“There is no greater fool than he who thinks himself wise; no one wiser than he who suspects he is a fool.”
Marguerite de Valois
Hour 1
Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co LLC, No. 21-1562 (3d Cir. 2022)
The choice-of-law provision in the policy reads:
It is hereby agreed that any dispute arising hereunder shall be adjudicated according to well established, entrenched principles and precedents of substantive United States Federal Admiralty law and practice[,] but where no such well established, entrenched precedent exists, this insuring agreement is subject to the substantive laws of the State of New York.
Judgments, decrees and orders are the courts’ effective acts. Opinions give their reasons. A holding is a judgment, or an order or decree, together with the chain of reasoning on which it hangs, viewed in the context of the case’s facts. Everything else in an opinion is dictum, short for obiter dictum, a thing said by the way. A dictum can be persuasive in future cases— depending on the level of the court and the reputation of the judge who voiced it—but persuasive only. The holding is the precedent.
The Law of the Land, The Evolution of Our Legal System, Charles Rembar
PPG Industries Inc v. Jiangsu Tie Mao Glass Co Ltd, No. 21-2288 (3d Cir. 2022)
PPG, a Pittsburgh company, developed a new kind of plastic for airplane windows, “Opticor™ A former PPG employee, Rukavina, agreed to share proprietary information concerning Opticor with TMG, a China-based manufacturer. TMG contacted the PPG subcontractor that made Opticor window molds, asking it to manufacture the same molds, attaching photographs and drawings from a proprietary report. The subcontractor alerted PPG, which notified the FBI, which executed warrants to search Rukavina’s email account and residence. Rukavina was charged with criminal theft of trade secrets.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca3/21-2288/21-2288-2022-08-30.html
CORECIVIC, INC. V. CANDIDE GROUP, LLC, No. 20-17285 (9th Cir. 2022)
The panel turned to the merits of Candide’s anti-SLAPP motion. Because CoreCivic did not contest on appeal that the suit implicated Candide’s First Amendment rights, the panel needed only to determine–applying the 12(b)(6) standard–whether CoreCivic stated a claim for defamation under California law. The panel concluded that CoreCivic failed to plausibly plead a defamation or a defamation by implication claim based on statements about its connection to the separation of immigrant families at the U.S. border, and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of those claims.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/20-17285/20-17285-2022-08-30.html
Chase Peden, et al v. Glenn Stephens, et al, No. 21-10723 (11th Cir. 2022)
Plaintiff, a sheriff’s department employee, had an affair with the wife of a county administrator. The mistress allegedly conducted a smear campaign against Plaintiff’s wife and, when the affair ended, against Plaintiff as well. The sheriff’s department fired Plaintiff and a local prosecutor declined to prosecute the mistress for harassment. Suspecting the county administrator had a hand in both actions, Plaintiffs sued the mistress, the county administrator, and a host of other county officials for violating state and federal law. The district court entered a summary judgment in favor of the officials and certified that judgment as final even though claims against the mistress remained pending.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/21-10723/21-10723-2022-08-29.html
Jesus Alonso Alvarez Rodriguez, et al v. Branch Banking & Trust Company, et al, No. 21-11763 (11th Cir. 2022)
Appellants lost over $850,000 when an alleged BB&T employee and a co-conspirator impersonated them, changed their passwords, and transferred the money out of their BB&T bank accounts. Appellants sued BB&T under contract and tort theories. The district court dismissed the tort claims as duplicative of the contract claim, concluding that Appellants’ demand was time-barred because BB&T’s standard bank account contract limited the time to assert a demand from the statutory one-year period to just 30 days. In the alternative, the district court entered summary judgment for BB&T because it concluded the bank had and had followed commercially reasonable security procedures.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/21-11763/21-11763-2022-08-26.html
The Flat Earth Saga:
Was my challenge ignored or avoided.
https://proselaw.co/show-notes-revolution-radio-2022-08-10
Hour 2
Do you understand the evolution of the law?
We use Miranda to drive some points.
The Supreme Court, splitting five to four, gave us the Miranda rule in 1966. Briefly, it means that when an arrest is made, a confession by the person taken into custody cannot be used against him at his trial unless, before the questioning starts, he is given an explicit warning—that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he may make can be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of a lawyer during the interrogation.
The rule brings with it some corollary questions. Just when is one in custody? In the police station, after he is booked? Earlier, when accosted by an officer? Or at some point in between? Suppose he is questioned about a crime that has nothing to do with the offense for which he has been arrested? How does the rule operate when there is a series of interrupted interrogations? It is on these corollary questions that the Burger majority has reversed the direction taken by the Warren majority, without reversing the Miranda rule itself.
