Case Brief: Friedman v. FAA Assignment

CASE BRIEF ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
No law course would be complete unless it required students to read and analyze case law. As
discussed in Module 1: Week 1, courts interpret the law as applied to a set of fact and issue
opinions outlining their rationale, holdings, and conclusions. These case decisions then become
binding legal precedent on that court and the courts directly below it. Intuitively then, as the
highest court in the land, the Supreme Court’s decisions carry significant weight as it binds all
lower courts to its precedent. “Reading law” is an old practice in the Western legal tradition
which is still used today to train lawyers. The practice of reading and analyzing case decisions
provides a student with an example of real world application of law, a primer on the court and
civil procedure, and a host of terms to look up and understand.
INSTRUCTIONS
In this course, the student will read three full aviation case opinions and brief them using the
template included and Case Brief Grading Rubric as a guide. The provided template must be
used to brief the assigned cases throughout this course. You should look up any words and
definitions you are not familiar with. The assignment should be no more than one single page at
size 12 font and is not to exceed 500 words and be no less than 300. Note: you are not to use
APA format. Each case opinion is included in the Learn section.
Case Brief: Friedman v. FAA (Module 2: Week 2): Read and brief Friedman v. FAA, 890 F. 3d
1092 (D.C. Cir. 2018)
Case Brief: Crosby v. Cox Aircraft (Module 3: Week 3): Read and brief Crosby v. Cox Aircraft,
et al, 109 Wash. 2d 581, 746 P.2d 1198 (1987)
Case Brief: City of Burbank v. Lockheed (Module 5: Week 5): Read and brief City of Burbank v.
Lockheed Air Terminal Inc., 411 U.S. 624 (1973).
Legal writing is concise (not: “Most legal writing uses short and very concise sentences in order
to be direct and get to the point.”) In this assignment, keep each section as tight as possible and
only address relevant information. Unlike a lot of writing in undergraduate or high school
courses that is mostly done to fill pages, legal writing abhors flowery language and run-on
sentences. Good legal writing is up-front and gets to the point. Every word counts. Although a
case brief like this is only done in law school and is typically only for the student’s class
discussion notes, this will be a graded assignment worth 40 total points that will help you
develop a mind for legal analysis and writing.
Side note: Do you wonder what law school is like? It is this assignment, every night, for six
semesters. And you will be called on at random to stand up in class and field numerous questions
from the professor challenging your understanding of the case and testing your ability to think
deeply on the fly. Further, most law school courses have one final exam which is your only grade
for the entire semester. Diligent students will create outlines as the course progresses to make
AVIA 605
Page 2 of 2
sure they are preserving the critical information along the way to prevent total overload prior to
the final exams.
Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.

Last Completed Projects