Professor Franks
Final Examination, Spring 1996
1. Carefully analyze the facts and grasp the issues in each question before beginning to write. Spend time reading the question slowly and carefully.
2. State the issues and answers to each question concisely. Lengthy answers are not necessary.
3. Do not repeat questions in your answers. Write neatly and legibly on only one side of each page.
4. Number your answers to correspond with the question, e.g., "I-B."
5. If you feel it necessary to assume additional facts in any of the questions, give the facts that must be added and state why.
6. Do not write in the margin of the book.
7. All major questions are equally weighted unless otherwise indicated. Subparts are approximately equal but may be weighted slightly differently according to the number of issues involved in that subpart.
8. Write your personal identification number and the name and section number of the course on which you are being examined on the cover of each examination book.
9. If you use more than one book, indicate "Book One," "Book Two" and so forth on the cover of each book and write your PIN and the name and section number of the course on the cover of each examination book.
10. A GOOD ANSWER IS NOT NECESSARILY A LONG ANSWER.
Susie Smith and Johnny Jones were born in Springfield, Massachusetts. As next-door neighbors, they grew up together, attending everything from kindergarten to high school together. They were high school sweethearts. Following graduation from high school, they married and attended MIT together. Following graduation from college (he majored in meteorology; she became a CPA), they settled down and had two children: Dick, now age 7, and Jane, now age 6. All of the above occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, Johnny's job as an FAA control-tower operator required him to work nights. Susie, lonely on those long Massachusetts winter nights, began an affair with the pizza delivery man. Johnny, crushed to learn of his wife's infidelity, applied immediately for a job transfer. Offered a job at Ryan Airport, Baton Rouge, he snatched the children and moved to Baton Rouge on November 25, 1995. He and the children have been here ever since.
Johnny walks into your office today. He tells you he and Susie have been negotiating, but that nothing has been filed. He wants a divorce, and he tells you he wants custody of the children, alimony, child support, and a division of the property, which consists of the house in Springfield worth about $50,000, stock in Internet Technology Corporation, a Delaware corporation, worth about $60,000, and his FAA retirement which will not become payable until the year 2015.
Advise Johnny today as to all jurisdictional issues. Discuss fully his options.
Two months have passed. It is June 26, 1996. Assume that on April 15, 1996, Susie filed for divorce and custody in the Probate Court of Hampden County, Massachusetts. On June 1, 1996, you filed for divorce on behalf of your client Johnny in the Family Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge. On June 15, 1996, Susie and the pizza man upped and moved to Hollywood, California. Which state now has jurisdiction of the custody issue and why? What is your remedy, and what is the likely outcome? Discuss fully.
Having graduated from Southern and having passed the bar, you're now in private practice in Port Allen. You're shocked to read in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocette one day an article quoting a former classmate, Stan Broadmouth, as saying that you cheated your way through law school. Stan mentions you by name. You want to sue. You quickly (but in this case erroneously) perceive that "he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." So you hire Baton Rouge Attorney Simpson Bart to represent you and to file a defamation suit against Stan Broadmouth and the Morning Advocette.
Your lawyer writes a couple of demand letters, but does nothing more. Nearly a year passes, and you inquire of your lawyer. "I won't let prescription run," he assures you. A year and a three days after the tort, you call Simpson Bart to request a copy of the petition. "I'm sorry, but we didn't get it filed," he tells you.
You quickly file some very unpleasant things against Mr. Bart, but you still want justice from Stan Broadmouth and the Morning Advocette. Your research shows that only one state -- New Hampshire -- has a three-year statute of limitations on defamation. Your phone calls to New Hampshire reveal that the Dartmouth University Library, the University of New Hampshire Library, and the Manchester Public Library all subscribe to the Baton Rouge Morning Advocette.
Discuss the following:
A. May you sue Stan Broadmouth and the Baton Rouge Morning Advocette, a Louisiana corporation, in the courts of New Hampshire? How if at all will you get jurisdiction as to each? Discuss. B. If the suit proceeds to trial, will the New Hampshire court apply Louisiana's substantive law of defamation, or New Hampshire's substantive law of libel? Why? Discuss. C. Will New Hampshire apply Louisiana's prescriptive period? If so, why? If not, why not? Discuss. D. If the suit proceeds to trial, will you be able to recover in the courts of New Hampshire only those damages you sustained in New Hampshire? Or will you be able to prove and recover damages sustained in Louisiana and elsewhere? Discuss. |