Syllabus January 2012

University of San Diego
School of Business Administration

ETLW 311 – Business Law I - January 2012

Richard E. Custin, J.D., M.Ed., LL.M.

email: rcustin@sandiego.edu
Olin Hall Office 205

Office Hours- as arranged.
619 260-4854
Class Blog: http://custinusd.blogspot.com/

Course Description:


“Covers the fundamentals of United States law and legal system, relationship of law to ethics, torts, risk management, insurance, and hiring and managing an attorney. Special emphasis is given to preventing legal problems and resolving conflicts in business for business practitioners. Systems and methods of dispute resolution are considered including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and the U.S. judicial system including small claims court.”

Course Objectives:

Students who complete this course will be able to:

A. To develop a plan for personal and business litigation avoidance
B. To understand the basic functions and jurisdictional requirements of state and federal courts
C. To understand various legal systems including common law and civil law
D. To distinguish between civil, criminal & statutory law, substantive and procedural law
E. To develop and refine critical thinking skills including legal reading, writing and application of law to fact
F. To understand and apply the law of torts, contracts, the Uniform Commercial Code, sales, agency, employment and business transactions
G. To develop strategies to effectively utilize alternative dispute resolution
H. To understand issues involving risk management and insurance
I. To develop effective negotiation strategies
J. To understand, appreciate and apply ethical principles as they relate to business and law





Key topics to be covered this semester are:

The Origin and Application of the Common Law

Criminal & Civil Law

Small Claims Procedure

Selecting an Attorney

Court Jurisdiction: Personal Jurisdiction, Subject Matter Jurisdiction & Venue

The Anatomy of a Civil Lawsuit

Torts: Intentional Torts, Negligence, Strict Liability & Business Torts

Contracts: The Uniform Commercial Code & the Common Law

Ethical Issues in Law

Risk Management & Insurance

Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mediation & Arbitration



Course Materials:
Dynamic Business Law, Kubasek, 2^nd Edition, McGraw Hill, (2011)



Course Requirements and Student Evaluation:

Attendance:
Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes. Your final cumulative point total may be reduced five points any class absence. Please do not enter the classroom late. Tardiness may count as a class absence. Being unprepared or not having a textbook available in class will constitute the equivalent of an absence. Please note: Students in prior semesters have occasionally ignored the attendance and tardiness rule and have earned poor grades.

Caveat:

DISCLAIMER: The lectures, discussions, assignments, personal interaction and all educational activity are information and not legal advice. If you need legal, tax or other professional advice, consult a licensed attorney or other professional. The instructor is not providing representation to any student. No attorney client privilege is expressly intended or implied.

Average work in this course will result in a “C’ grade. You must be prepared to discuss the material assigned and the cases contained within. In the event you are unprepared for any class question or case discussion your overall cumulative grade points may be reduced five points for each instance you are unprepared. We need your active participation! Please do not use phones, text or email during class. You may use your computer assuming this use is exclusively for taking class notes or using the electronic version of the text. You must have a text available in each class meeting.

Please provide me with a valid e-mail address. I may contact you via e-mail with information concerning class cancellations, assignments, due dates and supplemental reading. An e-mail message created and sent to you creates a presumption that the e-mail was received and read by you. Therefore, check your e-mail regularly! You may need access to the Internet to complete some assignments.

No make-up examinations will be given absent extraordinary reasons. (ie: major earthquakes-8.0+, tornados, floods- like the “Ark”, impending end of world, and disasters of monstrous proportion) No assignments will be accepted after the announced due date.

It is a violation of professional ethics to advise the Professor that you need a specific grade to maintain a scholarship or for any other reason.

I do not discuss grades via email. No changes will be made to any grade unless a calculation error was made.

In the event that you do not take an exam on the scheduled date, you may be provided a different examination and you will not be eligible to participate in any curve, if any.

Grading:

Scale: A+ 100-97, A 96-92, A-91-90, B+89, B 88-82, B-80-81, C+ 79, C 78-72, C-71-70, D+ 69, D 68-62, D- 61-60, less than 60=F

3 tests = 40%
Multiple choice / Essay

Written Assignments / Case Briefs = 10%

In-Class and Blog Participation = 10%

Final Examination - Comprehensive = 40%



Statement on Academic Integrity:

“All members of the University community share the responsibility for maintaining an environment of academic integrity since academic dishonesty is a threat to the University. Acts of academic dishonesty include: a) unauthorized assistance on an examination; b) falsification or invention of data; c) unauthorized collaboration on an academic exercise; d) plagiarism; e) misappropriation of resource materials; f) any unauthorized access of an instructor's files or computer account; or g) any other serious violation of academic integrity as established by the instructor.”

School of Business Administration Mission Statement:

We develop socially responsible business leaders with a global mindset through academically rigorous, relevant, and values-based education and research.

