1L - First Year Lesson Topics

This lesson deals with option contracts and firm offers, both of which result in irrevocable offers. The existence of an offer is often an essential element of the bargaining process. Although most offers are revocable, sometimes the offeree's power of acceptance is irrevocable through the formation of an option contract. This lesson will look at formation of an option contract through part performance or tender, a signed writing supported by consideration, statutory firm offers and detrimental reliance.

This lesson will provide an overview of secondary resources used in legal research. Secondary resources are books and other material ABOUT legal subjects and issues: they discuss and explain primary resources such as cases and statutes and can be useful in assisting our understanding about specific areas of law. The student will learn about the different types of secondary resources and what secondary resources are most useful for specific types of legal research tasks.

This lesson covers the common law rules and various statutory approaches governing recovery of damages for injuries resulting in death. Questions and problems in the lesson consider the circumstances under which and the extent to which damages are available to protect the interests of persons who die as a result of tortious injuries and the interests of the survivors of those persons.

This lesson deals with the question of when and why an event that intervenes between the defendant's negligence and the plaintiff's injury may have the result that the defendant is relieved of liability for the injury.

This lesson covers the general principles and basic measures governing the remedy of damages for personal injuries. It explores issues and problems that confront a person seeking the damages remedy to address tortiously-inflicted physical harm.

A plaintiff who voluntarily assumes a risk of harm cannot recover for the negligent or reckless conduct that causes the harm: that is known as assumption of risk. It is a complete defense. This lesson explores the defense, which together with contributory negligence has been part of negligence law for more than a century-and-a-half. The border between the two classic negligence defenses is sometimes confusing, so questions navigate the differences. Also, the lesson considers the continuing vitality of the defense of assumption of risk when contributory negligence is rapidly being replaced by comparative negligence.

This interactive exercise addresses the topic of consent as a privilege or defense to various intentional tort claims. It begins with a consideration of how consent is determined to exist and then explores various applications of the defense in contexts such as medical encounters and sporting events. Consideration is given to how the courts have utilized the concept of consent in balancing the competing interests of the plaintiff and the defendant in relation to overarching policy goals.

This lesson gives the student familiarity with contributory negligence, a defense to a negligence claim, and also with last clear chance, a "defense" to the defense. While these doctrines today are on the wane, students should be generally familiar with them for a full understanding of negligence and comparative negligence.

Strict liability for animals is one of the oldest forms of strict liability in tort law. The topic concerns the problems that arise with both trespassing animals and attacking animals. This lesson discusses and illustrates the rules that apply to that area.

Strict liability for dangerous activities began with the English case of Rylands v. Fletcher. The First Restatement and the Second Restatement both contained provisions for a similar form of such strict liability and such liability is widely recognized in the United States. This lesson explains and uses examples to explain and then compare and contrast those different theories. In addition, this lesson covers the basic limitations on that form of strict liability.

This lesson deals with liability for defectively manufactured products. It does not consider liability for defectively designed products, or products that are defective because of an inadequate warning, which are dealt with in the lesson Liability for Defectively Designed Products.

This lesson deals with the rules governing the liability of multiple defendants in torts cases. It begins by examining joint and several liability and the rules governing contribution between tortfeasors, then moves on to consider why the majority of states has now modified the rules of joint and several liability. It also contrasts the different results produced by joint and several liability on the one hand and several liability on the other in cases involving insolvent defendants and settling defendants.

This lesson assumes the basic issues in defamation have already been covered. Before working with this lesson, the lessons on Basic Issues in Defamation and Privileges and Libel and Slander should have already been reviewed. The material here will use that basic information to study the Constitutional issues that now control defamation. Among those issues are public and private figures, actual malice, burdens of proof, and damages.

Even though the thing speaks for itself, this lesson speaks more about res ipsa loquitur. This tort doctrine becomes an immediate favorite of all who hear its mellifluous name, but the doctrine has several nuances that do not speak so clearly, such as the circumstances when it applies, how common carriers are covered, and how it is conveyed to the jury. This lesson explores all of those nuances.

This lesson focuses on the distinction between invitees and licensees, and the duty owed by an occupier to each category of entrant. It includes problems designed to test student understanding of the distinction between licensees and invitees, and to highlight the differences between the duties owed to each.

One of the difficult common law issues in defamation was the distinction between libel and slander. This lesson explains the differences between the two types of defamatory statements. Material is provided on the damage requirements of both. This lesson is part of a series about defamation. One should review the lesson on Basic Issues in Defamation and Privileges before working with this exercise. After finishing this one, the exercise on Constitutional Issues in Defamation should be covered.

This lesson deals with liability for defectively designed products and products that are defective because of an inadequate warning. It does not consider liability for defectively manufactured products, which are dealt with in the lesson Liability for Defectively Manufactured Products. It begins by comparing the two predominant tests for determining whether a product is defectively designed (the consumer expectations test and the risk/utility test), then considers the impact of warnings, including a consideration of the learned intermediary doctrine.

This lesson explores the intentional tort of false imprisonment. Beginning with identification of the interest the tort protects, the questions become more and more challenging as they explore the nature of the confinement necessary and appropriate damages. Since the greatest use of the tort today probably is in arrest for shoplifting, the lesson includes a tightly fact-bound question about a person detained for shoplifting. The lesson concludes with false imprisonment in two tough situations: religious deprogramming and nursing home confinement.

This lesson explores an intentional tort that is one of the most recent torts to emerge, one of the most commonly pleaded today, and one that is still evolving. The tort is most commonly called intentional infliction of mental distress; sometimes courts call it intentional infliction of emotional distress, or simply outrage.

The Right of Privacy is actually four different torts. This lesson will cover the basic elements of Commercial Appropriation, Intrusion, Public Disclosure, and False Light. Although it is necessary to make references to the Constitutional issues raised with these claims, that issue will be discussed in more detail in a separate lesson.

This lesson deals with the respective roles of judge and jury in deciding a torts case. It considers the procedural devices used (primarily by defendants) in an attempt to keep the case away from the jury and to provide the basis for an appeal.

The Right of Privacy, much like defamation, raises serious Constitutional issues. Those issues arise, primarily, with the tort of Public Disclosure and False Light. This lesson discusses the details raised by that Constitutional problem.

This lesson deals with basic and specific measures of damages recoverable in torts for harms to the interest in maintaining the physical integrity of personal property. Invasions of this interest are distinct from invasions of the interest in exclusive possession and the interest in use and enjoyment, and the law of damages reflects the differences. In order to deal effectively with the differences, separate lessons treat the interests in possession and use and enjoyment. The substance of causes of action available in torts for recovering damages is not treated here.

This lesson covers the basic and specific measures of damages recoverable for tortious injuries to the interest in use and enjoyment of personal property. Students will be acquainted with conceptual and pragmatic problems of valuing the interest in use and enjoyment of personal property.