EXAMINATION FEDERAL COURTS LAW Siegel Fall 2017 INSTRUCTIONS

Transcription

1 EXAMINATION FEDERAL COURTS LAW Siegel Fall 2017 INSTRUCTIONS 1. This is an open book examination. You may use any written materials that you have brought with you (including handwritten, typewritten, printed, or published materials). The use of computers to type answers is permitted. 2. You have THREE HOURS to complete the exam. 3. The exam consists of this cover page and 5 exam pages numbered 1 through 5. Make sure you have all the pages. 4. There are FIVE QUESTIONS. All students must answer all questions. Time allocations are: Question 1: 40 minutes Question 2: 20 minutes Question 3: 45 minutes Question 4: 45 minutes Question 5: 30 minutes The weights of the questions are proportional to the time allocations. 5. Do not put your name anywhere on your answers. Do not indicate whether you are taking the class pass/fail. Do not write Thank you for a great class or anything similar on your exam. 6. If you are writing your answers by hand, remember to write legibly. 7. If, with regard to any question, you think additional facts are needed to answer the question, state clearly what facts you think are missing. Then make a reasonable assumption about the missing facts, state your assumption, and answer the question based on your assumption. Do not change the given facts. 8. Using good judgment, address all the issues presented and assigned by the questions, even if your answers to some issues would, in real life, eliminate the need to address other issues. 9. Unless otherwise specified, answer all questions on the basis of current law. 10. Good luck.

2 QUESTION ONE (40 minutes) The Affordable Care Act ( ACA ), also known as Obamacare, requires insurers to sell health insurance to any customer who seeks to buy it, regardless of the customer s pre-existing health conditions. It also mandates that all Americans purchase health insurance and imposes a tax penalty on those who do not. This individual mandate is essential to make the ACA work. It incentivizes healthy people to buy health insurance. Healthy customers are profitable for health insurers, so having healthy customers allows insurers to keep premiums low. If large numbers of healthy people failed to buy health insurance, insurers would have to raise premiums for everyone. The ACA requires the creation of a health care Exchange in each state where people who do not otherwise have health insurance can buy it. Under the ACA, insurance for a given calendar year can be purchased on an Exchange only during an Open Enrollment Period that occurs in November and December of the preceding year, the exact dates of which are set by the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ). In 2019, HHS sets the Open Enrollment Period for purchasing health insurance for 2020 as November 1 - December 15, Also in 2019, Congress is concerned that HHS is not doing enough to publicize the Open Enrollment Period and that large numbers of people (particularly healthy people) will not sign up for insurance under the ACA because they do not know how or when to do so. In the Budget Act passed in September 2019, Congress includes a provision that says, The Secretary of HHS shall take appropriate steps to ensure widespread publicity of Essential ACA Information relating to the Open Enrollment Period that will occur in 2019 for purchases of 2020 health insurance. The statute defines Essential ACA Information to include the dates of the Open Enrollment Period and the Web address of every state health care Exchange. The Secretary of HHS places the Essential ACA Information on the HHS website but takes no other steps to publicize it. On October 16, 2019, Paula Porter, a citizen of Arkansas, brings suit against the Secretary of HHS in federal district court. She alleges that she wishes to purchase health insurance on Arkansas s health care Exchange. She makes such allegations as one might expect on the above facts, including that The Secretary s placement of the Essential ACA Information on the HHS website does not fulfill the Secretary s statutory duty to take appropriate steps to ensure widespread publicity of the information and the Secretary is effectively denying access to this information. The Secretary s response to the complaint is due on December 16, On that date, the Secretary moves to dismiss the complaint for the reasons one might expect on the above facts. The Secretary does not address the merits of the case but moves to dismiss on threshold grounds. Both sides make all appropriate arguments regarding whether the suit should be allowed to proceed. You are the law clerk to the district judge considering the case. Write a memorandum discussing the issues raised and making a recommendation as to how to rule on each issue. - Exam Page 1 -

3 QUESTION TWO (20 minutes) The Patent Act, a federal statute, provides that inventors can receive a patent on a new and useful invention. Once a patent is issued, the Act gives the patent owner the exclusive right to make, use, or sell the patented invention. If anyone infringes that right, the owner may sue the infringer for damages. Pinnacle, Inc., a corporation incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in California, is a distributor of sporting goods, including Pinnacle brand golf balls. Dodgson Manufacturing, Inc., a corporation incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in Georgia, manufactures some of the golf balls that bear the Pinnacle brand. Pursuant to a contract between Pinnacle and Dodgson, Dodgson manufactures the golf balls and sells them to Pinnacle, and Pinnacle then resells them to sporting goods stores. Pinnacle receives a letter from Tom Trollman, an inventor. Trollman asserts that the golf balls Dodgson has been making for Pinnacle infringe a patent owned by Trollman and that Pinnacle has therefore infringed the patent by selling the golf balls. Trollman threatens to sue Pinnacle for $10 million in patent infringement damages. Pinnacle considers Trollman s claim and decides that it is likely meritorious. Pinnacle settles with Trollman for $2 million. Pinnacle then sues Dodgson in a state court in California. Pinnacle s complaint asserts that in the contract between Pinnacle and Dodgson, Dodgson warranted that the golf balls it manufactured for Pinnacle would not infringe any intellectual property rights. Pinnacle claims that Dodgson is in breach of this contractual provision because its golf balls infringe Trollman s patent and that Dodgson s breach has damaged Pinnacle in the amount of $2 million. Dodgson s answer admits that it warranted that its golf balls would not violate intellectual property rights and that Trollman owns a valid patent on golf balls. However, Dodgson denies that the golf balls it manufactured for Pinnacle infringe Trollman s patent. Dodgson asserts that its golf balls use a different technology than the technology covered by Trollman s patent. For tactical reasons, Dodgson would prefer the case to be in federal court. Can Dodgson remove the case to federal court? Explain. - Exam Page 2 -

