T3BE Week 4! Firefighters' Rule and Interstate Commerce
Added 2024-03-06 07:10:44 +0000 UTCThomas Takes the Bar Exam Week 4!
Thomas comes into this week on a HOT, some would say, UNBREAKABLE, streak! 5-0. So, naturally, he aced questions 6 and 7, right? You'll find out! After those answers, we get questions 8 and 9, pictured below! What the hell is the firefighters' rule? And are drycleaners interstate commerce?
Comments
For the Dry Cleaners question, I believe the answer is C, because of the Commerce Clause. Plenary authority means "the complete or absolute power that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless regarding a specific issue." That means Congress has the power to "address the problems of interstate trade barriers and the ability to enter into trade agreements" however it likes. While it may seem at first glance that the dry cleaning business in this example is not engaging in "interstate commerce" and therefore the workers are not subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which requires they be paid the federal minimum wage, Congress has very broadly defined "interstate commerce" (using its plenary authority) as including such acts as making business calls to other states or the use of the US Postal Service for business purposes. So if the dry cleaners do so much as order hangers, cleaning fluid, or plastic draping from another state for their business needs via phone, mail, or the internet, they are considered to be engaged in interstate commerce and as such are subject to the FLSA and must pay federal minimum wage. Since Congress has ruled that even exchanging information between states can be considered part of "interstate commerce", the dry cleaner here is nearly certain to be subject to the provisions of the FLSA. There is a very long list of exceptions to the minimum wage rules in the FLSA but these workers do not seem to fall under any of them (not student workers, not children of the owners, not working on commission, not being paid a salary, etc.)
Maytree
2024-03-11 01:46:45 +0000 UTCFor the Firefighter's Rule question, I believe the answer is B: the Firefighter's Rule is not in force and the police officer is free to sue the factory worker. This situation falls under more than one of the exceptions to the Firefighter's Rule: 1) Driving while impaired by fatigue is a separate tortious act having nothing to do with the emergency the cop was responding to; 2) It also violates a statute that has nothing to do with the emergency; 3) It is covered by the Independent Cause exception to the Firefighter's rule (any harm to the cop came from a source completely separate from the emergency so the Firefighter's Rule does not apply); 4) The risk of getting hit by an impaired driver is not particular to the emergency in question -- that is, the cop was just driving, not attempting a hostage rescue or something like that; the Firefighter's Rule says that the cop, by virtue of the job, couldn't sue the hostages if he got shot during the rescue -- "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it" -- but driving is just driving and most of the time carries no more risks for a cop than anyone else, so cops are allowed to sue for injuries caused by negligent driving in most cases.)
Maytree
2024-03-11 01:32:34 +0000 UTCThis seems like one of those questions where the dumbest-sounding answer also seems like the best. I think it's D. Step 1 in the TSSCLFM (Thomas Smith's Second Chance Law Firm Method)™ is to narrow it down to 2 answers. It must be C or D because we are told that the new statute extends the minimum wage to "all dry-cleaning stores", and the employees do in fact work in a dry cleaning store. Therefore the only thing left is to work out why the statute is allowed to exist. Both "yes" answers think it's because of the commerce clause, but C has so many different nouns requiring precise causal links between them that I'm betting at least one of them must be bullshit. So, D. In fact, you can read D as a simple restatement of the facts in the question which I **think** is a good sign that this is a trick question. It wants you to go off on some tangent about coverage or what is an enterprise or something but it doesn't seem necessary here.
Bald Weasels Scrotal Manscaping
2024-03-08 12:37:43 +0000 UTCC - my - vest, C my vest, made of plenary authority-to-regulate-labor-relations! (Congress really likes to be vested!) The double-breasted red herrings were all being cleaned intrastate.
Colbin Erdahl
2024-03-07 06:34:41 +0000 UTCThe officers are in fact doing a bad thing, it just so happens the bad thing they are doing is legal. My thought on the excited utterance: I think the idea is that they are in shock, but you want to include in even if the witness would not be willing to say it in calm circumstances. Placeholder for question guess
Test Ease Interpreter
2024-03-06 18:12:02 +0000 UTCThe answer is B. When a responder is running lights and siren they technically are requesting permission to violate traffic laws. The lights and sirens do not give authorization to drive however you dav well please. However, since the office was returning to the station there was no current emergency, thus the rule does not apply. This makes the police office the same as another civilian driver. Had driver 1 hit another civilian they wouldn't be able to dismiss the suit. Thus they can't dismiss this suit. No emergency = no fire fighter rule.
Don't use bad yarn as a life line in a fae yarn store. The yarn fairies will immediately remove it and you will get lost.
2024-03-06 15:14:28 +0000 UTCFor question 8, the answer is B. The rule requires a first responder to be injured while responding to an emergency the negligent party created. Since the officer was returning from an unrelated event when they were injured, the rule would not apply. For question 9, I'm thinking the answer is C. The federal mandate applies to all Dry Cleaning businesses, regardless of why they decided to implement it, so I think the interstate commerce stuff is a red herring. #notalawyersonojudgingmeifimwrong
Erin Hutton
2024-03-06 15:08:31 +0000 UTCFor the first question - I figured C and D were essentially the same. When considering whether either "yes" option could be correct [yeah, I googled what the firefighter's rule is :)], I wondered if such a situation would mean that anyone was free to absolutely go to town on a police offer if they were on duty - maybe not an actual assault as it would be a criminal matter, but you could be as incredibly reckless about how you dangled that anvil over the police office that was about to walk by. I'd expect that the firefighter's rule would only be applicable to situations of danger that could be reasonably expected to form part of the job. So you couldn't be sued by a firefighter who got burned putting out a fire in your house. So I believe the answer must be B.
John Barker
2024-03-06 11:36:22 +0000 UTCThank you for posting clearer images . I couldn't read last weeks questions. .
Dreadsen
2024-03-06 09:22:18 +0000 UTC
