Assignment : Midweek Production Assignment: Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. Case Analysis
Read the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Two Pesos, Inc. v. Taco Cabana, Inc. and draft a case brief and summary of the case by using the provided template.
In the brief you will be asked to provide an opinion on why this case is important for trademark law. Also analyze how it can be used by legal practitioners to help their clients.
Case briefing is a valuable tool if it is properly written. A case brief is usually a one page synopsis of a case, no matter how long the opinion of the court may have been. Except for critical verbiage in a court opinion, you should never directly copy and paste material from a case into your case brief. Case briefs should always be in your own words; they should summarize and explain, in plain terms, the holding of cases.
Case summaries are used by attorneys all of the time. Many attorneys prepare them while researching to write briefs and dispositive motions. That way, instead of handling a mound of paperwork, the case brief becomes a cheat sheet to determine which cases are necessary for the brief and which cases relate to one another.
In law schools, students use case briefing to explain the holdings of cases and the analysis and reasoning that came from the court. Usually, these synopses last for less than thirty seconds, so your briefing should always be presented in a manner that a lay person would be able to understand.
Briefing a case consists of a summary of each of the following aspects of the case. That way when the attorney or paralegal reads the brief, he or she can focus on only the most critical parts of the case and can quickly decide whether the case is relevant to the client's interests.
1. Heading: The heading is the case name and proper citation according to the Bluebook. For instance:
Sherer v. Rubin Memorial Chapel, Ltd, 444 So. 2d 1176 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984)
2. Facts: These should be in your own words and should be no longer than three to five sentences. The factual summary is geared to giving the reader the bare minimum facts necessary to understand what happened in the case. For instance:
The funeral home produced the body of decedent and argued with relatives that it was the correct body when relatives said it was not. When the funeral home finally produced the correct body, it was not prepared adequately, and the decedent's clothing was thrown on top of it.
3. Procedural History: This part of the brief describes the route the case took from the lower court to the appeals court, up to and including, the result in the case you are briefing. Describe how the lower court ruled and why. Then when the case went up on appeal, was it affirmed, reversed, decided, upheld, overturned, remanded, etc.? For instance:
I. Trial Court: The judge dismissed the complaint with prejudice for punitive damages and mental pain and suffering against the funeral home stating that as a matter of law, the family of decedent did not allege facts sufficient to prove malice on the part of the mortuary.
II. Appellate Court: Reversed and remanded the case.
4. Issues: The issue is the question of law before the appellate court. An appeal concerns a mistake in law made by the judge. Present a one sentence summary of each issue or question that must be decided in the case. It should start with the word "whether." You can write yes or no after the issue for the short answer to the question.
For instance, in a case where the court is deciding whether mental anguish and punitive damages are a question of fact for the jury or a question of law for the judge, the issue would be:
Whether the judge should have let the jury decide if plaintiffs suffered mental pain and thus should not have dismissed the complaint for mental anguish and punitive damages. Yes.
5. Holdings: This is the decision of the court or the answer to the question posed by the issue. For instance:
The court held that punitive damages and mental pain and suffering are issues of fact to be decided by a jury, therefore the judge should not have dismissed the count for mental pain and punitive damages against the funeral home.
6. Rationale/Analysis: This section should be broken down to address each issue separately. If there are three issues, there will be three holdings, and three rationales. Inform the reader of what the court used, in terms of the law (precedence, new law, statute, etc.) and how it was applied to the facts at bar.
This will be your longest and most complicated section, however, it should be no more than a paragraph in length for each issue.Due to the brevity of this section, you really need to break down the court's analysis and use your words to show how the law and the facts fit together for the court to reach its determination. For instance:
The court relied on Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So. 2d 188 (Fla. 1950) which held the jury should examine the facts because a reasonable jury could find malice can be implied from the lack of care as to the rights of others, attention to duty, or extreme indifference as would justify punitive damages since mental anguish to the relatives is the expected and foreseeable consequence of such mishandling of a corpse.
7. Other Analysis: The best part of a case brief should be your analysis of the case. When you Sheperdized or Keycited the case, is it still good law? Do most courts agree or disagree with the case? Was the court right or wrong, in your opinion?
Are there cases that you recently studied, or studied in another course, that diverge from this case? This is the area where you can show correlations and your analysis of the case, and therefore, it is the most important item to show an instructor. For instance:
This case is still good law and has been cited in many other Florida cases dealing with the mishandling of a corpse. The case tells us that there is no strong line between negligent, recklessness, willful, wanton, or intentional conduct but rather that each scenario dealing with mental anguish has to be examined on a case by case basis to let the jury determine the degree of unreasonable conduct of the defendant.
Here is the finished case brief:
1. Heading: Sherer v. Rubin Memorial Chapel, Ltd, 444 So. 2d 1176 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984)
2. Facts: The funeral home produced the body of decedent and argued with relatives that it was the correct body when relatives said it was not. When the funeral home finally produced the correct body, it was not prepared adequately, and the decedent's clothing was thrown on top of it.
3. Procedural History:
I. Trial Court: The judge dismissed the complaint for punitive damages and mental pain and suffering against the funeral home stating that as a matter of law, the family of decedent could not recover punitive damages for mental pain and suffering without proving willful, wanton, malicious, or intentional behavior on the part of the defendant.
II. Appellate Court: Reversed and remanded the case.
4. Issue(s): Whether the judge should have let the jury decide if plaintiff suffered mental pain and thus should not have dismissed the complaint for mental anguish and punitive damages. Yes.
5. Holding(s): The court held that punitive damages and mental pain and suffering are issues of fact to be decided by a jury; therefore the judge should not have dismissed the count for mental pain and punitive damages against the funeral home.
6. Rationale(s)/Analysis: The court relied on Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So. 2d 188 (Fla. 1950) which held the jury should examine the facts because a reasonable jury could find malice can be implied from the lack of care as to the rights of others, attention to duty, or extreme indifference as would justify punitive damages since mental anguish to the relatives is the expected and foreseeable consequence of such mishandling of a corpse.
7. Other Analysis: This case is still good law and has been cited in many other Florida cases dealing with the mishandling of a corpse. The case tells us that there is no strong line between negligent, recklessness, willful, wanton, or intentional conduct but rather that each scenario dealing with mental anguish has to be examined on a case by case basis to see the degree of unreasonable conduct of the defendant.
Case briefing is not a copy of the case as written by the court. A case brief is a synopsis of the case and is used to help you analyze the case before you include it as precedent in a memorandum, motion or appellate brief.
It is important for you to show yourself in the cases: provide analysis, summarize, make critical connections. Otherwise, your case briefs will not help you in the future as you will not remember what the cases say.