Sarah Alverson 334132 alversons mail missouri edu Introduction to Business Law Lesson 1 Progress Evaluation Business Law 1 1 Identify and describe the philosophical school of law most closely associated with the following quotation and give your reasons for your choice In the quotation the writers are justifying establishing a separate government from the one who has been ruling over them When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature s God entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation The Philosophical school of law most closely associated with the following quotation is the Natural school of law The natural school of law holds that laws are motivated by God or they are simply obvious from nature The key argument among philosophers in this school of law is concept of so called absolute truth The absolute truth is the theory which holds that regardless of culture law and moral actions for humans and governments should be based on the set of standards which do not vary and which can be discovered According to the natural law school truth can be discovered Because this quotation has been taken from the Declaration of Independence and most of America s legal system has been founded among the declaration and the declaration comes a lot from the school of natural law bases my decision 1 2 Explain the general purpose of discovery in a civil lawsuit List and define the four methods of discovery Discovery is generally obtained either by the service of an adverse party with a notice to examine prepared by the applicant s attorney or by a court order pursuant to statutory provisions Discovery devices narrow the issues of a lawsuit obtain evidence not readily accessible to the applicant for use at trial and ascertain the existence of information that might be introduced as evidence at trial Discovery procedures promote the settlement of a lawsuit prior to trial by providing the parties with opportunities to realistically evaluate the facts before them Discovery is contingent upon a party s reasonable belief that he or she has a good cause of action or defense 1 Requests for Production RFP A request for production is the most common way to get documents when filing a lawsuit You need to set out clearly which documents you want produced otherwise expect the other side to object to your request as too broad 2 Depositions Depos A deposition is an oral in person interrogation where one side asks questions and the other side has to answer under oath 3 Requests for Admission RFA A request for admission is a written statement that you generally ask your opponent to either admit or deny This is not typically used to get an admission of guilt but rather is used to get the other party to stipulate to a basic set of facts or to admit that a document is genuine 4 Interrogatories Interogs are written questions that a party must respond to in writing and under oath These are not very useful because they are typically answered very carefully by a lawyer and end up saying almost nothing 1 3 Moe a resident of Missouri is on vacation when he collides with Al from Alabama in Illinois Neither suffers any losses except for their cars Al s 350 000 Lamborghini and Moe s 74 000 Lexus are totaled In which court s and in which state s may Al sue Moe In which court s in which state s may Moe sue Al Hint consider both personal and subject matter jurisdiction If Moe who is from Missouri sues Al who is from Alabama for 74 000 due to losing his car worth this amount then he will have no federal diversity of citizenship jurisdiction This is because the total of the damage is less than 75 000 If Al sues Moe and his damages are 350 000 which is clearly more than 75 000 there would be diversity of citizenship jurisdiction since they are from different states and the amount is over 75 000 Due to personal jurisdiction Moe could be sued in Missouri because he is a resident there or in Illinois because this is where he committed a tort If Al sues Moe for the amount of his Lamborghini he may sue him from Alabama state of federal court and in Illinois state or federal court Moe s attorney will then pick which court where he thinks he will be able to recover the most money 1 4 List the order in which cases progress through both the federal and Missouri state court systems starting with the court of general jurisdiction and ending with the court of last resort Missouri Courts of Jurisdiction Circuit Court The Intermediate Appellate Court Court of Appeals State of Supreme Court The Court of last resort Federal District Court Circuit Court of Appeals U S Supreme Court 1 5 Legal scholars and academics get together at the Lake of the Ozarks to formulate statutory law that they hope state legislatures across the country will pass What is this an example of How does this differ from restatements This is an example of a uniform code which is a statutory scheme It is constructed by experts to be adopted by state legislatures These uniform codes provide that consistency of the law in all states Restatements are common law schemes that are put together by experts and serve the purpose of influencing the court and encouraging nationwide consistency 1 6 Describe the characteristics of and differences between courts of common law and equity These two are subcategories of case law Common law follows the concepts of stare decisis and following precedent Common law is the system which dictates very specific remedies for wrongs people commit and it usually awards monetary damages Courts of equity aroused because the common law remedies are somewhat of a limited nature Courts of equity would only hear the case if the common law remedy of monetary damage is insufficient 1 7 List the six phases of a lawsuit and briefly describe what happens at each phase 1 Initial Pleadings documents filed with the court that help frame the issues the court will hear during the case This includes a compliant and an answer During the initial pleadings each party has an opportunity to explain each party s side of the dispute 2 Discovery The process of gathering information from parties or non parties prior to trial There are 5 major types Interrogatories Request for