Case Brief: Moses versus Providence Hospital

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Case Brief: Moses versus Providence Hospital

Moses versus Providence Hospital
Textbook: The Law of Healthcare Administration; 9th Edition; J. Stuart Showalter (Health Administration Press).
needs to have every component of a brief case : Facts, legal question, Holdings, and rationale.
HAP 312
Writing a Judicial/Case Brief
This semester, you will have the opportunity to test your understanding of court decisions by writing judicial/case briefs (I’ll refer to them as case briefs). These documents, which you will submit to me via email by 11:59pm on the Monday of the week(s) that you are assigned the brief. You should be able to see your group number on the groups tab or tool on Blackboard, which is on the pull-out menu on the left side of the course webpage. The COURSE CALENDAR lists the weeks when each individual in the group will draft and submit their brief, and on which case. For weeks when I want briefs on multiple cases, I identify which students will write a brief for which case.
The Purpose of a Brief
Case briefs are a way for students to summarize different aspects of a judicial decision, usually an appellate or supreme court opinion at the state or federal level. Although the portions of court decisions that you will read for this course are generally short, the full decisions are often quite lengthy and even in law school, the textbooks often use much longer portions of cases than you will see in this course. The brief will summarize 4 different concepts that are important for understanding what the law is that the decision creates or cites.
FACTS: Facts are important for understanding what led to the case and the limits of the case. Most of the time, you will see only limited facts in the excerpts you have. However, for the brief you MUST SUMMARIZE THE RELVANT FACTS! In the sample brief I provide on Blackboard (King v. Burwell), there weren’t many facts to summarize, but in many of the cases the class will brief you might see quite a few facts. DON’T SUMMARIZE THE FACTS UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE DECISION! After reading the decision you’ll have a better understanding of which facts are relevant to the outcome.
LEGAL QUESTION: What is this case actually about? It’s often not WHY the plaintiff filed the lawsuit, but some aspect of the alleged wrong (civil or criminal) that is at issue. In King v. Burwell, the legal issue was whether insurance plans on federal insurance exchanges were entitled to the same subsidies as insurance plans purchased on state exchanges. In Roe v. Wade, the legal question in the case was whether abortion is a constitutionally protected right—not just whether it should be legal or illegal but WHY. Often the legal question is not difficult to identify: in negligence cases the court might be talking about one aspect of one element of negligence; in criminal law the court might be talking about the intent required or evidence necessary. Although the answers to these questions usually relate to the relevant facts, it is a separate concept. You should phrase this section in the form of a question. NOTE: some cases you read will list multiple legal questions that are being presented to it on appeal BUT the portion of the opinion you read might address only one or two of them.
HOLDING: This will usually be a yes or no in response to the legal question (refer to sample brief for a more detailed statement of the holding).
RATIONALE: This is the meat of the case brief. Why did the court reach this holding? This is also the more technical portion of the brief, and can be more difficult to write since sometimes the court’s rationale isn’t immediately clear. However, since most of the cases you’ll read are relatively short this shouldn’t be too difficult! This is often where the facts are important when applying them to the court’s interpretation of the law. Although in King v. Burwell the facts were minimal, in many cases the facts are critical to the rationale. In tort cases the actions of one or both parties can determine why a court rules a certain way. In tax cases like you’ll read late in the semester, things like charitable exemptions and the source of income can determine whether the entity retains the exemption.
This information might not make a lot of sense, but please refer to the sample brief for King v. Burwell to get an idea of how a brief might look. The most important thing to remember is that a brief is about highlighting relevant facts, identifying the legal issue, and summarizing WHY the court decided the way it did!
Brief Component Full Credit Partial Credit No Credit
Facts Provides a summary of facts RELEVANT to the holding of the case Provides a summary of facts RELEVANT AND IRRELVANT to the holding of the case
Restates all facts presented in the court decision (unless all are considered relevant)
Legal Question Accurately identifies the LEGAL question being decided by the court Includes the legal question being decided, but also expands to legal issues that are raised but are not relevant to the specific decision
Does not accurately identify the legal question being decided by the court
Holding Correctly identifies the “yes or no” response to the legal question and appropriately links this to the legal question (see sample brief)
Correctly identifies the “yes or no” response to the legal question Fails to correctly identify the “yes or no” response to the legal question
Rationale Provides comprehensive summary of why the court reached the holding it did Partially identifies the reasons the court reached the holding it did Incorrectly identifies the reasons the court reached the holding it did