Danie! Hemel Room 610 dhemel@uchicago.edu 773-834-3255 Torts I LAWS 30611 (Autumn 2017) Tuesday/Friday 1:30-3:15pm — Room Ill Syllabus (last updated September 25, 2017) Casebook: Our text will be WARD FARNSWORTH & MARK F. GRADY, TORTS: CASES AND QUESTIONS (2d ed. 2009). You will need your casebook in class every day. Class Participation: Class participation will not be factored into your grade, but you still should come to class each day prepared to answer questions about the assigned reading, If you are unable to complete any assigned reading, please e-mail me at dhemel@uchicago.edu before the midnight prior to our class (.¢., no later than 11:59pm on Monday if class meets on Tuesday). Evaluation: Students will be graded on the basis of an exam administered at the end of the Winter Quarter, in conjunction with the exam for Torts II. Exams will be blind- graded, ‘The exam will follow an “issue-spotter” format and will be designed to test your mastery of the doctrine as well as your ability to analyze the practical consequences of different legal rules. We will review pra ¢ exam questions and discuss exam-taking, strategies later in the quarter. Rescheduling: We will not have our regularly scheduled classes on Friday, October 20 or Friday, November 10. Instead, we will meet on Wednesday, October 18, from 8:30 to 9:35am, and on Wednesday, November 8, from 8:30 to 9:35am. Both of those make-up classes will be in our regular Room III. Office Hours: I will hold office hours in Room 610 on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:40 to 4:20pm. You can sign up for a 20-minute slot here: bit.ly/2hjzikz. You are welcome to stop by at any other time—my door is generally open. If slots are full or none of the available times work for you, please e-mail me to set up an appointment. | strongly encourage you to stop by office hours at least once during the quarter. (It's probably a good practice to do that in every class you take for the next three years; those ollice-hours visits will pay dividends when you ask professors to write recommendation letters for internships and post-law-school jobs.) Optional Lunches: I will take students in groups of up to 10 for lunch on Wednesdays throughout the quarter. You can sign up for a lunch slot here: bitly/2cYezsV. If all slots are full, please let me know, and I will schedule additional optional lunches. Laptops: I strongly discourage use of laptops for notetaking. Randomized controlled trials have found that students who use laptops in class perform worse on assessmentsthan students who take longhand notes. See Pam A. Mueller & Daniel M. Oppenhi The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking, 25 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 1159 (2014); see also Susan Payne Carter et al The Impact of Computer Usage on Academic Performance: Evidence from a Randomi Trial at the United States Military Academy (School Effectiveness & Inequality Initiativ. Working Paper No. 2016.02, May 2016). Another randomized controlled study found that students who multitask on laptops during class not only perform worse themselves on comprehension tests, but also detrimentally affect the performance of peers in direct view of their screens. See Faria Sana et al., Laptop Multitasking Hinders Classroom Learning for Both Users and Nearby Peers, 62 COMPUTERS & EDUCATION 24 (2013). We will move through the material at a slow enough pace that you will not need a laptop to keep up. Ifyou feel that you must use a laptop, you may do so, but please consider the negative externality that you may be imposing on your classmates before you open any non-course-related windows. Supplemental Readings: I will send out short supplemental readings throughout the quarter via e-mail (¢.g., newspaper articles related to topics we have discussed in class). If you come across any stories related to class discussion topics yourself, please feel lree to send them to me at dhemel@uchicago.edu. Breaks: We will take a 5-minute break each day from around 2:20 to 2:25. Please return promptly so that we can resume on time. Lateness: Tuition at the Law School is $61,626, Assuming that half the value of your law school education comes from out-of-class interactions, the value of in-class time is $30,813, or $10.271 per quarter. Dividing that by four courses per quarter yields approximately $2,568 per course, or roughly $1.43 per minute. issume that a late entrant distracts the class for 10 seconds. On that assumption, the late entrant imposes a cost of approximately 24 cents on each of his or her classmates. Multiply that by 94 fellow classmates and the negative externality from a late entrance is roughly $22.56. So by arriving after 1:30pm (or returning from break after 2:25pm), a late entrant (or r entrant) imposes a cost of more than $20 on others. Please consider the negative externality before entering late. eke |. “Intentional” Torts Tuesday, September 26 Read Introduction (xxxv to xlviii) Read p. 1 to p. 4 (through note 2) Friday, September 29 Read p. 4 (starting with note 5) to p. 7 (end of page) Read p. 16 to p. 27 (through note 10) nyTuesday, October 3 Read p. 29 (starting with “Trespass”) to p. 40 (stop before “Conversion”) Friday, October 6 Read p. 85 to p. 97 (stop before “Private Necessity”) Il. The Prudent Person Standard ‘Tuesday, October 10 Read p. 121 to p. 140 (through note 4) Friday, October 13 Read p. 140 (starting with Carroll Towing) to p. 158 (through note 12) ILL, Strict Liabili ‘Tuesday, October 17 Read p. 97 (starting with vate Neces iy") to p. ITI (through note 5) Wednesday, October 18 — MAKEUP CLASS Read p. 395 to p. 406 (through note 9) (please be aware of typo on p. 402 in note 5: “The defendant testified . . .” should be “The plaintiff testified . ..") Friday, October 20 — NO CLASS (rescheduled) Tuesday, October 24 — NO CLASS (Fall Break) Friday, October 27 Read p. 406 (starting with Rylands) to p. 416 (through note 11) Tuesday, October 31 Read p. 416 (starting with “Abnormally Dangerous Activities”) to p. 429 (through note 6) Read p. 430 (starting with note 9) to p. 433 (through note 10) Friday, November 3 Read p. 433 (starting with “ espondeat Superior”) to p. 448 (through note 13) IV. The Operation of the Negligence System Tuesday, November 7 Read p. 158 (starting with “Custom and the Problem of Medical Malpractice”) to p. 170 (through note 9) Wednesday, November 8 — MAKEUP CLASSRead p. 170 (starting with “Negligence Per Se . ..”) to p. 188 (through note 2) fi , November 10 — NO CLASS (rescheduled) ‘Tuesday, November 14 Read p. 192 to p. 203 (stop at Read p. 208 (starting with Ybarra) to p. 216 (through note 7) V. What Does “Duty” Mean? Friday, November 17 Read p. 217 to p. 234 (through note 5) Read p. 237 (starting with note 2) to p. 241 (through note 6) ‘Tuesday, November 21 Read p. 241 (starting (through note 4) Read p. 251 (starting with “The Public Duty Doctrine”) to p. 255 (through note 3) Read pp. 258-259 (note 5 only) Read p. 263 (starting with “Duties to Invitees”) to p. 269 (through note 5) “Duties to Protect Others from Third Parties”) to p. 249. rr lay, November 24 ~ NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break) VI. Defenses and Multiple Wrongdoers Tuesday, November 28 Read p. $71 to p. 587 (through note 10) Friday, December 1 Read p. 587 (starting with Express Assumption of Risk”) to p. 599 (stop before “Notes”)