b) Tell Peters he wants to do some investigation and research before reaching a
conclusion about whether to offer to represent him.
- (c) Draft a complaint alleging the circumstances of the accident based solely on Peters’s
recollection.
- (d) If Peters’s lawyer concludes the case will fare best in federal court, offer Peters
some suggestions about steps he might take after returning to Ann Arbor.
- (e) If Dodge brings to the court’s attention the previous lawsuits, the court will conclude
that res judicata precludes Peters from moving forward with this case.
Q2. Peters’s lawyer files his case in federal district court in the appropriate district of Illinois
(where Dodge resides). The complaint reads like the one on page 21. Dodge might
appropriately respond by (choose as many as apply):
- (a) Filing a 12(b)(1) motion challenging the court’s subject matter jurisdiction.
- (b) Answering the complaint denying that he was negligent.
- (c) Filing a 12(b)(6) motion seeking to have the claim dismissed on the grounds that the
complaint misstates the date of the accident, which happened three days before the
date indicated in the complaint.
- (d) Answering the complaint denying that he was negligent and asserting as
affirmative defenses that the statute of limitations had run and that the court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction.
Q3. Suppose that Dodge’s lawyer answers by denying the allegations of negligence and
counterclaiming for his own injuries, and the case proceeds. During discovery, the two sides
seek various pieces of information; which of the following statements is accurate?
- (a) If Dodge seeks Peters’s medical records, hoping to be able to show that some of the
symptoms of which he complains predated the accidents, Peters can successfully resist
on grounds of doctor-patient privilege.
- (b) If Peters seeks to depose two witnesses who were at the intersection where the
accident occurred, they can successfully resist on grounds that they are not parties to
the lawsuit and therefore should not be inconvenienced.
- (c) If Dodge seeks the maintenance records for the past decade on Peters’s automobile,
Peters may be able to resist on the grounds that it will be difficult and expensive for him
to reconstruct these records and that the older records will be at best of marginal
relevance.
- (d) The party losing the types of discovery rulings described above will be unable to
get an immediate appellate ruling reviewing the trial court’s decision.
Q4. Discovery comes to a close in Peters v. Dodge. Peters deposed four apparently impartial
witnesses, all of whom support his version of the facts; Dodge has only his own word against
these witnesses. But Dodge has uncovered something he thinks useful: two previous lawsuits
by Peters—in both, he claimed injuries from similar auto accidents and the courts found for the
defendants. Which of the following statements is accurate?
- (a) On this state of the evidence, the case of Peters v. Dodge would be submitted to a
jury.
- (b) If Dodge moves for summary judgment on the basis of this evidence, the court would
grant it.
- (c) If this information was presented at trial and Dodge at trial moves for judgment as a
matter of law on the basis of this evidence, the court would grant it.
- (d) If Dodge brings to the court’s attention the previous lawsuits, the court will conclude
that res judicata precludes Peters from moving forward with this case.