DEFENDANT'S MATERIALS
RELIGION & LAW FALL 2011
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CASE SUMMARIES
(40% of Project Score)
A. Required Submissions:
1. First Two Case Summaries: Due Thursday 9/15 @ 9:00 p.m. Please submit as a single document with each summary beginning on a new page. You may submit these in hard copy or electronically.
2. Remaining Case Summaries: Due Thursday 10/6 @ 9:00 p.m. Please submit as a single document with each summary beginning on a new page. You may submit these in hard copy or electronically.
B. General Purpose/Content: The point of the summaries is to create a concise description in your client’s files of the relevant portions of key cases, so that future readers can quickly understand what the case does without having to read it themselves. There is no set length for the summaries; they should be as long as it takes to do a thorough job. In grading, I will reward careful adherence to instructions, summaries that are clear, concise, accurate and complete; and that a reader could understand without having to read the underlying case.
The heart of each summary will be a detailed description in outline form of the court’s analysis of any religious claim or defense arising under federal law. Each of your cases will have some discussion of the evidence of religious discrimination by a government entity. You should cover these discussions in detail since this issue is the focus of your closed memo. However, you also should summarize any issues related to the federal Free Exercise Clause or Establishment Clause, arising under RFRA or RLUIPA, or involving religious claims under the federal Fair Housing Act, Title VII, or other federal Civil Rights legislation.
C. Formatting:
1. Do not put your real name anywhere on the document. Create a header or footer that includes your code name.
2. Use 12-point font.
3. Individual paragraphs and bullet points should be single-spaced; leave at least 6 points (half a line) between paragraphs and bullets.
4. Include page numbers.
5. As long as your work is clearly understandable, you can use abbreviations, sentence fragments or telegraph English to save time. E.g., “Refuses to adopt 3d Cir. position on hybrid claims [summarize position] b/c [list reasons].”
6. If you need to refer to other cases as part of your analysis, in the outline itself, use a short form of the case name (e.g., City of Hialeah or Smith). The first time you mention the case, drop a footnote and provide a full citation (citing just to the U.S. Reporter is sufficient for U.S. Supreme Court cases).
7. Generally follow the outline form provided below. More detailed discussion of general instructions and of individual categories follows.
OUTLINE OF SUMMARY:
Heading = Name of Case, Citation and Author
A. Overview: [Statement of the Case/Procedural Posture/Result]
B. Affirmative Legal Claims: [numbered list in order addressed by court]
1. Brief Description of Claim & Its Resolution
• Summary of substantive arguments addressing the claim done as bullet point list or further levels of outline
• …
2. [Same for each type of claim made]
C. Religious Defenses (if any): [numbered list in order addressed by court]
1. Brief Description of Claim & Its Resolution
• Summary of substantive arguments addressing the claim done as bullet point list or further levels of outline
• …
2. [Same for each type of claim made]
D. Concurring/Dissenting Opinions (if any) [numbered list in order presented]
1. List Type of Opinion (concurring, dissenting, both), Author & Concurring Judges (if any):
• [Summary of substantive arguments disagreeing with or qualifying majority done as bullet point list or further levels of outline with brief heading to cross-reference to relevant part of majority]
• …
E. Subsequent History (if any):
D. General Instructions on Summarization: The heart of this assignment is to accurately and concisely report the major arguments made by the judges with regard to the issues relevant to the course. The amount of detail you include will always be a judgment call. Some guidelines:
• Do not include discussions of procedural or technical issues like the standards for granting summary judgment, the admissibility of evidence (for reasons other than relevance), when the statute of limitations starts to run, etc. If a religious claim is dismissed on technical grounds, you can briefly state what happened without going through the court’s reasoning. (E.g., “Claim failed due to stat. of lim.” or “claim failed because preliminary EEOC filing inadequate.”)
• Focus on issues that are contested. For example, a lower court may paraphrase language from City of Hialeah noting that, e.g., Smith will apply to a neutrally worded statute absent evidence that the statute was passed or enforced with religious animus. If the parties and the court seem to take for granted this is the background set of rules, you need not summarize the boilerplate language making these points. However, if the court addressing a religious issue considers several substantive legal tests and chooses one, you need to summarize its reasoning.
• Break more complex arguments down into component parts using further layers of outlining or multiple layers of bullet points. Your formatting should help a reader understand the structure of the arguments. I don’t care about the precise form used as long as you stay within the framework I’ve laid out above. However, you need to make clear which parts of the argument are subsets of other parts.
• Where a court examines evidence of discriminatory intent at some length, include a thorough summary of the evidence it finds relevant. This obviously is relevant to your closed memo and will enable me to give you helpful feedback on your understanding of the case. You might, e.g., provide subheadings that include (i) an overview of the evidence the court thought supported the plaintiff; (ii) an overview of the evidence that the court thought supported the defendant; (iii) a summary of the court’s discussion of why it found one set of evidence more persuasive or insufficient.