The Law of the Land, The Evolution of Our Legal System, Charles Rembar
Two New Cases on Decrypting Locked Devices – Volokh Conspiracy
I think that allows the government to use data obtained through the use of passwords that themselves were obtained in violation of Miranda, whether the data was decrypted or simply was found more easily as a result of bypassing a password. It doesn’t matter if the government could not have gained access to the data any other way. The data can be used because the data is not an answer to the government’s question during custodial interrogation.
https://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/09/two-new-cases-on-accessing-encrypted-dev
The Precedent Question
The logical chain runs like this:
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/04/14/thoughts-on-vega-v-tekoh-the-pending-miranda-case-before-scotus-the-precedent-question/
♦ Chavez v. Martinez indicates through its various opinions that the Miranda violation is complete when a statement is wrongly admitted in violation of Miranda’s rules;
♦ Dickerson v. United States holds that Miranda is a constitutional rule, not some sort of supervisory decision; and
♦ 42 U.S.C. 1983 provides that a person who “causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law.”
Put those three steps together, and there’s a constitutional cause of action for a wrongful admission of a statement.
He Didn’t Use the ‘Magic Words’ To Get Access to a Lawyer. Were His Rights Violated?
But when the detective returned to the interrogation room, he came without Dawson’s phone. Instead, he said: “Here’s the deal, I’m just going to ask you flat out, because we’re in the middle of this and this is something we could potentially resolve—do you want your lawyer here or do you want to just figure this out?” Dawson responded that he wanted to “figure this out.”
https://reason.com/2022/04/29/new-york-court-of-appeals-police-interrogation-lawyer-miranda-rights-malik-dawson/
As the detective began questioning Dawson about the alleged assault, Dawson insisted the encounter was consensual. The detective then told Dawson that if he were apologetic, it might work in his favor. So, without counsel present, he penned a letter to the victim admitting guilt and saying he was sorry.
SCOTUS Says You Can’t Sue the Cops for Violating Your Miranda Rights
But in a pure ideological split, the Court today determined that a violation of the Miranda rules does not provide a basis for a civil rights lawsuit under Section 1983. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
https://reason.com/2022/06/23/scotus-says-you-cant-sue-the-cops-for-violating-your-miranda-rights/
Secondary Authorities
American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum are second tier authorities
Legal encyclopedias do not control the court, no matter how respected or scholarly.
They are secondary authorities. All of their explanations and commentary are useless in a real knock-down-drag-out-fight. But, the cases cited are primary authorities.
One the other hand, your state’s UCC is ‘the’ top-tier primary authority.
The UCC is positioned as a higher authority than your state’s caselaw. Why is this? Because the caselaw cannot change the legislature’s intent and the clear language of the law.
Here are some links that explain the hierarchy of legal authorities.
Library of Congress
Bluebook Order of Authorities
Florida A&M University: Basic Legal Research: The Hierarchy of Authority
Quoted section of the Model UCC at Cornell:
§ 1-103. Construction of Uniform Commercial Code to Promote its Purposes and Policies: Applicability of Supplemental Principles of Law.
(a) The Uniform Commercial Code MUST be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes and policies, which are: (1) to simplify, clarify, and modernize the law governing commercial transactions; (2) to permit the continued expansion of commercial practices through custom, usage, and agreement of the parties; and (3) to make uniform the law among the various jurisdictions.
(b) Unless displaced by the particular provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code, the principles of law and equity, including the law merchant and the law relative to capacity to contract, principal and agent, estoppel, fraud, misrepresentation, duress, coercion, mistake, bankruptcy, and other validating or invalidating cause supplement its provisions (emphasis added).
For good measure:
American Jurisprudence (Am. Jur.) on Contracts
The Book I quoted:
The Uniform Commercial Code Made Easy 1st Edition
Music Credits
Danheim – Mannavegr (Full Album 2017) Viking Era & Viking War Music
https://youtu.be/8tilKaOINmE
Sector Space
https://sectorradio.ru/space/
Malukah – Reignite – Mass Effect/Shepard Tribute Song
https://youtu.be/re32xnyYP3A
Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
https://youtu.be/hajBdDM2qdg
Everybody knows – Leonard Cohen
https://youtu.be/Lin-a2lTelg
Mason Proffit – Two Hangmen
https://youtu.be/CC3yZdG_2Bc
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