Poor Mrs. Palsgraph again. . .

Poor Mrs. Palsgraph was back on the scene again today, this time in torts class. We already looked at this case when we studied causation in criminal and I have a previous post dedicated to my thoughts on the case, but I wanted to revisit this peculiar and classic case. (see http://law-new-view.blogspot.com/2005/10/strait-talk.html) Our torts Proffessor added some additional information outside of the case to aid us in our understanding of the case. We looked at the New York Times article from the day after the accident at the train station, where we learn that the package carried by the "itialian" men trying to jump on the train was quite large as opposed to how it is described by Cardozo in the majority opinion. We also learned from the article that on the day the accident occured the train station was packed with pleasures seekers heading to the beach, many of them celebrating an Italian holidy. It explains that the packages was fireworks and that it was common for people to create personal pyrotechnic displays at the beach during the festivities (thus making it quite forseeable that the package contained explosives)

heading into the steep finish

We have one month to go. I must learn to pace myself, because my head already aches; I am weary and the few breaks I make are to cook dinner and to take George the pug on a walk (http://www.puggerpics.blogspot.com) . I spent friday outlining property and saturday outlining criminal and Sunday writing my legal writing memo. We are heading into the steep finish and this is the time to be able to work effectively and still maintain a bit of perspectived, and so my perspective this week comes from a moment of fun from my studies (this ought to show you what I see as fun). As I was writing my memo, I was in the section where I was making the arguments for the defendant in a case of "improper seizure" where the defendant was hoping to surpress evidence based on a violation of his privacy and the prosecution was arguing that the the seizure was warranted based on police officer safety concerns. The details are not important. What was important was that as I was arguing for the defendant, even though I had initially seen the case as clearly weighing heavily in favor for the prosecution, I began to see the validity of the defendants side, or if not validity, I began to see the possible arguments that could be made. Not only have I heard this is what one is supposed to do, but it added a new debth to the arguments that I really wanted to make because I was anticipating the possible holes and defenses that I would have to make. (these entry really sounds like an "arn't I so smart" entry, but after 12 hours of work on a project, you take whatever pleasure you can get out of this process of learning. This also makes me think that I have been on the computer to much today and I am going to keep this one short, so here is the quote for the week again by Learned Hand:

"To be pulled in many opposite ways at once results negatively, but it is not the same thing as to feel no impulse at all. An ass between two bales of hay is said to have died of starvation, but not from indifference." P. 10, Class-Day Oration, (1893).

final's talk aready

Well, you can feel the ambient stress in the law school beginning to reach a heightened level. During my work study shift at the law library I see which study aids are checked out with the most popularity; this weekends favorites were civil procedure and property. This is easy to explain; we had our first civil procedure review on Friday where we covered the material up through Rule 12 of the Federal Rules. I think I finally found a mental picture for understanding civil procedure. It reminds me of the Chinese game of Go. In Go there are only black stones and white stones and a gridded board. Each player takes turns putting down one stone at a time, and in the process builds walls that trap, attack, or mislead the opponent. In the adversarial system we have the plaintiff, the white stones, and the defendant, the black stones and at its most basic level, there is nothing but these two parties. But neither Go or Law is a simple system. The various permutations that arise from the basic back and forth between white and black are infinite. The rules in Go are much less complicated, but the strategy is so complicated, the Japanese say it takes a whole lifetime to master the Game. Again, the legal system is a life long evolution of learning, but I have to take this metaphor to an end, because the legal system is more than a game. We learn the rules not just to be able to to move through the system efficiently and properly but in order to most help our clients. However, in the process of learning, it is helping me to think of it like a game, and then delving into the Rules is like loosing oneself in a long Game of Go. I don't really care if this is a good metaphor, but it does seem to help me get motivated to get through the next 6 weeks and through finals without loosing sight of reality.
Now the most popular study guides this weekend were definitely was property. The "rule against perpetuities is really making people nuts. This one rule developed in order to prevent vesting property to far into the future, a rule that is not really used any more today because people pass on their property in trusts or because the amount of years in the future that is allowed by law is now extended beyond the common law 21 years, is really driving people mad. Everyone thought property was going to be an easy class back when we were learning adverse possession, but now we have to pay close attention to "O to A for life, then to B but if B has no children at A's death, then to the children of C" Yes I must admit, learning this stuff requires a level of attentiveness to detail than is not normally required of even law students.

Well, that's the wrap up. In a new feature of the blog entries, I will finish each entry with a quote from a figure from the history of the legal profession. This past week it seams like I have been coming across a lot of cases by Judge Learned Hand in several different classes and if the name alone doesn't make you think that this man was born to be a judge, then some of his quotes will

"The mid-day sun is too much for most eyes; one is dazzled even with its reflection. Be careful that too broad and high an aim does not paralyze your effort and clog your springs of action"P.9, Class-Day Oration (1893).