Intersession 2012 Textbook

Please obtain & bring the following text to each class meeting:

HARDCOVER:

ISBN:

0073377678

| ISBN-13:

9780073377674

EDITION: 2

PUBLISHER: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

AUTHORS: Nancy Kubasek, M Neil Browne, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, Linda Barkacs, Dan Herron, Carrie Williamson, Lucien Dhooge

You must have the text available during each class meeting. No exceptions. You can use the electronic edition or a hard copy of the text. Previous or custom editions are not adequate.

Textbook Available in Library

Textbook now available in USD UG Library

A current (2nd edition) of the textbook is available in the library.

Please check your log-on information for this blog. If your ID for contibuting to the blog is "unknown" please change this information to an identifiable name. Please also check to see if you have registered as anonymous. We need to know the identity of contributors to this blog. Any questions- please see me in class. Rick Custin

Welcome January 2012 Term

Welcome to Intersession 2012 Business Law I Students!

It's almost that time. I will provide you with a detailed syllabus on the first day of class. We have changed the rules concerning blog posts. All blog posts must now include a detailed analysis personally written by the contributor. We want to discourage merely cutting and pasting articles from the Internet. We will discuss this further on the first day of class. Rick Custin

U.S. ordered to pay $4.4 million for Weston air traffic controller's negligence in fatal crash

I think that this is an interesting case of how an air traffic control center can be held partially liable for an aircraft accident. It shows how important it is for an air traffic control center to assist pilots with information about weather conditions and navigation, and that failure to do so can be considered negligence if an aircraft crashes as a result of not being given important flight-related information.

To read more visit: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-boca-pilot-killed-bulldog-20111213,0,7126252.story

US urges ban on texting, talking while driving

By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ren Bishop is one of many American drivers who texts, tweets and talks on her cellphone while she's behind the wheel — and thinks it should be up to drivers to use their discretion when it comes to safety. Though she admits thumbing her phone while driving is bad habit, the University of Missouri student says drivers "are mature enough to understand when it is appropriate and when it is not." The National Transportation Safety Board disagrees, and it declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. The board is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies following recent deadly crashes, including one in Missouri after a teenager sent or received 11 text messages within 11 minutes. The unanimous recommendation from the five-member board would apply even to hands-free devices, a much stricter rule than any current state law. NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman acknowledged that complying would involve changing what has become ingrained behavior for many Americans. "We're not here to win a popularity contest," she said. "No email, no text, no update, no call is worth a human life." Currently, 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, while nine states and Washington, D.C., bar hand-held cellphone use. Thirty states ban all cellphone use for beginning drivers. But enforcement is generally not a high priority, and no states ban the use of hands-free devices for all drivers. The immediate impetus for the NTSB's recommendation was last year's deadly pileup near Gray Summit, Mo., involving a 19-year-old pickup driver. The board said the initial collision was caused by the teen's inattention while texting a friend about events of the previous night. The pickup, traveling 55 mph, hit the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus, and a second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus. The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured. In Missouri, texting is illegal for drivers 21 and under, which means the law would have applied to the 19-year-old. But the ban isn't aggressively enforced, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said. "Without the enforcement, the laws don't mean a whole lot," he said. The law didn't apply to 22-year-old Bishop when she was pulled over Monday night for swerving while texting on the University of Missouri campus. She blames a late night and schoolwork. The officer who stopped her told her to put her phone in the back seat and sent her home with a warning. "I definitely have the bad habit of tweeting and driving, texting and driving, and updating my Facebook status," Bishop said. "I probably shouldn't but the technology makes it too easy." About two out of 10 American drivers overall — and half of drivers between 21 and 24 — say they've thumbed messages or emailed from the driver's seat, according to a survey of more than 6,000 drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. At any given moment last year on America's streets and highways, nearly one in every 100 car drivers was texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a hand-held electronic device, the safety administration said. Those activities were up 50 percent over the previous year. NTSB investigators said they are seeing increasing texting, cellphone calls and other distracting behavior by drivers in accidents involving all kinds of transportation. It has become routine to immediately request the preservation of cellphone and texting records when an investigation begins. In the past few years, the board has investigated a train collision in which the engineer was texting that killed 25 people in Chatsworth, Calif., a fatal accident near Philadelphia in which a tugboat pilot was talking on his cellphone and using a laptop computer, and a Northwest Airlines flight that sped more than 100 miles past its destination because both pilots were working on their laptops. Last year, a driver was dialing his cellphone when his truck crossed a highway median near Munford, Ind., and collided with a 15-passenger van. Eleven people were killed. While the NTSB doesn't have the power to impose restrictions, its recommendations carry significant weight with federal regulators, Congress and state lawmakers. But the board's decision to include hands-free cellphone use in its recommendation is likely to prove especially controversial. No states currently ban hand-free use, although many studies show that it is often as unsafe as hand-held phone use because drivers' minds are on their conversations rather than what's happening on the road. Bike messenger Jesus Santa Rosa, 24, says he's seen a lot of accidents that are caused by people using their cellphones while he maneuvers through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. "I've seen people taking red lights while they're looking down at their cellphones," said Santa Rosa. "And a lot of people get hit — bike messengers, pedestrians." Santa Rosa says he was sideswiped by a woman who was exiting the freeway and charging onto downtown's surface streets at a high speed. "This girl, when she stopped after she hit me, she was still talking on the phone as she got out of the car, like, telling someone she almost just killed someone," Santa Rosa said. Still, he said a ban on hands-free devices would probably be going too far because "texting is more dangerous. They're not looking up." Another NTSB recommendation Tuesday urges states to aggressively enforce current bans on text messaging and the use of cellphones and other portable electronic devices while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported earlier this year that pilot projects in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., produced significant reductions in distracted driving by combining stepped-up ticketing with high-profile public education campaigns. Miami computer salesman Cully Waggoner, 50, agreed that texting is a danger to drivers but said enforcing bans is difficult. What may be more effective is harnessing technology to make technology safer, he said. Perhaps phone manufacturers can be required to equip phones with a technology that disables texting and data packages if the phone is moving over a certain speed, Waggoner said. "That would be the only way to get around to fixing anything: Go right to the technology that's being used," Waggoner said. Otherwise, "there's all kinds of laws on the books that people break every day, this would just be another one." ___ Shaya Tayefe Mohajer can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APShaya . Associated Press writer Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this report and can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy . 2011-12-14 07:30:31 GMT