• Quote cases directly where a court announces a particular legal test or if a phrase or passage seems particularly important and concise. Don’t include long block quotes where shorter paraphrases will convey the same information.
E. Instructions Specific to Each Subheading:
• Heading: Provide the name of the case and the standard citation including the parenthetical with date and jurisdiction. Put the author’s name in a second parenthetical at the end. E.g., (Timberlake, J.)
• Overview: Provide a brief description that makes clear the nature of the underlying case, the procedural posture, and the result in the court whose opinion you are summarizing. I don’t care about the order the information appears, but I want to quickly get an understanding of what’s going on. Do not include any extensive description of the facts; instead include facts where they arise within the description of the court’s analysis.
o Examples: Trial Court Cases:
▪ Defendant in criminal trial claimed statute forbidding alcohol use in National Forest violated his Free Exercise rights; trial judge denied his motion for Summary Judgment regarding his Constitutional claim.
▪ After municipality denied zoning permit that would have allowed church to construct larger building, church sued claiming violation of Free Exercise Clause and RLUIPA. Trial court granted summary judgment on Constitutional claim, but denied it on RLUIPA claim.
o Examples: Appellate Court Cases:
▪ Church of Latter Day Saints and several members sued a municipality claiming that a variety of zoning decisions were based in religious discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the federal Fair Housing Act. The jury found for the plaintiffs on all claims, and the defendants appealed claiming that the evidence of discriminatory intent was insufficient to support the verdict and that the jury instructions were incorrect. The court of appeals affirmed on all issues.
▪ Several teachers sought a declaratory judgment that a state statute prohibiting elementary school teachers from displaying or mentioning their religious beliefs violated the Free Exercise Clause. The trial court dismissed for failure to state a claim because the plaintiffs’ religion was not substantially burdened. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the extent of burden could not be addressed on the pleadings.
• Affirmative Claims: List all affirmative claims and provide a brief description of each as well as how the court resolved it. For any religious claims arising under federal law, you then should summarize all of the major arguments the court makes with regard to the claim in question. You will want to summarize any discussions of the relevant legal standards as well as how the court applied the legal standards to the facts/evidence in the case.
Look carefully at the general guidelines for summarization laid out above. Where there are extended legal arguments or extended discussions of evidence, try to consolidate as much as you can without losing the flavor of the discussion. Use formatting and headings to help make the structure of an argument clear.
• Religious Defenses: You should place in this category federal religious questions that arises not as part of the discussion of the elements of the plaintiff’s or government’s claims, but instead as a separate source of law that may override those claims completely (e.g., a Free Exercise defense to a criminal complaint or a RFRA defense to the application of a federal environmental statute). As with affirmative claims, provide a brief description of each defense as well as how the court resolved it. Then summarize the arguments as you would with an affirmative religious claim.
• Concurring/Dissenting Opinions: You can skip this category for trial court opinions or for appellate decisions where there are no separate opinions. Where there are concurring or dissenting opinions. list each one under a separate heading that includes the type of opinion (concurring; dissenting; or both), the author’s name, and the names of any other judges who joined the opinion.
If the only basis for disagreement with the majority regards issues outside the scope of the course, all you should do is briefly indicate what those issues are in a parenthetical at the end of the heading. E.g., “Garnett, J., dissenting, joined by Pierce, J. (standing issues).
Separately list and summarize each area relevant to the course on which the separate opinion either disagrees with the majority opinion or agrees but in some way qualifies it. Begin each of these sections with a subheading referencing the relevant subsection of the majority opinion. E.g., “Sufficiency of Evidence of Discrimination”; “Availability of Hybrid Claim”; “Establishment Clause as Compelling Interest” , etc.
If the only basis for the disagreement on the topic in question is a technical or procedural issue, briefly indicate what that issue in a parenthetical at the end of the sub-heading. If there are one or more substantive disagreements, summarize the arguments in the separate opinion in the same way you would if they were part of the majority, using multiple layers of outlining or bullet points as needed. You can cross-reference ideas or cases discussed in the summary of the majority to save time. E.g., “Would adopt 3d Cir. definition rejected by maj. b/c…” “Would reject Auerbach holding based on different reading of legislative history….”
• Subsequent History: Should include the following information with the relevant subheadings, if applicable. Otherwise, skip this category.
o Direct History:
• Treatment of the case on appeal: (Applies only to trial court opinions) Give citation to appellate case, then, as applicable, say “affirming treatment of…” and list issues that were affirmed; followed by “reversing treatment of …” and list issues that were reversed.
• Denial of Certiorari. If the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, give that information along with the relevant citation.
o Subsequent Treatment of Religious Issues: Provide a citation and brief description if, in a different case than the one you are summarizing, :
• Adopted. A higher court in the same jurisdiction subsequently adopts one of the holdings of the case you are summarizing; OR
• Overruled. The same court or a higher court in the same jurisdiction subsequently overrules one of the holdings of the case you are summarizing
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