4 QUESTION THREE (45 minutes) In 2018, the U.S. Congress passes the Religious Freedom Protection Act (RFPA) which provides: The federal district courts shall have power to issue injunctions prohibiting state prosecutors from proceeding in any criminal case in state court in which a conviction would violate a person s right of Free Exercise of religion as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Danielle Dawson is a state prosecutor in the city of Burlington, Vermont. Dawson is staunchly opposed to circumcision, which is the removal of the foreskin from the penis, and which is traditionally performed on Jewish baby boys on the eighth day of their life, in accordance with the commandments of the Jewish religion. Dawson regards circumcision as barbaric bodily mutilation. In 2020, Dawson prosecutes David and Sarah Goldblum, residents of Burlington, who are Jewish and who have just had their new baby boy circumcised in the traditional way. Dawson prosecutes the Goldblums in state court for the crime of mayhem, which is defined in a Vermont statute as including willful and permanent crippling, mutilation, or disfigurement of any part of the body, and which is a felony punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. While the criminal case against them is pending in state court, the Goldblums bring an action against Dawson in federal district court in Vermont. They assert that a conviction in their state court case would violate their right to freely exercise their religion. They ask the district court to enjoin Dawson from continuing to prosecute them. Dawson raises all defenses that might be expected on the above facts and seeks dismissal of the federal case. Both sides make all appropriate arguments. You are the law clerk to the federal district judge hearing the case. The judge says to you, If the state statute covers the Goldblums conduct, I am convinced that a conviction in the state court prosecution would violate their right to freely exercise their religion. So I don t need any advice on the Free Exercise issue per se. But it s not clear to me what I should actually do. The case involves both state and federal statutes, and of course the federal Constitution is always in the background. So please write me a memorandum discussing the issues and making a specific recommendation about how I should resolve the case. Write the requested memorandum. - Exam Page 3 -

5 QUESTION FOUR (45 minutes) David Brown lives with five adult women whom he refers to as his wives. He was married to each of them in a marriage ceremony. However, all but the first of the ceremonies were illegal under his state s law as he did not tell the state about his prior, still-existing marriages. All of the relationships are consensual and all of the wives know about the other wives. In 2012, state authorities in Brown s home state prosecute him for the crime of polygamy. Under state law, polygamy consists of cohabiting with (defined as living with and having sexual relations with) more than one other person. To prove the elements of the crime, the state presents testimony from Brown s wives. Brown objects to this testimony on the ground that it violates the marital privilege, an evidentiary privilege he claims under state law. The state court overrules the objection. Brown raises no federal issues during his trial. Brown is convicted of polygamy and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The state s highest court affirms his conviction, and Brown does not seek certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court. The time for Brown to seek certiorari expires on December 1, On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decides the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, in which it holds that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to recognize marriages between persons of the same sex. In doing so, the Court overruled Baker v. Nelson, a previous case from 1972, in which the Court rejected constitutional challenges to a state law prohibiting same-sex marriage. Immediately thereafter, Brown (who is still in state prison) asks the state trial court to overturn his conviction. He argues that the logic of Obergefell shows that states must recognize polygamous marriages and that his conviction violates the Fourteenth Amendment s Due Process Clause. The state court rejects Brown s request on the sole ground that he did not raise that argument at the time of his trial in State law, the court holds, requires that all defenses to a criminal charge be raised at the time of trial. The state supreme court affirms this ruling on October 1, On November 1, 2015, Brown seeks a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. He presses both his marital privilege claim and his claim based on Obergefell. The state authorities oppose the writ. Both sides make all arguments that might be expected on the above facts. You are the law clerk to the federal district judge hearing the case. The judge says, I don t need any advice on the merits of the privilege argument or on whether Obergefell applies to polygamous relationships. I ll handle those points myself. But what about the procedural obstacles that the state claims prevent me from reaching these questions? Please write me a memorandum discussing those issues and giving your recommendation as to how I should rule on each of them. Write the requested memorandum. Conclude your memorandum by stating whether habeas should ultimately be granted or denied. - Exam Page 4 -

6 QUESTION FIVE (30 minutes) You are the Legislative Director for United States Senator Valerie Virtue. Another Senator introduces a bill called the Article III Clarification Amendment, which provides: The Constitution of the United States is amended as follows: Amendment 28 (XXVIII): Article III of the Constitution shall not be construed to require Congress to vest any federal court with jurisdiction over any case. Congress shall have power to determine the jurisdiction of all federal courts, including the Supreme Court and all inferior federal courts, provided only that Congress cannot vest any federal court with jurisdiction not permitted by Article III and that Congress cannot alter the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as specified in Article III. Senator Virtue asks you to write her a memorandum evaluating this bill. Your memorandum should explain what the likely effects of adopting the bill would be and evaluate whether the bill is a good or a bad idea. If you think the bill could be improved by any relevant amendments that Senator Virtue could offer to it, you should mention those, or you may recommend that she support it as is or that she just oppose the whole thing. The Senator is not an expert on federal courts law so some basic explanation of what the bill is all about would be useful, but the main focus of your memorandum should be your evaluation of the bill from a policy perspective. Write the requested memorandum. END OF EXAM - Exam Page 5 -