Business Law
Cuyahoga Community College
Online Course
Summer Semester 2015
Instructor: Joseph J. Fell, Esq.
Introduction
 Learning how to read and understand descriptions
of cases is essential to success in the legal field
 This assignment will help you learn how to interpret
a court’s decision in a particular case, understand
how the court reached that decision, and pick out
the “rule” established by a court’s decision in a case
that will affect the way in which future courts make
decisions
 Additionally, this assignment will give you the
opportunity to learn how to analyze and interpret
legal decisions in the manner that lawyers and those
who deal with the effects of a law request that their
law clerks prepare analyses of court decisions
Introduction
 As you may remember from earlier in the course, a
“case brief” is a short summary of a long and
complicated legal case that is used to understand
the important elements of the case
 Before beginning this assignment, reviewing the
material that we covered during Week 1 that dealt
with the American governmental and legal structure
may be helpful
 This assignment is distributed later in the semester
because it would be extremely difficult to do without
first familiarizing yourself with the law-related
material that we have covered all semester long!
Parts of a Case Brief
 Case Name (15 Points)
 Last Court In Which Case Was Heard (15 Points)
 Procedural History (15 Points)
 Conclusion (20 Points)
 Facts Of The Case (30 Points)
 Reasoning (25 Points)
 Rule (30 Points)
 All of these parts must be included in your brief and will
be explained on the next slides
Parts of a Case Brief
 Case Name: What is the name of the case?
 Example: Marbury v. Madison
 The plaintiff’s name is first
 The defendant’s name is last
 You can have multiple parties on both sides of the “v.”
 Last Court In Which Case Was Heard
 Identifying the name of the court is important because
it will tell you if you are reading a description of a case at
the initial stage (a trial court) or a description of a case
from a subsequent stage (an appellate court)
 Examples of Trial Courts: Cleveland Municipal Court,
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio
 Examples of Appellate Courts: Sixth Circuit Court of
Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court
Parts of a Case Brief
 Procedural History
 This is the section that details everything that happened
in the lower courts in the past
 Do NOT put the facts of the case itself in this section;
you will want to put that material in the “Facts of the
Case” section
 If this is an appellate case, what happened in the lower
courts\trial courts? How did those courts rule? Be sure
to list ALL of the previous courts that handled the case
 You will omit this section if the case that you select
comes from the trial level because no courts have yet
ruled on this matter. HOWEVER, you must explain that
in this section. Do not just omit this section. In the
future, this would those who read and use your work and
I want you to develop good writing\analytical habits!
Parts of a Case Brief
 Conclusion
 What did the court decide in this case?
 For which party did the court rule? Please be specific!
 If this is an appellate case, did the court:
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1) Uphold (keep) the lower court’s decision? OR
2) Reverse the lower court’s decision? OR
3) Uphold part of the lower court’s decision and reverse part of
the lower court’s decision?
Parts of a Case Brief
 Facts of the Case
 What were the facts of the situation that led the parties
to go to court? What happened that caused one party to
take the other party to court?
 Please describe the facts in your own words – restate the
facts using easy-to-understand language
 You do NOT need citations or footnotes, but do NOT
cut-and-paste the facts directly from Wikipedia or
another online source; this is plagiarism and doing so
will cause you to fail the assignment
Parts of a Case Brief
 Reasoning
 How did the court arrive at its decision in the case that you
read?
 How did the court use existing law and previous court
decisions lead to reach their outcome?
 How did the court explain its decision in the case that you
read?
 Rule
 The “rule” consists of the law that was created by a court’s
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ruling in a particular case
Rules established by courts affect people later in the future
What rule of law was established in this case?
How will the court’s ruling in this particular case affect future
parties within America in the future?
How does this case affect businesses in the 21st Century?
Case Brief Assignment
 You may choose any of the cases on this list. Please do not
select a case that is NOT on this list unless you obtain
explicit permission from me via e-mail.
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Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc.
DECKER v. NORTHWEST ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER
Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY
Bragdon v. Abbott
PGA Tour v. Martin
Lau v. Nichols
Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc.
National Federation for the Blind v. Target Corporation
Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd.
Michigan Paralyzed Veterans of America v. The University of Michigan
NEVADA DEPT. OF HUMAN RESOURCES v. HIBBS
Gomez-Perez v. Potter
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
O’Bannon v. NCAA
ETW Corp. v. Jireh Publishing (this case deals with Tiger Woods)
Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe
Hackbart v. Cincinnati Bengals, Inc.
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Case
Brief
Assignment
Once you have selected a case, please read a secondary source
description of the case on a site such as Wikipedia or oyez.org, and
write your “brief”
 At this stage in your academic career, I would not recommend reading the
actual decision itself—they are very lengthy and filled with legalese that is
inaccessible and incomprehensible even to many lawyers
 Your words should be your own; please do not cut and paste
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directly from the site (this is plagiarism!) If you do this, you will
earn a zero on the assignment.
A sample case study that earned a perfect score has been posted on
BlackBoard
All assignments should be typed
You don’t need to write in paragraph form; you can simply write
“Court: U.S. Supreme Court” or “Rule: The U.S. Supreme Court
applied the Commerce Clause to the states. Private employers cannot
discriminate based on race.”
I am willing to review drafts of your Case Brief Assignment before
the submission date – please email them to me and I will provide
comments and guidance
Case Brief Assignment
 Due by August 2, 2015 at 11:59PM
 This assignment is worth 150 points
 Do not copy material directly from other websites
without proper citation. This is considered plagarism,
which is prohibited by tri-c and the policies of this
course. If you do this, you will receive a zero on the
assignment!
 Please let me know if you have any questions about
this assignment! Good luck.