Copyright 2011. The Associated Press All Rights Reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Jury awards $11.3M over defamatory Internet posts

Jury awards $11.3M over defamatory Internet posts

Updated 10/11/2006 10:53 AM ET

By Laura Parker, USA TODAY

A Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud."

Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. — first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review — represents the largest such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in free-speech issues, calls the award "astonishing."

BEWARE OF BLOGS: Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers, websites

Lidsky says the case could represent a coming trend in court fights over online messages because the woman who won the damage award, Sue Scheff of Weston, Fla., pursued the case even though she knew the defendant, Carey Bock of Mandeville, La., has no hope of paying such an award. Bock, who had to leave her home for several months because of Hurricane Katrina, couldn't afford an attorney and didn't show up for the trial.

"What's interesting about this case is that (Scheff) was so vested in being vindicated, she was willing to pay court costs," Lidsky says. "They knew before trial that the defendant couldn't pay, so what's the point in going to the jury?"

Scheff says she wanted to make a point to those who unfairly criticize others on the Internet. "I'm sure (Bock) doesn't have $1 million, let alone $11 million, but the message is strong and clear," Scheff says. "People are using the Internet to destroy people they don't like, and you can't do that."

The dispute between the two women arose after Bock asked Scheff for help in withdrawing Bock's twin sons from a boarding school in Costa Rica. Bock had disagreed with her ex-husband over how to deal with the boys' behavior problems. Against Bock's wishes, he had sent the boys to the boarding school.

Scheff, who operates a referral service called Parents Universal Resource Experts, says she referred Bock to a consultant who helped Bock retrieve her sons. Afterward, Bock became critical of Scheff and posted negative messages about her on the Internet site Fornits.com, where parents with children in boarding schools for troubled teens confer with one another.

In 2003, Scheff sued Bock for defamation. Bock hired a lawyer, but he left the case when she no longer could afford to pay him.

When Katrina hit in August 2005, Bock's house was flooded and she moved temporarily to Texas before returning to Louisiana last June. Court papers that Scheff and her attorney David H. Pollack mailed to Bock were returned to Pollack's office in Miami.

After Bock didn't offer a defense, a Broward Circuit Court judge found in favor of Scheff. A jury then heard Scheff's arguments about damages. Pollack did not seek a specific amount for the harm he says Scheff's business suffered.

"Even with no opposing counsel and no defendant there, $11 million is a huge amount," says Pollack, adding that Scheff is considering whether to try to collect any money from Bock. "The jury determined this was a significant enough issue. It's not just somebody's feelings are hurt; it's somebody's reputation is ruined."

Bock says that when she moved back to her repaired house over the summer, she knew the trial was approaching but did not know the date. She says she doesn't have the money to pay the judgment or hire a lawyer to appeal it. She adds that if the goal of Scheff's lawsuit was to stifle what Bock says online, it worked.

"I don't feel like I can express my opinions," Bock says. "Only one side of the story was told in court. Nobody heard my side."

Posted 10/10/2006 10:07 PM ET

Updated 10/11/2006 10:53 AM ET